Video · Teachers Media
Policing Challenging Behaviour
Some of the most difficult behaviour in schools sits at the intersection of school and community — persistent low-level defiance, escalated confrontation, occasional criminality. Managing it well requires more than teacher-level classroom management; it needs whole-school systems, honest conversations, and often external partnerships with police and youth services.
About this video
For schools working with pupils whose behaviour is genuinely challenging — as distinct from the ordinary low-level disruption most teachers deal with daily — the individual teacher's classroom-management toolkit is necessary but not sufficient. The pupils who are most at risk of exclusion tend to be dealing with adverse circumstances beyond the school's reach: family disruption, mental health, poverty, sometimes county-lines exploitation or involvement with youth justice.
The most effective schools tend to build integrated responses. Strong pastoral systems that spot patterns early. Trusted-adult programmes that give pupils a person to go to before things escalate. Formal partnerships with the local safer-schools officer or youth-worker team. Restorative-practice models that address harm without simply escalating exclusion. None of this replaces clear boundaries and consistent consequences — but it recognises that some pupils need more than the boundaries alone.
The policy environment has shifted over the last decade toward acknowledging this complexity. The Timpson Review (2019) documented the disproportionate exclusion of vulnerable pupils; the current Behaviour in Schools guidance emphasises consistency and support in equal measure. Schools navigating this well tend to have leaders willing to invest in the slow, unglamorous work of relationships and follow-through, rather than in punitive escalation.
What tends to help in the hardest cases
- Consistency at scale. Rules and consequences that every adult in the school enforces the same way, every time.
- Early pastoral intervention. A named trusted adult before crises, not a designated safeguarding lead only after them.
- External partnerships. Safer-schools officers, youth workers, family-support services all playing defined roles.
- Restorative practice. Time and skill invested in addressing harm and repairing relationships, alongside (not instead of) sanctions.
- Careful use of exclusion. Fixed-term and permanent exclusion have a place, but the evidence on their long-term outcomes for the excluded pupil is very poor.
Discussion prompts
- Where does the boundary sit in your school between "challenging behaviour we manage" and "safeguarding concern we escalate"? Is it clear to all staff?
- What relationships does your school have with external partners (safer-schools, youth services), and how are they used?
- When a pupil is at risk of exclusion, what is the escalation pathway — and does it include serious effort to keep them in school?
Try this in your classroom
- If you're a class teacher, identify the pupil in your class you're most worried about. Have one intentional positive interaction with them every day for a week.
- If you're a leader, audit the pastoral pathway for a specific pupil who's been in trouble repeatedly. What worked, what didn't, what's missing?
- Read the Timpson Review's key findings on exclusion. Discuss with your team whether your practice reflects its recommendations.