Understanding Behaviour

DfE behaviour advice expects clear routines and consistently applied expectations, and reasonable adjustments for pupils with SEND, and consideration of whether unmet needs are contributing. Schools that treat these as competing philosophies end up with either a policy that punishes need or a policy nobody can predict.

The workable version is a clear, universal set of expectations, with adjustment as a defined, recorded, leadership-sanctioned part of the policy rather than an informal concession by individual staff.

EEF behaviour guidance points towards knowing pupils and their influences, explicit teaching of routines, consistent low-key responses, and targeted approaches for the small number who need them. Its toolkit rates behaviour interventions as moderate impact for very low cost on extensive evidence, while warning that effects vary widely and depend heavily on implementation.

The SEND guidance report and the primary SEL report add that high-quality teaching for all is the first line of response, and that social and emotional skills benefit from being taught rather than assumed. NICE NG223 aligns: supportive climate, trusted relationships, universal provision, targeted support.

• Who is receiving sanctions? Disaggregate by SEND, disadvantage, ethnicity, gender and year group.
• Which lessons, times and places generate the most incidents? Environment and timetable are usually implicated.
• Which staff are recording very high or very low numbers, and what does that tell you about support and training?
• How many children are on part-time timetables, internal exclusion or repeated removal — and for how long?
• How many suspended pupils had an identified SEMH or SEND need, and what adjustments were recorded first?
• What is the repeat rate? A high one suggests the consequence is not teaching anything.

Consistency depends on confidence. EEF implementation evidence points to sustained professional development with modelling and follow-up, rather than one-off training. Lunchtime staff, teaching assistants and supply staff are usually the least trained and the most exposed.

• Is there a shared script for common situations, practised rather than circulated?
• Do staff know how to record antecedents, not just incidents?
• Is there somewhere to raise a concern before it becomes a crisis?
• Are staff debriefed and supported after serious incidents?
• Is workload treated as part of behaviour culture? Tired adults are less consistent adults.

Families of children with challenging behaviour are frequently contacted only with bad news, and arrive at meetings expecting blame. Schools that change this — a first positive contact, a jointly written plan, an agreed way of communicating — see fewer escalations and fewer complaints, and gain information they could not otherwise access.

It is worth checking what the child's experience of your systems actually is. Ask a small group of pupils who are frequently sanctioned what happens, whether they think it is fair, and what would help. The answers are usually specific and usually actionable.

1. Department for EducationProfessional guidance
   Behaviour in schools: advice for headteachers and school staff (2024)

   The current DfE frame: clear routines and consistently applied expectations, alongside reasonable adjustments for pupils with SEND and consideration of whether unmet needs are driving behaviour.

2. Department for EducationStatutory guidance
   SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (2015)

   States that behaviour is not itself a category of special educational need — where a child's behaviour is a concern, an underlying need should be looked for.

3. Department for EducationProfessional guidance
   Mental health and behaviour in schools (2018)

   Non-statutory advice on recognising when behaviour reflects an underlying mental health or SEMH need, and where school support ends.

4. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Improving Behaviour in Schools — guidance report (2019, updated 2021)

   Six recommendations, including knowing pupils and their influences, teaching routines explicitly, and using targeted approaches for the small number who need them.

5. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Behaviour interventions — Teaching and Learning Toolkit

   Rated by the EEF as moderate impact for very low cost, on extensive evidence — with a strong caution that effects vary widely and depend on implementation.

6. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools — guidance report (2020, updated 2021)

   Sets out the 'five-a-day' teaching approaches and argues that high-quality teaching for all is the first response to additional need, including SEMH need.

7. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools — guidance report (2019, updated 2021)

   Explicit teaching of social and emotional skills, reinforced across the day, is where much of the classroom behaviour evidence and the SEMH evidence overlap.

8. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Putting Evidence to Work: A School's Guide to Implementation (2019, updated 2024)

   Why behaviour approaches most often fail: adopted broadly, delivered thinly, never reviewed.

9. National Institute for Health and Care ExcellenceProfessional guidance
   Social, emotional and mental wellbeing in primary and secondary education (NG223) (2022)

   Whole-school approach, trusted relationships, and targeted support — the wellbeing counterpart to the behaviour guidance.

10. Department for EducationStatutory guidance
    Keeping children safe in education

    A change in behaviour can be an indicator of a safeguarding concern. Any behaviour discussion must sit inside this duty.

11. Anna FreudProfessional guidance
    Mentally Healthy Schools

    Quality-assured UK material on the relationship between behaviour, emotional need and school practice.