Solution Focused Education – the positive pathway to wellbeing and behaviour for learning

Solution Focused Education – the positive pathway to wellbeing and behaviour for learning

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 […]

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The 5% and talking about strengths

The 5% and talking about strengths

Last May, as the pandemic was in full flood, this arrived in my email inbox; “Hi Geoff, I have been working from home today and I remembered the job that you gave me which was to notice when things are going well. Throughout the day I have noticed quite a few things going well, one specific time was when I was doing maths in the […]

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Solutions Focused Coaching in Schools – a new online course for 2021

Solutions Focused Coaching in Schools – a new online course for 2021

The need to find solutions to the complex problems children face has never been more urgent. We’re in a time of high stress, constant change and stretched resources. The same holds true for the school staff who are working hard to keep students on track for learning, safely and productively. Usually we can hold most children securely in school, we teach them the rules and […]

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New for 2020 – Solutions Focused Coaching in schools

Solutions Focused Coaching in schools  – new for 2020  January 2020 As children return to school after the winter break, the experiences they carry with them will span the range from the ideal family get-together to something far away from that. For some children it won’t have been the best time in their life and it may well show in how they make their return […]

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All you need is love

I have been thinking about how children respond to the messages we, as adults, transmit to them when something goes wrong. In school if we punish them when they cross a bondary, break a rule, make a mistake, mess about, what is the emotional message that we’re sending them as we open the conversation? How does the use of emotional force play out from their […]

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New for 2019: online course “Solutions Focused Coaching for Students” in schools

New for 2019: online course “Solutions Focused Coaching for Students” in schools

A limited spaces online course with direct access to the author. ‘Solutions Focused Coaching for Students’ UK Pilot Online Course 2019 A partnership between Dr. Geoffrey James of Action Against Exclusion and Nick Burnett of Next Level Greatness Why take the course? Managing the behaviour of some children and young people can be difficult, time-consuming and ultimately self-defeating if the last resort is exclusion or […]

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Exclusion. What is it good for?

Exclusion is a dark corner of educational practice. It’s in the news this week because supposedly high-performing schools across the country are gaming the system by excluding students who don’t jump the performance bar. This isn’t new news. I’ve seen it happening at first hand in my work with students threatened with exclusion over the last two decades. As Children’s Commissioner Dr. Maggie Atkinson reported […]

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NEW – A Solutions Focused inclusion policy

With thanks to Claire Owens and Paul Fragle at Christ’s Hospital school in Lincoln of their clear thinking and hard work for writing this SF inclusion policy. They attended the SF coaching two-day course in July this year and during the course could be seen talking together and making notes in parallel to doing the other tasks. They could see that SF coaching offered them […]

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A solution to the problem

JULY 29, 2016 | SUE PIMLOTT For the last year or so, I have become a bit disillusioned with teaching; saddened at the focus on testing and the moving of the goalposts again and again. Children appear to have become units of data rather than individuals with beautiful talents and skills. More and more children seem to enter primary school at a low academic level, […]

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Solutions Focused coaching in Lincolnshire schools

It’s only a few weeks since we were all together in training, thinking through the new ideas that Solutions Focused coaching brings to our work and the practice of SF coaching. Some people made an immediate start, putting the ideas into practice in school, for others there was the welcome space of the summer holiday and the chance to make start in this new term. […]

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