Code of Conduct Policy
Policy Owner: Principal
Policy Approval Date: Mar 2025
Policy Review Cycle: every two years
Policy Next Review Date: Mar 2025
1. Scope and Principles
1.1. This Code of Conduct is designed to give clear guidance on the standards of behaviour all employees are expected to observe. Employees working in schools/colleges are role models, are in a position of influence and must demonstrate behaviour that sets a good example to all the students within schools/colleges. As a member of a school/college community, every employee has an individual responsibility to maintain their reputation and the reputation of the school/college, whether inside or outside working hours.
1.2. In adopting this policy, the school/college is committed to creating a working environment in which all employees are treated fairly, with dignity and respect and where unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated.
1.3. This Code of Conduct applies to all employee and does not form part of the contract of employment.
1.4. Casual and self-employed workers, agency staff and volunteers working in the school/college are also expected to observe the standards of behaviour set out in this document.
1.5. In addition to this code of conduct, all employees engaged as teachers have an obligation to adhere to the most recent “Teachers’ Standards” and in relation to this policy, Part 2 of the Teachers’ Standards – Personal and Professional Conduct. All staff must read and comply with Keeping Children Safe in Education (as amended) and Guidance for safer working practice for those working with children and young people in education settings.
2. Compliance
2.1. Employees must familiarise themselves and comply with all school/college policies and procedures.
2.2. Employees must complete the form in Appendix 3 to confirm they have read, understood and agreed to comply with the Code of Conduct. This form should then be signed and dated.
3. Disciplinary Action
3.1. Employees should be aware that a failure to comply with this Code of Conduct could result in disciplinary action including, but not limited to, dismissal
4. Standards of behaviour and conduct
4.1. This code helps all employees to understand what behaviour is and is not acceptable. Regard should be given to the disciplinary rules set out in the School/college’s Disciplinary Policy and Procedure.
4.2. Employees must not discriminate, harass, or victimise someone because they have or are perceived to have a protected characteristic as defined by the Equality Act 2010 or are associated with someone who has a protected characteristic. Protected characteristics are: – • age • disability • gender reassignment • marriage and civil partnership • pregnancy and maternity • race • religion or belief • sex • sexual orientation.
4.3. Employees must set good examples of behaviour and demonstrate high standards of conduct in order to encourage our students to do the same. Standards expected of employees can be found in Appendix 1.
4.4. Employees must avoid using inappropriate or offensive language at all times.
4.5. Employees must avoid putting themselves at risk of allegations of abusive or unprofessional conduct.
5. Safeguarding Students
5.1. Employees have a duty to safeguard students from physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, and neglect.
5.2. The duty to safeguard students includes the duty to report concerns about a student or colleague to the school/college’s Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) for Child Protection.
5.3. Employees must make themselves aware of the name of their school/college’s current DSL. This information is available on notice boards in the staffroom.
5.4. Employees must take reasonable care of students under their supervision with the aim of ensuring their safety and welfare.
5.5. Employees must never promise a student that they will not act on information that they are told by the student.
5.6. Employees are provided with access to a copy of the school/college’s Safeguarding Policy and Whistleblowing Procedure and must read, understand and abide by these documents.
5.7. Employees are provided with access to the DfE Statutory Guidance Document ‘Keeping children safe in education’ and must read, understand, and abide by the document.
5.8. Employees are provided with access to the ‘Guidance for Safer Working Practice for Adults who work with Children and Young People in Education Settings’ and must read, understand, and abide by the document.
6. Relationships with Students
6.1. Employees must declare any relationships that they may have with students outside of school/college; this may include mutual membership of social groups, tutoring, or family connections. Employees should not assume that the school/college are aware of any such connections. A declaration form is available at Appendix 2 of this document for declaration of such relationships.
6.2. Physical relationships with students, regardless of their age, are strictly forbidden and may lead to a criminal conviction. This may also apply to former students and advice must be sought before commencing any such relationship.
6.3. Employees must treat students with respect and dignity and must not demean or undermine them, their parents or carers, or work colleagues.
6.4. Employees must not behave in a way that may be perceived as sarcastic, nor should they make jokes at the expense of students, embarrass, or humiliate students, discriminate against or favour students.
7. Professional Relationships with Colleagues.
7.1. Employees must help create a positive working environment and behave in a manner which ensures and promotes acceptable behaviour. Examples of acceptable behaviour and unacceptable behaviour can be found in Appendix 1.
7.2. Employees must strive toward and promote harmonious and professional relationships with all colleagues. It is understood that, at times, differences of opinions can occur and at such times it is expected that employees will attempt to resolve matters informally in the first instance unless they feel unable to do so in which case, they should refer the matter to their line manager.
8. Honesty and Integrity.
8.1. Employees must maintain high standards of honesty and integrity in their work. This includes the handling and claiming of money and the use of school/college property and facilities.
8.2. Employees must comply with the Bribery Act 2010. A person may be guilty of an offence of bribery under this act if they offer, promise, or give financial advantage or other advantage to someone; or if they request, agree or accept, or receive a bribe from another person. If you believe that a person has failed to comply with the Bribery Act, you should refer your concerns to the attention of the Principal or where the concern relates to the Principal to the Chair of Governors.
8.3. Employees must not accept gifts or hospitality from suppliers or associates of the school/college, except for ‘one off’ token gifts from parents. Personal gifts from employees to students are inappropriate and could be misinterpreted and may lead to disciplinary action. A record will be kept of all gifts received.
8.4. Employees must make known to the Principal and Chair of Governors all financial and non-financial interests that could bring them into conflict with the school/college’s or School/college’s interests.
8.5. All personal relationships with contractors, or potential contractors should be made known by the employee to the Principal and Chair of Governors with responsibility for the contract.
8.6. Employees must not be involved in any recruitment process if they have a personal relationship with the applicant inside or outside of work.
8.7. Without fear of recrimination, employees can report any impropriety or breach of procedures using the process laid out within the school/college’s Whistleblowing Policy.
9. Conduct Outside of Work
9.1. Employees must not engage in conduct outside work which could damage the reputation and standing of the school/college, or the employee’s own reputation or the reputation of other members of the school/college community.
9.2. Criminal offences that involve violence or possession or use of illegal drugs or sexual misconduct will be regarded as unacceptable and dealt with under the school/college’s Disciplinary Policy.
9.3. Behaviour or activities that have the potential to make employees unsuitable for the role they are employed to perform will be dealt with under the Disciplinary Policy.
10. Employment outside of School/college
10.1. Employees may undertake work outside school/college, either paid or voluntary, provided that it does not conflict with the interests of the school/college, nor be to a level which may contravene the working time regulations or affect an individual’s work performance in the school/college. In line with the Statement of Particulars, employees must seek the consent of the Principal should they wish to take up employment outside the school/college or School/college.
11. E-Safety and Internet Use
11.1. Employees must exercise caution when using information technology and be aware of the risks to themselves and others. Regard should be given to the school/college’s Staff Acceptable Use Policy and Online Safety Policy at all times both inside and outside of work.
11.2. Employees must not use equipment belonging to the school/college to access pornography; neither should personal equipment containing pornographic images or links to them be brought into the workplace. Doing so will raise serious concerns about the suitability of the employee to continue to work in school/college and could lead to dismissal for gross misconduct.
11.3. Employees must not engage in inappropriate use of social network sites which may bring themselves, the school/college, school/college community or employer into disrepute. Employees should ensure that they adopt suitably high security settings on any personal profiles they may have.
11.4. Employees must exercise caution in their use of all social media or any other web-based presence that they may have, including written content, videos or photographs, and views expressed either directly or by ‘liking’ certain pages or posts established by others. This may also include the use of dating websites where employees could encounter students either with their own profile or acting covertly. Employees must not link themselves with the school/college on any social network site they use unless with prior consent of the Principal.
11.5. Employees must not respond to negative comments posted online but bring this to the attention of the Principal.
11.6. Employees must only contact students and parents via school/college/ School/college authorised mechanisms. At no time should personal telephone numbers, email addresses or communication routes via personal accounts on social media platforms be used to communicate with students unless under the provisions of paragraph 7.1.
11.6a Employees should not have the phone number of any parent or student without the consent of a member of the senior leadership team. A log of all employees who have legitimate and agreed reasons for having parents mobile phone number will be kept by school and college. This applies to all current and past students, parents, and carers.
11.7. Employees must report to the Principal any contact by a student by an inappropriate route.
11.8. Photographs/still images or video footage of students should only be taken using school/college equipment, for purposes authorised by the school/college. Any such use should always be transparent and only occur in accordance with the school/college’s Privacy Notice or where parental consent has been given. The resultant files from such recording or taking of photographs must be stored in accordance with the school/college’s procedures on school/college equipment.
12. Confidentiality
12.1. Employees must not reveal confidential information about students or their parents or carers except to those colleagues who have a professional role in relation to the student.
12.2. Employees are likely at some point to witness actions which need to be confidential. For example, where a student is bullied by another student (or by another employee), this needs to be reported and dealt with in accordance with the appropriate School/college procedure. It must not be discussed outside the school/college, including with the student’s parent or carer, nor with colleagues in the school/college except with a senior member of staff with the appropriate authority to deal with the matter.
13. Dress and Appearance
13.1. Employees must dress in a manner that is appropriate to a professional role and promotes a professional image.
13.2. Employees must not dress in a manner that could be regarded by others as offensive, revealing or sexually provocative.
13.3. Employees must not wear clothes with political or other contentious slogans.
13.4. Employees working directly with students should not wear nail polish or artificial nails of any kind
14. Review
14.1. This policy will be reviewed every 2 years.
Appendix 1
Examples of Acceptable Behaviour
People behave acceptably when they:
• Afford dignity, trust and respect for everyone and themselves;
• Have awareness of the effects of their behaviour on others and only make reasonable and manageable demands;
• Communicate honestly and openly, clearly stating what they need and expect of others;
• Provide and are receptive to honest feedback based on evidence; and
• Challenge discriminatory language and behaviour in an appropriate way.
Examples of Unacceptable Behaviour:
• Using aggressive language, threatening, ridiculing, ignoring people or repeatedly shouting;
• Telephoning people at home unnecessarily (for example, demanding work when the person is absent due to sickness or ill health);
• Focusing only on weaknesses;
• Bringing up details of someone’s private life inappropriately;
• Leaving impossibly long lists of tasks and making unreasonable demands;
• Criticising people or maliciously gossiping about them in their absence;
• Ridiculing or demeaning someone – picking on them or setting them up to fail;
• Comments or jokes, about distinctive peoples and nationalities;
• Frequent comments about aspects of physical appearance or using forms of address that are demeaning;
• Threatening or implying, without reason, that, as a colleague, you will cause the person to lose his/her job or fail to get a promotion or suffer some other form of career difficulty or financial disadvantage;
• Coercing someone to join the harassment/bullying of another person;
• Excluding or marginalising someone or refusing to engage with them appropriately.
This list is not exhaustive. It is simply a guide to help individuals consider their own and others behaviour and gain understanding of what behaviours are unacceptable in the workplace.
The standards expected of all employees include but are not limited to:
• maintaining standards of behaviour in keeping with the interests and standing of the school/college and School/college. This includes behaviour outside of working hours and in any form that is visible to the public, including social networking or any other electronic medium
• devoting full attention while at work to the duties of their position and in doing so acting with responsibility, good judgement and in good faith
• carrying out any reasonable instructions given by those with authority to do so
• not divulging to any unauthorised person or making personal use of confidential information connected with the School/college either intentionally or through negligent behaviour
• observing the rules, regulations and instructions adopted by the School/college
• following appropriate safeguarding procedures
• participating fully in any investigation into alleged incidents and/or allegations including attending meetings as directed
• using electronic communications appropriately
• ensuring that information brought to light as a result of any investigation is treated with discretion
• carrying out their role consistently with any standards set by their appropriate professional body
• taking steps to address any unacceptable behaviour • treating colleagues and third parties with dignity and respect. In addition to the above, the expectations of those employed in management roles are to:
• ensure the standards expected from all employees are role-modelled, monitored and managed effectively
• effectively manage all applicable statutory and non-statutory obligations • appropriately manage all alleged incidents and/or allegations.
This list / examples are not exhaustive.
Appendix 2:
Relationships with students outside of work declaration
It is recognised that there may be circumstances whereby employees are known to students outside of work. Examples include membership of sports clubs, family connections. Employees must declare any relationship outside of school/college that they may have with students.
Please note, express permission must be sought before embarking on any private tutoring arrangements, whether or not they might include students from the school/college, and it is insufficient to complete this declaration
Employee’s Name
Student Name
Relationship
Signed ………………………………………….. Date …………………………………………….
Once completed, signed and dated, please return this form to Principal.
Signed by Principal …………………………………….. Date…………………………………
This Policy Statement is considered part of the Terms and Conditions of Employment for all staff at St Rose’s