Resources 

Welcome to the SEMH School Toolkit

This toolkit is designed with the intent of being a ‘go to guide’ for busy school staff who are faced with difficult and challenging behaviours. It is written with Central Bedfordshire Secondary schools in mind but could equally be applied to staff in the Primary sector.

There are some key messages within the toolkit and these have been highlighted in the hope that you will understand that they are key threads, without which, progress will be slow and positive results difficult to achieve. 

Why a Toolkit?

 'Poor behaviour' is certainly not a new phenomenon but it has most certainly become a very popular topic for conversation. Poor behaviour is linked to SEMH (Social Emotional and Mental Health) issues, underachievement and of course staff retention and recruitment. It's effects can be devastating to both the pupil and all those around them. The earlier you can start to review, unpick and intervene, the better. 

The cost of poor behaviour in financial terms has never been so clear and in May 2019 under the guidance of Tom Bennett, the government announced a £10 Million investment to tackle poor behaviour that launched in Sept 2020.

The human impact is of course greater; poor behaviour is often met with exclusion which in turn leads to poorer outcomes and increased vulnerability, that is without consideration of the subsequent damage to the relationships that support and enhance the learning.

The EEF’s (Education Endowment Foundation) recent report focused on Improving Behaviour in Schools and reviews the best available evidence to offer schools six recommendations for improving behaviour. It suggests that universal systems are unlikely to work for all students and for those pupils who need more intensive support with their behaviour, a personalised approach is likely to be better.

This Toolkit will help support your school in some of the key aspects of this.

Instead of ‘zero tolerance’ it suggests that understanding individual pupils, training teachers in classroom management and having a consistent approach across the school will support better behaviour.

Underpinning this is the need to enhance relationships.