“I don’t come to work to be hit.”
I’ve had a number of conversations that have opened with this remark in my time as a school leader.
And, of course, those people are right. We do not come to work to be hit. Or bitten, spat at or sworn at. We all have a reasonable expectation of physical and emotional safety while at work.
The challenge that leaders face when responding in a supportive manner centres around the fact that they cannot guarantee that it will never happen again.
It is an uncomfortable fact that it might happen again and - no matter how much we might wish it wouldn’t - it would be negligent for us to pretend otherwise by failing to prepare for it.
So, how do leaders create the conditions that allow colleagues to feel supported and confident when dealing with such challenges?
I was wholly unprepared the first time someone said to me, “I don’t come to work to be hit.” This was a failure on my part, and an indicator that I had become somewhat used to some of those behaviours having worked in a social, emotional and mental health needs school. So it caused some deep reflection.
The risk of violence against school staff
I recalled my time as a volunteer special constable in my first few years as a teacher. Being a police officer carries with it an inherent risk that is well understood by those who choose to do the job. The scale and type of risk is different for school staff, but it is not zero.
My view is that colleagues will accept the risks they’re being asked to work with, in the same way that I did as a special constable, if a number of key things are deemed by the staff to be good enough and the risks are therefore minimised.
In the subconscious risk assessment that colleagues carry out, if any of these things are not good enough then faith in leaders starts to wane and confidence and morale can slide. Leaders, therefore, need to consider what has been done to ensure that confidence among the team in all of these areas is strong. Here are some questions to ask:
Has our training been good enough?
Colleagues need to feel confident that they are equipped with sufficient knowledge and skill in behaviour management (including physical intervention where appropriate). They also need to understand how to meet children’s needs.
By the way, any behaviour training or advice that does not explicitly cover the well established link between particular special educational needs and disabilities areas and the higher chance of behaviour difficulties is incomplete. Teaching assistants deserve special attention here as these poorly paid colleagues are the most likely to be on the receiving end of the behaviours described above.
Are the needs of the children well understood?
The importance of ensuring that the needs of the child are both understood and well met must not be underestimated. Staff need to know who they are teaching, what it means to teach them well and how the school’s behaviour policy needs to flex for some children.
Some schools will have a greater need for trauma-informed approaches or methods to meet sensory needs, for instance, but without this depth of knowledge, and the specific training to go with it, some children are going to struggle.
Are the school’s systems and resources good enough?
Walkie-talkies are no good if coverage is patchy or if response times are slow. And if staff are expected to spend precious time filling in reports, online or on paper, they need to know that the information is being used to inform the school’s policies and practice.
Is support from leaders good enough (both in the moment and post-incident)?
Without support from leaders, any behaviour system is built on sand. Colleagues need to feel safe to ask for help and admit that they are finding it tough to support a child or children to behave well. They also need to know that someone is going to turn up when they need them. After an incident, they need to feel that they are supported to reduce the likelihood of recurrence and that their emotional needs are being met.
Are colleagues supportive enough?
I have always found it peculiar that teaching is a collegiate profession largely carried out in isolation, and so the times teachers do get to spend working together and supporting each other are precious. The classic “Well, he’s no problem for me” blithely trotted out in the staffroom is damaging, even if it’s true, and can turn an opportunity to help a colleague into a mind trap of self-doubt and reduce the chances of that teacher or TA asking their colleagues for advice of help in the future.
If leaders know that a critical mass of the staff can answer the above questions positively and confidently, then a school is likely to be in a good place. Ideally, incidents don’t occur at all, but when a school is going in the right direction, incidents occur less frequently and with less severity, and everyone is well prepared when they do happen.
Jarlath O’Brien is the author of Better Behaviour - A Guide for Teachers and Leading Better Behaviour - A Guide for School Leaders published by Corwin Press
