How can we get children to behave properly in school, to take their work seriously and stop messing about? The answer offered by the DfE is to do more of what’s done already. Focus on the bad behaviour you can see, put aside thinking about what might underly it, and apply graded punishment it until it stops. Knowing what children find unpleasant the pain can […]
Recently a number of threads have been drawing together, connecting children’s behaviour and their mental health and wellbeing, school attendance, exclusion and the various approaches to supporting and managing these vital factors in children’s lives. One thread is the new DfE drive to “improve the consistency of school attendance support and management”, proposing teams of attendance advisors, and an ‘attendance alliance’ of education leaders, setting […]
A while ago I met twenty children from years 7 to 11 in a high school, for 1:1 Solutions Focused Coaching sessions. They’d been put forward as children finding life in school most difficult and beyond the reach of the established routines of reward and punishment behaviour management. The group included; A 12 year old who spoke in a whisper, who struggled to think of […]
Lisa Feldman Barrett, professor of psychology at Northeastern University, Boston author of ‘Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain’ says this (see Guardian March 1st 2022 ‘The big idea: is it time to stop talking about ‘nature versus nurture ?’): “Few scientists today would say that 100% of your attributes are inborn or are learned; the debate tends to be about where to draw […]
The Problem Talk from Twitter this week; A July 2020 report from the then new Children’s Commissioner (England) ‘Vulnerable teenagers; where did it go wrong?’ Shining a light on the extent and impact of child vulnerability in England, focusing in particular on children with undiagnosed mental health issues, those excluded from mainstream education and children in gangs From these conversations there were three clear flashpoints: […]
The important thing about science is not much to obtain new facts but to discover new ways of thinking about them – Sir William Bragg (1862-1942) 21st century behaviour science is presenting us with a wealth of new facts about children and young people, demonstrating the close linkages between their mental health and what they show us through their behaviour. It’s become clear that physical […]
Performance is currently the clear front runner when it comes to assessing school effectiveness. Accountability is the keyword, evidenced by exam results backed up by a consistent discipline regime. This was emphasised this month in the English education secretary’s reference to children’s behaving in ways that promote performance, “… if they choose not to do so, then they need to be held to account where […]
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong” H.L.Menken Recently I wrote about the essential place for kindness in schools. In 2021 we have a mountain of evidence accumulated over the last four decades which points to the need to take into account the biology of kindness in how we respond to children’s behaviour. In the middle of the […]
I support children who struggle in school, and their schools, in a practical, evidence informed way, by increasing the capability of school staff to respond to children’s needs at the earliest opportunity, before turning to outside specialist services. Intentional, structured kindness is at the heart of what I do, and what I offer to schools as continuing professional development with my new online course – […]
Children and young people who struggle to meet the demands of school are facing the additional stresses and changes brought about by the pandemic. Many of them who were struggling before the virus appeared will have suffered loss, bereavement and the effects of social isolation and ruptured relationships. We now have clear scientific evidence on the links between stress and behaviour; learning is only possible […]
