A couple of weeks ago the government announced that schools in England were to reopen their doors to all pupils on the 8 March 2021. Whilst special schools and alternative provision did stay open to vulnerable children and young people during the most recent lockdown, for some this will be a return to daily school life. Parents and educators are both likely joyous at the thought of a return to normality. Light is shining brightly at the end of the very long COVID tunnel, hopefully we will soon be able to meet with friends and relatives to enjoy each other’s company once more! However, experience tells us that learners with SEN find disruption to routine difficult to manage, so may well need some behaviour support when returning to school.

Returning to normalityreturn to school

Although returning to normality is a positive step, there may also be some apprehension. Parents may be thinking, ‘How am I going to get the uniform on him on Monday?’ and ‘I hope he eats at school’. Teachers are no doubt planning lateral flow COVID testing and one-way systems alongside thinking ‘How am I going plan for that first lesson back?’ Likely, both are wondering how the return to school is going to impact on the behaviour of their learners with SEN. Could it bring on tantrums, meltdowns, violence towards others or even self-injurious behaviours?

Way back in August 2020, Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner commented in a report “There is a risk that some children will struggle to transition back to school after a period away. This could manifest in a number of ways, including failing to attend (or low attendance) and challenging behaviour. Schools should make pastoral care a clear priority and identify reasons for non-attendance or challenging behaviour and what support children need.”

As an individual who tries to keep a positive outlook on things, I am thinking about what this pandemic has taught me. It has shown me to look at my teaching and think ahead when consulting with schools and families. Rather than just teaching in the now, we need to be teaching in a way that the skill learnt will also be useful going forward. We do not live in a vacuum — so we should not teach in one!

The honeymoon period

For some students there may be a short ‘honeymoon period’. Pupils will be happy to be back to school as it will be novel. However, once going to school is ‘normal’ for those learners, an increase in behavioural support may be needed. For other students, a ‘honeymoon period’ may not happen, and the moment they see their shiny school shoes and book bag there will need to be behaviour child with tablet computersupport to help them adapt to the change in routine. Either way, we must be prepared to support proactively rather than reactively. If this pandemic has highlighted anything it is a need for parents and educators to be proactive, the more prepared we are, the more comfortable our learners will be.

After so much time out of school our students probably won’t want to do much learning on their return. A behaviour strategy that we should consider putting into place is reinforcement. We can use reinforcement to entice our learners to engage in functional activities, to encourage communication and to learn from our teaching. Remembering our ‘reinforcer first’ principle, we need to begin by knowing our student’s preferred items – a preference assessment is key to success when using this strategy.

rebuilding relationships

Next, we should think about how to re-build a co-operative relationship with our learner so we can introduce work. Meanwhile parents should be thinking about how they are going to revert back to being just a parent, not also their child’s full-time educator. If inappropriate behavior continues, we will need to do an assessment to determine why it’s continuing, which will guide us in our skill setting decisions.

It is important to remember these learners haven’t just been at home, they have been at home because of a pandemic. This may have inadvertently taught them to fear leaving the house or being away from their parents. Lots of parents have done brilliantly at creating structure within their homes, but even with that there has been an inability to access diverse environments andBehaviour Management strategy boards interactions. Learners could have easily inadvertently learnt ‘I have access to my iPad all the time because it is always there’, ‘I get to eat when I want because I am never far from the kitchen’, ‘I can sleep all day and dance all night because I haven’t anywhere to go tomorrow’. I know when my manager told me I will have to put trousers on instead of tracksuit bottoms, because I will be seeing people face to face – I wasn’t too happy!

what new skills do our learners have?

It is also important to remember our learners have been learning at home! What have they learnt during this time? How can we continue to build on these new skills within school? What skill would have been helpful for them to have known while at home? Can we think about teaching that now? This pandemic has highlighted the importance of collaboration between the two environments.

From the second our learner sees those shiny shoes and enters those school gates we can proactively implement a lot of strategies by making modifications to the environment. Then, starting from a safe and happy place, we can build skills that will further support them back into ‘normal’ life, whatever that may look like.

help is at hand

behaviour planPyramid UK are running a Back to School Behaviour mini workshop this month. In this 3 hour ‘return to school special’ I will discuss the importance of designing supportive learning environments that will address unwanted behaviours.

Come along to learn how to design, evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of behaviour support plans and strategies, as your students get back to the ‘norm’.

Grace Payne, Pyramid Consultant

© Pyramid Educational Consultants UK Ltd