In the second of a series on behaviour, Amy Forrester argues that a child’s mental health cannot be supported if a school’s culture is chaotic and behaviour is out of control
Earlier this year, the government announced a £10 million funding boost for schools in the form of behaviour hubs. Criticism of this was rife: why behaviour? Why not mental health? The effects of the pandemic are at the forefront of a lot of the criticism. However, this is an initiative that has long been in the pipeline. It isn’t a response to COVID, although it may help schools as they move forward from two periods of partial closure.
Despite this, there has still been an onslaught of criticism of this move from the government. It is an onslaught that I cannot understand. The bedrock of any school is behaviour. Without excellent behaviour, learning will never be excellent. Behaviour precedes learning. Without a safe, secure and purposeful environment, young people will not excel in their learning and development. To my mind, this makes the investment into hubs to support schools in improving behaviour an excellent move from the government. I’d go as far as to say that in investing in behaviour, the government are making an investment in student mental health and wellbeing.
There are a number of reasons why:
- Safe, secure schools are fundamental to student wellbeing. No child’s wellbeing can be excellent when they are in a chaotic, unsafe school environment. Bullying and assaults, fear and intimidation run rife in schools where behaviour is left unchecked. Imagine being a child in that environment, spending a third of your day in such traumatic circumstances. The anxiety, the fear and the unpredictability will inevitably lead to their wellbeing plummeting. This funding aims to stop that, and to ensure that every child attends a school free of the curse of poor behaviour.
- Students’ self-esteem is directly affected by behaviour. Young people have a voracious appetite for learning. Learning is inherently fun. And there is no feeling quite like learning something difficult, persisting with it, and rising to the challenge. It makes young people develop resilience and increases their self-esteem, knowing that they have achieved something. In a school environment where poor behaviour is rife, this level of learning suffers. Students cannot focus. Teachers cannot teach. No one can excel. The investments aim to ensure that all students can thrive in their learning.
- Mental health. A lot of the criticism of the behaviour funding came from those concerned that the funding could have been better used towards student mental health. However, schools cannot and should not be the primary provision and intervention with mental health. Schools are, by their very nature, in the best position to notice when a student’s mental health is in decline. Indeed, it is far easier to notice that in a school environment free from disruption. However, teachers are not mental health practitioners. They’re subject and pedagogical experts. We wouldn’t ask our teachers to fix a student’s broken leg, so why would we expect them to fix students’ mental health conditions? It does our young people a disservice to suggest that we could. Naturally, we support them through it, and offer that support wherever we can, but ultimately health needs need to be met by health professionals.
As we move into this new academic year, now is the time for leaders to review their plans and ensure that they are making a bold and clear commitment to behaviour that will create the best culture for their young people. Behaviour should be at the top of any school’s priority for school improvement. And it should never leave that top position.
An investment in behaviour is not only a commitment to student wellbeing, but also a commitment to staff wellbeing. Every teacher deserves to work in a school where behaviour is excellent, with clear systems that do not create huge additional workloads, but instead allow them the time to focus on what they came into the profession to do; teach.
Amy Forrester is Director of Behaviour and Future and an English teacher at Cockermouth School, Cumbria. She is the Tes behaviour columnist and tweets at @amymayforrester.