It’s time to scrap school exclusion. Why? Because Plan A isn’t working. A story – Plan B. A young man on the edge of adulthood, experiencing such severe panic attacks it’s causing him to disengage and putting his educational future at risk. As part of a school team developing Solutions Focused Coaching as a new pastoral approach, I’m asked to work with him. His […]
Case note 1: “Some members of my team who are in school now starting to deliver Solutions Focused Coaching sessions shocked the socks off the school and surprised the young people – two very, very good sessions with two disillusioned young people. It was an incredibly uplifting professional experience to break through that original cynicism, disillusionment, disengagement …. They actually came into school to meet […]
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 […]
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 […]
Responding to Covid19 Recently I wrote about the distinctly different responses we could take to the changed practices and new thinking Covid19 is demanding in schools. Option 1, routinely promoted by the DfE, is to put everything into the pre-pandemic box, with the routine use of punishment to control ‘bad’ behaviour, hitting children hard with exclusion as the weapon of choice if they go wrong. […]
Emotional health in childhood ‘is the key to future happiness A London School of Economics study “What Predicts a Successful Life? A Life-course Model of Well-being” (Economic Journal 2014) offered “a completely new perspective on which factors contribute most to a satisfying life”, namely wellbeing, challenging “the basic assumption of educational policy in recent years – that academic achievement matters more than anything else”. (Guardian […]
