Supporting student behaviour after a school break
When it comes to wellbeing, taking a break over the holidays is essential, not just for us as educators, but also for the students we support. It’s a chance to put academic pursuits on hold and enjoy a well-deserved rest, enabling us to come back feeling refreshed and reinvigorated.
However, after a break, and in particular after a long holiday, there can sometimes be an increase in the frequency and intensity of behaviour incidents, with some students struggling to regulate themselves once they return to school.
The question is why, and how can we best support students after a break?
Why the frequency and intensity of behaviour incidents can increase after a break
There are many reasons why we might see an increase in behaviour incidents following a break:
1: Disruption to routines
While school holidays can provide a welcome opportunity to rest, relax and recharge our batteries, they also disrupt our regular, everyday routines. While many of us can cope with these changes without any problems, for some of our students, any change to routine can be hugely unsettling.
2: Varying expectations between home and school
Some children and young people may find it difficult to readjust to the expectations we have in school, as these might be different from those they experience at home. The lack of structure that often characterises the holiday period – long lie-ins, late nights, and ever-changing daily plans – can mean that the boundaries we set in school can feel restrictive and overly demanding for some individuals.
For these students, aligning the expectations of home and school can be challenging, and they may need more time to readjust to our in-school parameters.
3: Difficult domestic situations
For some children and young people, the school holidays are a time of stress, anxiety or fear, where they may endure trauma in different guises, from domestic abuse to emotional or physical neglect.
It’s little wonder, then, that they may return to school feeling distressed and dysregulated and engage in behaviour that needs our support and understanding.
Supporting behaviour after a break
Due to this complex combination of factors, it seems almost inevitable that returning to school after a break can sometimes present students with a number of challenges, all of which have the potential to result in behaviour that needs support.
With so many variables at play, we need to continually assess the landscape, and consider what steps we can take, as leaders, teachers, and support staff, to reintegrate students back into school life.
Every school is different, and what works for one school or individual may not work for another. However, by assembling a toolkit of strategies, we can adapt ideas for our context and offer the best support to the children and young people in our care.
1: Consider how we talk about holidays
As so many of us look forward to school holiday periods, we can easily default to talking about them in positive light, reflecting our own views and beliefs. However, we need to be aware that this perspective may not be shared by all of our students, and we can inadvertently instigate feelings of stress, anxiety, sadness or fear.
By knowing our children and young people well, we can be more deliberate around the way we talk about holidays with individuals, showing sensitivity to how they may be feeling after being away from school.
2: Prepare individuals for a return to routine
For some students, any change to routine can be deeply unsettling, and drive them to engage in behaviour that needs more support. With these individuals, it can be helpful to equip them with a range of tools to anticipate changes, and, as a result, prepare themselves well in advance.
Before they leave for the holiday, or as soon as they return to school, we can create detailed social stories and use aids such as visual timetables or ‘now and next’ boards to help alleviate feelings of distress and support them, so they understand what is happening. This proactive approach can prepare them for the return to in-school routines, providing an opportunity to ask questions, process upcoming events, and gain reassurance from us.
3: Take a personalised approach to support
Knowing our students well allows us to take a highly individualised approach to their support. For example, after a break, some students benefit from an immediate return to ‘business as usual’, where we revert to pre-existing routines and structure straight away. Others, however, need a more gradual, staggered approach where we ease them back into school life gently over time.
What might this look like in practice? It may mean factoring in longer movement or sensory breaks; it might involve gradually building up to a full timetable; perhaps we need to reduce the number of demands we make; or we may have to incorporate regular opportunities to re-establish relationships between students, but also between students and staff.
By continually ‘taking the temperature’ in the classroom and capitalising on our knowledge of individual students’ needs, we can make sensible, informed decisions about when and how to adapt our approach.
4: Collaborate with colleagues
At the start of a new academic year, we can use information provided by previous teachers. This can help us ensure that we have the appropriate measures in place to mitigate the likelihood of behaviour incidents. After a break that falls within the school year, we can participate in professional dialogue with other team members and work together to provide the best supports for our students.
By co-creating individual support plans and risk assessments and sharing these with all relevant staff, we can be consistent in our approach and step in before situations have the chance to escalate.
Listen to our podcast about effective individual support plans.
Understanding behaviour as communication
All behaviour is communication, and after a break, some of our students may engage in behaviour that tells they are struggling to readjust to school life.
By tuning into individuals’ needs, and providing timely, appropriate support, we can ensure that back-to-school arrangements go smoothly, and that the likelihood of any behaviour incidents is kept to a minimum.
Thank you for reading. If you’d like to talk to us about your needs when it comes to supporting behaviour in your setting, please get in touch any time.
