The rising incidents of violent behavior by students has made school rethink how they can tackle such behavior most effectively. While enhancing security arrangements on the school premises can help in controlling the number of violent acts being committed, the key to eliminating the problem at its root is to identify and treat the causes of bad behavior among students. Here is a step by step approach that schools can take in order to take the issue of violence by students:

1. Take a feedback: If you want to know what the problem areas are, you need to go to the source – the students. Create a questionnaire asking students to identify factors at school or in their personal lives that incite them to violence. Allow students to answer the survey anonymously to encourage a more honest response.

2. Analyzing Data: Once you have received the results of the survey, analyze the data to identify areas that maximum number of students have mentioned as influencing or encouraging them towards violence. The analysis will allow you to shortlist the major causes of violence by students and prioritize which problem should be addressed first. Take teachers, other administrative staff and, if possible, get parents involved too in setting clear and actionable goals to gradually address the issues.

3. Brainstorming: Again, keeping students in mind and taking feedback from teachers and parents, devise strategies and action plans on how to attain the goals you have set towards the resolution of problems with violent students. Make realistic and time bound action plans. Once plans have been made, assign the responsibility of executing the plans to teams and provide them with required resources.

4. Implementation: Individual teams need to follow up on their action plans which may include detecting acts of violence, identifying behavioral patterns, counseling as well as corrective measures. Regular update meetings to monitor the progress of each team will ensure that they are motivated to see the action plans through.

5. Re-analysis: Once the decided time of implementation is through, conduct a follow up survey and analyze the success of the process.