Rule based behaviours

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Section:
Behaviour
Permission(s):
Access ___ behaviour incidents
Allow user to access rule based Behaviours

What are Rule Based Behaviours?

You can create rules for recording automatic behaviour points/incident logs which will run over night using the Automation Module as configured by your Network Manager. The rules can be based on Attendance (e.g. record a demerit every time a student is late) or behaviour (e.g. award a bonus point for every week where a student has no negative incidents recorded).


N.B. it is possible to create rules that will generate hundreds of thousands of incidents, for example an incident for every present mark. A single job can potentially take hours for the Automation Module to complete. Consideration should be given to the impact that rules may have on the running of the Automation Module and the effect this may have on the database itself. See the section Technical considerations below for more information.


This page is accessed via:
PARS main menu > Behaviour > Rule based behaviours

These behaviour rules will usually run using the Automation module, which will also require configuration. It is very important that Automation runs daily. Configuration of the Automation module requires access to the server, and is usually performed by a member of technical staff at your school. - see Automation for more details.


The Rule Based Behaviour screen

To access rule based behaviours, go to the PARS main menu > Behaviour > Rule Based Behaviours.

You'll notice a toolbar at the top of the screen, with several buttons on:

CrbbToolbar.jpg

  • 1 - Generate
Rule based behaviours are usually generated automatically by the Automation module, however you can manually run if you prefer to. This is done using the Generate button.
  • 2 - Dry Run
This is used to test that your rules are working as expected. A Dry Run will perform your Rule Based Behaviours, but without writing any behaviour incidents to your live system. Instead, details of the behaviour incidents that would have been added are recorded in the Last Activity Report.
  • 3 - Display Last Activity Report
See Dry Run, above.
  • 4 - Add rule
This is used for adding and configuring new Rule Based Behaviours in PARS.
  • 5 - Edit rule
Use this button to edit existing Rule Based Behaviours.
  • 6 - Delete rule
This will delete whichever rule you have clicked on. Be aware that rules can not be deleted until all of the behaviour incidents issued by that rule have also been deleted.
  • 7 - Deactivate rule
This is used to prevent a rule from running, but without deleting it. Deactiviting a rule will not remove any behaviour incidents issued by that rule.
If you have clicked on a rule that is already deactivated, then this button will say "Activate rule", which will do the opposite of deactivating it.
  • 8 - Move up
When the Automation module runs your Rule Based Behaviours, it will run the rules one at a time, starting with the rule at the top of the list and working down. This is only important if you are creating Multiple Rules.
  • 9 - Move down
See Move up, above.
  • 10 - Remove all Rule Based Behaviours
This will delete every behaviour incident issued by every Rule Based Behaviour.


Configuring Rule Based Behaviours

To begin, click the "Add rule" button to add a new rule, or "Edit rule" to edit an existing rule.

A configuration window will open:

The Rules tab

At the very top of the window, notice that there are two tabs, "Rules" and "Behaviour". The image below shows the "Rules" tab, this is where you tell PARS what a pupil must do in order to trigger the rule, and receive a behaviour incident.


CRBB01.jpg


Description
At the top of the window, there is a "Description" option. This is the title of your rule, which will appear on pupils' behaviour reports if the rule issues behaviour incidents to those pupils. It's best to call your rule something informative, like "No demerits in a week" if you want to award bonus points to pupils who don't misbehave for a week.


Type
In the middle of the window, there is a section called "Type". This is what a pupil must do in order to trigger the rule and have a behaviour incident issued to them. A rule to award a bonus where pupils have no demerits in a week would use "Demerit count", as it is the number of demerits that a pupil has, that affects whether or not they will trigger the rule. Likewise a rule to penalise pupils for arriving more than 5 minutes late to lesson would use "Lesson lates - minutes", as it is the number of minutes that a pupil is late that affects whether or not the rule will issue behaviour incidents.


Note: There are three fields for attendance; Lesson attendance, Session attendance and Registration attendance.

  • Lesson attendance
Lesson attendance will be considered when generating the rule, but Session attendance (usually known as form periods, or AM PM registration) is disregarded. Lessons that are mapped to sessions are still considered.
  • Session attendance
Only attendance to sessions (form periods, or AM PM registration) is considered; lesson attendance is disregarded. If your periods are mapped, so that the AM registration mark comes from Period 1's lesson register, then those attendance marks will be taken into account by the rule.
  • Registration attendance
Every completed register is considered by the rule, regardless of whether it is a lesson or session.


Operator and Criteria
These fields are found near the top of the window. They define how often/how many times a pupil must do the activity specified in Type (above) in order to trigger the rule.

There are three types of operator:

  • At
This means At Least. If a pupil performs at least a certain number of actions, or achieves at least a certain attendance percentage, then they will trigger the rule.
  • Below
This means Less Than. A pupil will trigger the rule if they have performed less than a certain number of actions, or have less than a certain attendance percentage.
  • Every
This means that every time a pupil performs a certain number of actions, they will trigger the rule. This can result in multiple behaviour incidents being added. For example, imagine you have a rule configured to issue a negative incident every 5 minutes that a pupil is late. A pupil who is late by 15 minutes would receive 3 negative incidents, because 15 = 3 x 5 the pupil would trigger the rule 3 times.


Range
This is the time period. A pupil must complete the activity specified in Type within this date range in order to trigger the rule.


The Behavour tab

The image below shows the "Behaviour" tab. This tab is where you tell PARS what behaviour incident to issue if a pupil triggers the rule.


CRBBbeh02.jpg


Direction (credit/demerit/neutral)
These radio buttons allow you to choose whether PARS should issue a positive or negative behaviour incident. If the rule is to catch pupils doing something bad (e.g. arriving late to school) then you should choose negative, and vice versa if the rule is intended to identify pupils who are performing well.


Category, Ground & Outcome
You must choose a category, ground and outcome. For more details on what these are, see our guide to configuring behaviour - How to configure behaviour - step by step guide


Summarise
If you are adding one behaviour incident every time a pupil does something (adding a positive point for every lesson a pupil attends is common) then you can use this setting to only add summary behaviour incidents. This means that instead of having one positive behaviour incident for every lesson a pupil attends, they will have one summary behaviour incident at the end of a time period, for example a week.
If you are adding 1 behaviour point per present mark, it is strongly advised that you tick this setting.


Deleting
This setting is used to delete interim behaviour incidents. The purpose of this is explained in section 5.


SIMS mirroring
By default, Rule Based Behaviours do not write back to SIMS. You can change this setting using the radio buttons at the bottom of the screen. If you do choose to write behavour incidents back to SIMS, then only one incident per pupil per rule will be written to SIMS, summarising the number of times the pupil has triggered the rule. For more details, see Technical Considerations, below.


Student applicability tab

Uae the student applicability tab if the rule you are creating should not apply to all pupils in the school.

Cstudentapplictab.jpg

If no pupils are shown on this tab then the rule will apply to all pupils in the school. However if you being adding pupils to this tab, then only those pupils will be affected by this rule.

Examples

Below are some examples of the rules that schools have used. The statements in italics are quotes of rules required by schools, while the bold sentences are the same rules, but rewritten in a more PARS-friendly format.


If you want to create a Rule Based Behaviour in PARS, try writing it out in the format below. The colour coding will help you identify what needs to go where, when configuring your rules.

Colour Feature
Green.jpg Operator
Blue.jpg Criteria
Red.jpg Type
Grey.jpg Range
Orange.jpg Outcome
Pink.jpg Ground


1. We want PARS to issue one negative behaviour incident if pupils are late to school 3 or more times in a week.

If a student is late to school at least 3 times in a week, then issue a level 1 sanction, because of their punctuality.


2. We want PARS to issue a positive behaviour incident if pupils achieve 100% attendance in a term.

If a student has at least 100 percent attendance in a term, then issue a silver certificate, because of their attendance.


3. We want PARS to issue a negative behaviour incident whenever a pupil accumulates 30 minutes lateness to lessons, and another incident if they accumulate 60 minutes, and another incident if they accumulate 90 minutes, etc.

For every 30 minutes late to lessons within the year, issue a level 2 sanction, because of punctuality.


4. We want PARS to issue a positive behaviour incident if pupils don’t receive any negative incidents that week.

If a student gets less than 1 negative incident in a week, then issue a bronze certificate, because of their behaviour.


The rule above, example number 4, is a special case. Here a pupil is awarded for NOT doing something 
i.e. not receiving any demerits. 
There is a different process for setting up rules that trigger when pupils do NOT do something. 
Please see  section 5 of this page for details.




1. Late 3 or more times in a week


We want PARS to issue one negative behaviour incident if pupils are late to school 3 or more times in a week.

If a student is late to school at least 3 times in a week, then issue a level 1 sanction, because of their punctuality.


Frame
Frame
The Rule tab The Behaviour tab
The Rule Based Behaviours window





2. 100% attendance in a term


We want PARS to issue a positive behaviour incident if pupils achieve 100% attendance in a term.

If a student has at least 100 percent attendance in a term, then issue a silver certificate, because of their attendance.


Frame
Frame
The Rule tab The Behaviour tab
The Rule Based Behaviours window


In the example above, the type "Registerable code - percentage" has been chosen. A second list of options appear below the "Type" list (the second list is highlighted inside the red box). Notice that the following options have been selected:

  • / - Present (AM)
  • \ - Present (PM)

This means that a pupil must have either an AM or PM present code in every register in order to trigger the rule (Missing registers are ignored).


You might also want pupils to trigger the rule if they are absent with good reason, for example if they are participating in an authorised school sporting activity, or undertaking religious observance. To do this, you would simply select the relevant attendance codes, in addition to the Present codes.

  • P - Approved sporting activity
  • R - Religious observance




3. Demerit for every 30 minutes late


We want PARS to issue a negative behaviour incident whenever a pupil accumulates 30 minutes lateness to lessons, and another incident if they accumulate 60 minutes, and another incident if they accumulate 90 minutes, etc.

For every 30 minutes late to lessons within the year, issue a level 2 sanction, because of punctuality.


Frame
Frame
The Rule tab The Behaviour tab
The Rule Based Behaviours window


Rules that trigger when a pupil has NOT done something

Colour Feature
Green.jpg Operator
Blue.jpg Criteria
Red.jpg Type
Grey.jpg Range
Orange.jpg Outcome
Pink.jpg Ground

There is an extra consideration to make when creating rules that trigger when pupils do not do something - pupils will always trigger this if they are absent!


We want PARS to issue one positive behaviour incident if pupils do not get any demerits in a week.

If a student gets less than 1 negative incidents in a week, then issue a bronze certificate, because of their behaviour.


To make this work, you need to create 3 rules:
1) A rule that checks if pupils have received 0 demerits in a week
2) A rule that checks pupils have attended school in a week
3) A rule that checks if the two rules above have been triggered, and if so, awards a behaviour incident


If a student gets less than 1 negative incidents in a week, then issue an interim neutral incident, because of their behaviour.

If a student gets at least 60% attendance in a week, then issue an interim neutral incident, because of their attendance.

If a student gets at least 2 interim neutral incidents in a week, then issue a bronze certificate, because of their behaviour and attendance.


Interim neutral incidents are just neutral behaviour incidents that will be used by your rule based behaviours. These neutral incidents should never be used for anything else. To ensure that this is the case, you should create a new neutral incident (ground or outcome) and restrict usage so that general staff cannot use it. See Configure behaviour for more information.


When you are creating the rules that issue the interim neutral incidents (not for the rule that issues the positive behaviour incident at the end!) you should use the option in the "Deleting" section on the "Behaviour" tab. This will ensure that the interim neutral incidents are deleted, and pupils are only given their positive points.

CRBB03.jpg

Technical considerations

You can use the "Dry run" facility to test the rules you have created without actually issuing any behaviour incidents.

This will go through all of the rules gathering data but will not record any incidents. At the end it will give an estimate of how long it will take the Automation Module to complete all rule based behaviour jobs. If a job is configured that records a bonus behaviour point for each present mark since the start of the year then it will take this long to complete:

Time taken = Nr * Np * Nd * Ns * T

Nr = Number of rules
Np = Number of periods per day
Nd = No. of school days since start of year
Ns = Number of students
T = Time to record one incident.

Using typical values:
1 * 5 * 120 * 1000 * 0.01s = 1 hour 40 minutes (for this rule alone), 600,000 incidents are being recorded and it will take longer each day as the school year progresses. N.B. recording behaviour incidents to SIMS takes ~2 seconds per incident. Only one incident is recorded in SIMS per pupil, per rule (where appropriate).