Our Beliefs About Student Behavior

Hawkswood School believes that all behavior has a purpose and a message. Our job as educators is to learn each child’s unique “language.”

When students have behavior that interferes with their life and learning, Hawkswood staff starts with a Functional Behavioral Assessment that includes a comprehensive environmental assessment to help determine the function or purpose of the behavior from the child’s perspective.

We believe learning is more than changing behavior. We help students by providing logical consequences, and by allowing natural consequences to occur. Instead of creating an artificial, external motivational system, we focus on teaching our students positive strategies for self-direction and self-management.

At Hawkswood, we do not consider punishment an effective method of teaching.
Our deep respect for students means that we never use aversive behavior modification procedures, and we never use restraints or time out rooms.

Our approach to challenging behavior – rooted in the pioneering work of Alfred Adler and American psychiatrist and educator Rudolf Dreikurs – encourages cooperative behavior. We want all students to know that they are valuable contributors to their family, classroom, school and community.

At Hawkswood, we focus on prevention, and building constructive behavior rather than coercive discipline. Our teachers create a classroom environment where students have a genuine sense of belonging.

We are highly accountable for our interventions. Data is collected daily to demonstrate the effect of intervention on student behavior.