The students that are referred to us are often having to deal with psychologically pressurised situations in their lives, which can make it hard for them to focus, or to want to cooperate with learning. This may be one of the reasons why they are out of mainstream education.

A lot may have happened to them the last week, weekend or even the five minutes before a session is due to start. There may have been a contact visit with a parent, or they may have had a recent row with a parent or foster parent.

What our staff see and hear, is only an indication of some of what the student may be feeling. Quite frankly, it could just be simply the tip of an emotional iceberg. It’s been said that children can’t always tell you what they feel, but they will probably show you.

Their pressures and worries often lead to challenging behaviour – which can be directed at staff. But we remember – it’s not because of us. It’s about them and what is going on in their life.

We don’t take a student’s behaviour personally. A negative reaction from them probably has got nothing to do with what we have planned as a lesson or activity, or what we just asked them to do.

It’s really important that we are aware of the mood of a student. Do they seem quieter than usual? More ‘on edge’? Less attentive? By responding to their mood quickly and tailoring or adapting our session with them to allow for how they appear to be ‘feeling’, usually prevents an incident from occurring, or lessens its severity.

Working with challenging students is not about ‘winning’ or ‘losing’. There is no audience of other students to see either party lose face. And even if there were – it shouldn’t matter. What does matter, is helping the student to moderate their behaviour and learn to engage and learn again.

Or staff see this as it is - a child in distress. They are the adult who is there to help them.

We realise that we can’t control what the student does, you can only try to support them in making good choices about how they behave.

We support the student in re-gaining control of their feelings and to show them that we are there to help them. We don’t get into a power struggle with them. We might ‘win’ if we did, but the relationship we’ve built will suffer.

We offer reassurance and try to empathise with them.

We offer full support to staff, all of whom have had de-escalation of conflict or MAPA® training.

We have found our approach to be so successful, we engage with 97% of students referred to us, that we now offer the same training we give our staff to schools, colleges and other educational institutions staff, either on their premises as a half-day session, or for individual study on-line.