Dave Whitaker on how to create and use ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’ in your School

This week, Ollie Frith spoke to Dave Whitaker, Executive Head at Springwell Special Academy in Barnsley. Unconditional positive regard for students This is something which has been borrowed from the counselling and therapeutic areas. It’s a metaphor, an ethos or a set of values – it should be something you see and feel as you walk round the building. It’s all about being authentic, showing that you really do believe in the children. Dave points out that people pay lip service to their value statements – it isn’t borne out every day in school. Authentic care This is a phrase coined by some visiting headteachers and Dave has now adopted it. It led him to understand some deep truths about his school and why it succeeds: “The adults believe in the children and the children believe they believe in them.” Punishment When the children you work with have already had every punishment imaginable and it’s not worked, why continue punishment? A lot of children just factor whatever punishment they are given into their lives and carry on in exactly the same way. Some children who are punished once will never repeat the misbehaviour – it’s to do with their upbringing and other factors but for the majority of repeat offenders it’s clear that punishment never works. Do mainstream schools exclude too many children? Dave believes they do but… Read the full show notes on the Pivotal Education site Dave on Twitter Springfield Learning Community New App! There is a new Pivotal App available with a host of new features. Download it from Google Play or the Apple App Store. Headteacher initiative! Tweet to @PivotalPaul or email [email protected] if you are a Headteacher and he will let you into the TOP SECRET project around positive reinforcement for one or two of your learners who have gone over and above each week. Send in your suggestions for guests! We already have a brilliant line-up of guests arranged for the podcast but if there’s anyone you are dying to hear from, let us know by leaving a voicemail (bottom left of the page), sending an email to [email protected] or tweeting @PivotalPodcast. (Creative Commons Sound clip by Johnny Pixel Productions, Inc. – http://www.johnny-pixel.com/ http://www.freesound.org/people/jppi_Stu/)