What does high challenge, high support for children with SEMH challenges look like at Lark Hill?
To be read in conjunction with the school behaviour policy, this information describes how we support the very small number of pupils whose SEMH difficulties can result, if not well supported, in them behaving in confrontational, defiant or anti-social ways.
A Whole School Culture of Fixing Mistakes
Academic mistakes are always seen as an essential part of learning. Mistakes in behaviour, emotional regulation, conduct, manners etc are usually seen as something to be punished. Children internalise this from very young. Many people very commonly hold this view explicitly or implicitly. We make sure everyone uses the language of ‘mistakes’ in relation to behaviour and school work, constantly re-iterating that mistakes are not just inevitable but are essential learning opportunities.
Typical script: “If you made a mistake in your spelling, what would you do?” “Fix it.” “If you made a mistake in your maths, what would you do?” “Fix it.” “You might have made a mistake with your behaviour here. What do you want to do?”
At Lark Hill we link this to feelings (it feels better to be calm, have sorted things). Such conversations can only work with good relationships and deliberate calm modelled by the adults. SLT have had to model this extensively. This culture ensures that children are much readier to take responsibility and seek to repair harm done should they ever make a mistake.
This being so, there is very little left in school as regards punishment. We expect children to do their best but we expect them to make mistakes because they are human. However, the strong expectation is that they own their mistakes and take prompt action to make things right. Sometimes this reparatory work can only be done during the next playtime but no one is left standing outside the staff room as a punishment; if they are missing playtime, it is with an adult supporting them to fix whatever needs fixing and only for as long as that takes. That said…
No one ever gets away with anything!
There might not be loads of sanctions but no anti-social behaviour, failure to put the effort in with work, incivility or unkindness is let slide. Without a lot of fuss, children are reminded of expectations and directed as to what has to happen to fix it (assuming they don’t volunteer this themselves). “You have …. I need you to…” If this is not immediate, they are reminded that whatever it is will need fixing and they can sort it now or at next playtime/home-time. Calm is always the goal. Calm, happy children don’t do nasty, anti-social things.
Learning – the lesson work or the thinking-about-my-feelings-work
When children are too stressed/unregulated/giddy/anxious/livid to be able to focus on their learning, it is pointless asking them to. Instead, we address the issue. I can see that you are (in the red zone/upset/a bit giddy etc). Come to (The Zen Den/The Wellness Area/the library etc) so I can help you. This is not a choice but an instruction to take the help. The child’s only obligation is to take the help. Sometimes we prescribe the calming solution, sometimes we give the children limited choice about what will help. This might be 5 minutes quiet time, breathing exercises, other physical exercises, talking about what is concerning them, ‘bubbles’ mindfulness, even occasionally a game of cards. But the purpose is always to get them back to the green zone (calm) as quickly as possible. This is their learning; they’re not getting out of work because they are doing important work on themselves that will enable them to more quickly and successfully return to class learning following the comfort-challenge-stress model (see Teaching and Learning webpage).
There is no opt-out here. If they insist they are fine and want to continue with the class work, they may have one chance to prove that is the case but if it becomes apparent that they can’t, they must do the work on calming themselves. Again, if this takes us into play-time or past home-time, we will still consistently insist as it is vital that the children know where they stand, that we get to good outcomes, that they go home happy and calm and any harm is repaired.
Check-ins/social or classroom stories
Children with pronounced difficulties managing their emotions, staying calm, managing their mental health, being resilient to minor friendship set-backs will need additional planned support just as children with difficulties reading need additional support learning to read. We check-in with these children with a social story which is read to them, reminding them that they are happy and safe in school, that the adults all care about them, that they are good at (all sorts of things, personalised) but also that sometimes worries can be overwhelming and we are here to help. It then reminds them of what they can do when they do find themselves in the yellow or red zone that will help them feel calmer and happier and reminds them of how rubbish it feels to not be calm. They then scale (0-10) how they are currently feeling about friends and other children, the work they have coming up and anything else in or out of school. If they record any number above 0, they have a chance to seek help so that the thing that is on their mind is resolved sufficiently for them to be able to focus on learning. Occasionally a small number of children may need this process a number of times through the day in order to feel safe and calm.
Families
So long as parents give a different message than school or think that school has it in for their child, there is pretty much no hope of success. We work really hard to make time to listen to parents, acknowledge their feelings and empathise. We then try to involve them in planning for their child’s success in social and academic learning, asking them what they need and what their child needs and agreeing on things we all like and admire about their child. This is important as it underlines that their problematic behaviour is a SEND issue. Usually, this means that school and family are much more consistent in supporting the child who will therefore feel safer and know exactly where they stand with all the adults who care about them in tune with one another.
Incentives (extrinsic but linked to intrinsic)
Sometimes we will incentivise calmer, more pro-social behaviour with a treat of some sort as a reward. If ever we do this, it is accompanied by lots of talk about how success with staying or regaining calm feels to reinforce their learning that feeling proud of yourself feels much nicer than feeling a bit disappointed. Ultimately, the children look to feel better rather than behaving better only in the hope of an extrinsic reward: the reward is the nicer feelings associated with being calm and proud and avoiding conflict.
Play/less structured time
A small number of children struggle with play-time and its lack of structure. They may fall out, they may get dysregulated and this may cause them distress that impacts upon their time afterwards back in the classroom. We understand that for such children, asking them to do this thing that ill-equipped to do (play your own calm games calmly) is problematic. So a small group will have an adult to supervise games that they like in a separate space where they can receive lots of adult encouragement, praise and support.
If any of these children’s behaviour has been poor and not quickly fixed to the extent that it is felt they either cannot play out calmly even when structured or they have not repaired harm with the others then they will miss their playtime. The loss of playtime is enough though; they don’t have to have dreadful time during this lost play-time and there’s certainly no value in sitting them outside the staff room as it has already been established that they are poor at self-regulation during less structured time. So they come to the Headteacher and play cards. There will be talk about their behaviour while playing and they can begin to feel better and put things right so they go back to class calm and ready to learn. Maybe they even feel that they got better than they deserved. This is a good thing, especially if it results in happier, calmer children who are less likely to cause harm.
Manufactured successes
Just as in academic learning, success is a great motivator. By ensuring that children have some easy wins, they start to see themselves as successful and this applies to social and emotional learning just as much as academic learning. Structuring playtime is one example of manufacturing successes. We can tell parents their child behaved brilliantly at play time, never mind the fact that perhaps they only did so because they weren’t given 10 seconds in which their brain could wander onto less savoury activities.
In Reception and Year 1 we also use a tray system to chunk work for children who are resistant to following adult directions (thanks to Lisburne Special School for sharing). Tray one is a really easy task that they are motivated to do already. Tray 2 contains the work that is correctly pitched for them that is central to their learning progression. They’ll do this because they’ve just experienced success. Tray 3 is a fun thing that they can pick from a very limited choice of things they are known to like. The chunking and the easy successes over time lead them to see themselves as people who can experience success in class learning and resistance to following instructions diminishes as the fear of failure subsides. The principle of manufacturing successes to promote feelings of achievement and thus motivate effort and confidence goes across the school.
Areas around school for calming
In Reception we timetable time in our sensory room, The Zen Den, so we pro-actively address levels of calm/anxiety and we also use it reactively when a child has unexpectedly got upset.
Around school we have improvised other calm areas. Class 6’s cloakroom doubles as the Wellness Area by virtue of having colouring, tissues, water, quiet space, cards with exercises and breathing exercises. A tee-pee with fairy lights and a teddy sits outside Class 3 for ad-hoc use. The ICT suite is now The Hub. All this has helped the children interpret adults intervening in their behaviour as help rather than chastisement. We’re still the emergency service but more like the ambulance than the police.
Supporting boys to be emotionally strong and less afraid of vulnerability
An awful lot of the problematic behaviour we see stems from boys lacking emotional strength whilst striving to maintain the pretence that they’re tough. So we try to pro-actively build in across the curriculum discussion of what strength is, what vulnerability is, what courage is and that, crucially, courage goes hand in hand with fear. You cannot be tough without admitting to and acknowledging your fears and worries. Talking about mistakes in the context of not being strong enough to cope with something and how we can help them to be stronger, allows us to tap into this need to be seen as strong and re-frame it as help to become stronger in your brain.
Plan B then making it up (money in the bank)
All of the above is not to say that we don’t dole out the odd old-fashioned reprimand when needed or when all else has failed. The children know that we will help them in any way that we can and that we think they are great but if they refuse to take the help there is a plan B and it involves stern words. Regular shouting is totally ineffective and counter-productive and becomes white noise that the children ignore. However, the adults in school are in charge and, judiciously, we remind them of this from time to time. The ideal scenario is that the children come to their own conclusions that they made a mistake and they fix it and this happens 95% of the time. The second-best scenario is not that they carry on causing harm though. Second best is that they behave because they are worried about a reprimand or other consequence.
Clearly, this is high-risk so we think very carefully first and reflect afterwards whether it was the right thing to do but we definitely reserve the right. A strong telling-off is justified provided we have enough money in the bank in terms of social capital. We invest in the relationships with the children mainly because it’s the right thing to do but also because we might in the future have to make a withdrawal from that bank of social capital. When resorting to firm telling off we make sure to tell them that x is not acceptable because they are decent people, they know right from wrong, they are so much better than this etc. Afterwards, there is an obligation to repair the relationship. For some children it is just about never likely to be worth it. But sometimes, really decisive action holds the line. Because restorative approaches mean high challenge as well as high support.