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SEND advice and guidance

Supporting children and young people with cognition and learning


Top tips for teachers

When supporting a child or young person who can display challenging behaviours, it will be important for teachers to be aware of and contribute to the personalised plan for that student. This document provides a range of more general strategies and ideas that may be helpful.

Many children with social, emotional and mental health difficulties also display areas of difficulty with learning. For example, research suggests that children with a history of developmental trauma or who have been exposed to domestic violence are more likely to have difficulties in executive functioning skills, which can include attention, memory, organisation and self-regulation skills. Problems with verbal comprehension and expressive language skills may also be noticeable.

There are also clear links with these difficulties and curriculum areas, e.g. the development of literacy skills. When supporting a child with social, emotional and mental health needs, it will be important to consider the role of other agencies and liaise with health services as appropriate.

Strategies to consider

  • Greet the child personally when they enter the room and make a brief positive comment
  • Support them to feel safe and secure and focus on developing a rapport and relationship
  • The student may respond poorly to overtly authoritarian or controlling approaches and many children and young people in this group respond well to fair, consistent, assertive teachers who maintain control and high expectations but are also able to develop a relationship with the pupil that makes them feel valued, understood and accepted
  • If the student is finding something hard or being challenging, show empathy before reminding them of the expectation, e.g. ‘I can see you are finding this hard, but I need you to…’
  • Always separate out the student’s behaviour from them as a person, e.g. ‘I am really glad to have you in my class today, but that behaviour is not acceptable’.
  • Explain any decisions made clearly and avoid confrontation in front of the whole class, instead giving the student time to think or talking to them away from peers.
  • Be aware of overloading the student’s memory through using too much language when giving instructions. Instead, keep instructions short, chunked and supplement with visual information where possible.
  • Take a look at this Working memory sheet for a range of useful ideas.
  • Check understanding of the task through open questions (tell me what you need to do or where are you going to start?).
  • Give short and clear tasks with a time schedule, e.g. ‘I would like you to complete questions 1-5 in the next 10 minutes then I will come back and check on you’
  • Regular prompts and reminders may be necessary

Resources

 


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