“Review the policies relevant to managing behaviour by identifying areas of improvement where appropriate.”
I have chosen to look at the Student Disciplinary Procedure at my college. This policy is used to guide staff to give the students the opportunity to change behaviour in both conduct and academic performance and covers all the requirements that staff should follow.
Through reading the policy I feel that although the procedure is organised in a way that takes the learner through 4 four stages of communication, each designed to create a clear argument for the student to be disciplined and possibly expelled from the institution, it seems that this procedure allows the learner possibly too much flexibility in disrupting both the staff involved and the learners that they come in contact with.
It seems to me that the procedure is more designed in giving the institution a watertight case of removing the student from learning. Each stage needs to be documented with evidence, with each stage requiring a meeting between the learner and various staff members. Yet as each stage gets more formal and more official, the timing for between each meeting becomes longer and open to abuse as the meeting fundamentally is negotiated by the learners ability to attend.
This results in a process that could span months, which in effect if the student is expelled has meant disruption to both staff and fellow learners. Although I can see the importance of this process, it seems that if the student fails to conform to the first informal meeting and agreed targets, the second meeting should be designed in setting targets for probation designed to remove the student from the institution. If the student has agreed to the code of conduct and targets set to improve conduct then lack of commitment to these targets would end in expulsion. This could mean the process lasts a few weeks rather than months as it stands presently.