Does all behaviour communicate an unmet need?

Probably not. When I skipped an assembly to hide in the toilets with a group of smokers, I’m quite sure that it was an adolescent urge to defy authority that lay behind that act of mild rebellion, not an unmet need. It was also one of my finer moments in school, as it turned out.

Ms Jackson lined us up in the corridor and demanded an explanation from each girl in turn:

“I felt sick, Miss.”

“She wanted me to stay with her, Miss.”

“I had to get my homework done, Miss.”

By the time she got to me, all the excuses I was considering had been used up and spat out, and it was clear they were not helping Ms Jackson to locate her softer side. So in desperation:

“I have no excuse whatsoever for my behaviour this morning, Ms Jackson.”

And it worked!

“Well, at least you are honest, Mary. In this school, we value the truth. Thank you.”

Behaviour management in schools

It’s interesting that, as much as we despise excuses, we do tend to persist with Ms Jackson’s impossible “Why did you do it?” line of inquiry. 

That’s probably because it’s not a plausible explanation that we’re looking for in these situations; the real purpose of asking why is to illustrate and really drive home the message that there is never, ever a justification for inappropriate behaviour. It is designed to be an impossible question.

The sanction I received was an utterly mortifying letter home (my rebel persona was strictly limited to school) and I didn’t repeat that transgression. 

It’s when issues are persistent, despite progressively severe sanctions, that we need to be curious about underlying causes or the presence of unmet needs. There was no real depth or complexity to my situation - but when that is not the case, the ineffectiveness of the behaviourist approach is all too evident. 

Permanent exclusion for persistent disruptive behaviour becomes almost inevitable when sanctions are ratcheted up in accordance with behaviour policy, and regardless of how a young person is responding to them. The availability of this option means that the school doesn’t need to change course: there is a resolution to the problem, and no need to think critically about the utility of the sanctions escalator. 

This lies at the heart of the problem for marginalised children and young people in English schools.

The 2019 Timpson exclusions review states: “The analysis produced for this review shows that 78 per cent of permanent exclusions issued were to pupils who either had SEN, were classified as in need or were eligible for free school meals. Eleven per cent of permanent exclusions were to pupils who had all three characteristics.”

Timpson’s key finding - that exclusion disproportionately targets young people with complex needs - came as no huge revelation, because, of course, it has been ever thus. The overall rate of exclusion might rise and fall, but the inequities within it remain stubbornly consistent. The Department for Education’s May 2019 literature review on the disproportionate exclusion of certain children provides a thorough illustration of this. 

It’s important to note, too, that formal exclusion is only one small indicator of a much wider and deeper problem, as the FFT DataLab has exposed through its ground-breaking work on off-rolling.

In 2019, 8,700 pupils moved into alternative provision without a permanent exclusion and 22,300 left the rolls of state establishments entirely. Making up their ranks were England’s most socially disadvantaged young people and those with special needs. Clearly, we have a systemic problem.

Resisting any challenge to the status quo

Its roots can be found within the no-excuses, retributive mindset that is deeply embedded within our culture and society, which is particularly unforgiving of its still-developing citizens. 

The age of criminal responsibility here does not meet international standards, and is the lowest in Western Europe: a 10-year-old can be found guilty as charged and sent down from the Old Bailey. We were the last country in Europe to ban the cane, by some margin - not until 1986. Parents can still legally smack their children in England, again setting us apart as an outlier.

Traditional discipline is also strongly endorsed by both the DfE and Ofsted. There is nothing in Behaviour and Discipline Guidance for Schools that would encourage a school leader to explore and mitigate the underlying causes of chronic misbehaviour, though there is a list of sanctions that would not look out of place in a Victorian museum. The Ofsted school inspection framework guards against a differentiated approach on the grounds that pupils, especially adolescents, will consider it unfair.

There is, of course, no reference to substantiate the claim about adolescent attitudes towards differentiation - it is merely another expression of the prevailing ideology.

It is clear then that, while advocates of a traditional approach to discipline do at times like to generate a siege mentality, as if the dangerous forces ranked against them may at any time overwhelm, their position is in reality dominant. They represent the status quo - and it’s natural that they should strenuously resist any challenge to that, as they regularly do through EduTwitter.  

Scare quotes around “trauma” expose deep resistance to recent developments in the field of neuroscience, which is dismissed as pseudoscience - a reassuring message for those who do not wish to have their beliefs about why young people might act out challenged by scientific evidence. 

There are grim warnings about sellers of snake oil; behaviour consultants whose advice would only lead to carnage if adopted. Satirical takes occasionally enliven the key message, which is that we shouldn’t be concerning ourselves with psychological mumbo-jumbo as school leaders: “I’m sorry, Sir, you were speeding. Can I help you with your unmet needs?” 

Families of children with special needs may struggle to see the funny side, however. Reintegration meetings can be distressing for the parents of young people with SEND when the message is that underlying needs cannot be mitigated through reasonable adjustments to behaviour policy. 

Indeed, education, care and health needs assessment requests are often motivated by parents’ desperation to have social and emotional needs fully understood and accommodated. (If you have read any number, you cannot avoid this theme.) 

Worse, children’s needs escalate when they are unmet, because it is extremely stressful to experience consequences for a lack of skill and not will, and statutory SEND is a destination that could and should have been avoided in many cases. Both individual and public purse pay a heavy price when needs are not met.

So to return to the question - does all (mis)behaviour communicate an unmet need? Probably not. But should we be much more alive to the possibility that it might? Emphatically, yes. 

There is no evidence to suggest that we have within the system an excess of either professional curiosity about underlying needs or a willingness to meet those needs. If there was less concern about a problem that doesn’t exist and instead a single-minded focus on the one that does, then things might begin to improve for those children and young people who deserve better.

Mary Meredith is service manager for inclusion at Lincolnshire County Council, and a former senior leader