Addressing Behaviours Of Concern In Your School

Take time to understand the reason for behaviour

Recognising that every behaviour is a form of communication, our primary responsibility as educators is to interpret the underlying messages presented through a child’s actions. To do this effectively, we as teaching staff must remain fully informed of each pupil's individual vulnerabilities, personal history, specific needs, and known stress triggers.

Investing time to identify the root causes driving a child's behaviour gives us deeper professional empathy and insight. Moving beyond surface-level responses allows staff to implement more targeted, compassionate, and effective interventions that truly support the child.

Create a personalised support plan

An effective support plan contains important insights regarding a pupil’s specific vulnerabilities and stress triggers, outlining tailored proactive and reactive strategies to address them. Key components typically include the following:

✔️ Background information such as any medical diagnoses and any relevant history

✔️ What makes the child happy? What are their likes and interests? What makes them feel anxious?

✔️ How does the child interact? What is their preferred method of communication? What keeps them engaged?

✔️ How do we support their routines and keep things predictable and safe?

✔️ How can we support their friendships and relationships? Their personal care and/or medical needs?

✔️ Do they have any additional sensory needs that we need to support?

✔️ What things are likely to trigger behaviours of concern? What do they look like at this point? Do they present differently to when they are happy?

✔️ What can we do to help reduce stress for the child at this point?

✔️ What happens when the child is in ‘crisis’? What behaviours might we see? How can we tell they are in crisis – what do they say, do, or look like?

✔️ What strategies can we use to keep everybody safe?

Supporting recovery from incidents

A crucial step of effective incident management is conducting a structured debrief with all involved parties. The immediate and primary objective of this process is to ensure the physical safety and overall well-being of all staff and pupils.

Maintaining a positive relationship should always be a priority. Even when a child is in crisis, the language we use when responding can have a significant and lasting effect on our relationship with them. Following any incident, checking in with children to ensure that they are safe and well can also go a long way to repairing any relationship damage that might have occurred. It's completely normal for a child to feel an element of shame following an incident, especially if they have hurt others or caused damaged to property. It's important that we don't make them feel any worse about incidents that occurred during the crisis.

Learning from incidents

It is vital that every incident serves as an opportunity for reflection and continuous learning. These insights should be used to refine the child’s support plan with updated individual information, while driving professional reflection to optimise future practices and secure better outcomes.

Help your pupil learn new skills

Equipping pupils with self-regulation skills and adaptive coping strategies is essential for long-term resilience. Explicitly teaching these techniques strengthens a child’s emotional capacity, enabling them to navigate high-anxiety situations more effectively over time.

For our 2025 virtual conference, Supporting SEN In Mainstream Schools, our expert Lead Practitioners, Ruari Hignell and Robert Middleton, present Supporting Dysregulated Behaviour: Addressing Behaviours Of Concern In Your School.