Emma Shackleton: 0:45

If the early identification of pupils with social, emotional, and mental health needs is important to you, or you're seeing increasing numbers of kids with SEMH and behaviour needs in your school, then this episode of School Behaviour Secrets is perfect for you, because I'm going to share the 3 factors that reliably predict whether a student will have SEMH needs and what this means for your systems and practices in your school so that no no child's needs go under the radar.

Simon Currigan: 1:15

Welcome to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Simon Currigan. My co host is Emma Shackleton, and we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders, parents, and of course students when classroom behaviour gets in the way of success. We're gonna share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural special needs, whole school strategy, and more, all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world, so you'll get to hear the latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the School Behaviour Secrets podcast.

Emma Shackleton: 1:55

Hi there. My name's Emma Shackleton, and welcome to today's episode of School Behaviour Secrets. And it's a very special episode, because it's also the first time that we're sharing the podcast on the usual audio format as well as on YouTube as a video podcast. So, if you're someone who prefers to watch than listen, you've now got the option of doing both. And we're also trialling a new format which is going to be shorter and laser focused on giving you the SEMH and behaviour strategies you need to support the kids in your school. In this episode, we're going to focus on how to identify SMH needs in school children quickly and effectively, using systems to assess their needs, whether they're big, obvious physical behaviours or whether a pupil's emotional churn is going on under the radar. You should also know that we've got a free download that supports this episode. It's called the SEND Behaviour Handbook and that helps you to link in a simple way the behaviours that you're seeing in school to possible underlying needs. Get yours today by clicking in the link in the comments if you're on the podcast or in the episode description or the comments if you're watching the video. And don't forget, if you find this free podcast useful, make sure you like and subscribe. That helps to share this content with other teachers and school leaders so that this information can reach more people. It's the quickest and cheapest way of supporting the show. It'll cost you just 30 seconds. Now let's jump straight into the strategies and SEMH insights. If you want to make sure that no child gets left behind in your school so they don't end up having to struggle for years with an underlying SEMH need without getting the help that they deserve, then it's really important to get early intervention right because we know that when a student is supported in school with the right strategies their outcomes are so much better. But the thing is, and this is surprisingly common, many students have needs that don't get picked up until they reach their teens, and by then it's too late and the damage is done. And this has never been more important to get right than right now because studies show that more and more pupils are walking through our doors with social, emotional and mental health needs. Just to put those numbers into perspective, according to the Department For Education, in the 2 school years from 2021 to 2023 in England alone, the number of EHCP plans grew by 78,000 and the number of kids that needed additional SEN support,(so the kids just below the EHCP level), also grew by almost 100,000 in just 2 years. So early identification is important and urgent.

If your school is seeing big increases in SEMH needs, here's the takeaway for you: 5:07

in the past, identification of special educational needs was often left to the teachers. Teachers used their own skill and experience to look at the kids that they were working with and used their judgement to refer those pupils to the SENCO for additional support. But that's not going to cut it anymore because guess what? We're all human and our judgement and our tolerance for behaviour differs from person to person, and then kids get missed. So what we need to be doing is using data and systems much more effectively to identify pupils with SEMH needs. How do you do that? We use the data we already collect about behaviour in school. So if we have a behaviour tracking system then someone monitors that data monthly and looks for trends. If we spot a child who's consistently presenting issues at lunchtime but who's never been referred to the SENCO, then we ask the question, 'Perhaps maybe there's an underlying sensory or social need that could have been missed?' We've moved beyond judgement to systems, and in the words of James Clear, we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. And did you know there's a key predictor of whether a pupil will have SMH needs that often gets overlooked and it's probably not what you think. Most teachers, when you ask them, will name factors like whether a child lives in a family where there's deprivation, or if the pupil is on free school meals, or has a sibling with a special need, or the child comes from a big family or maybe they have difficulty academically. But although all of those factors can be a factor, they aren't the most accurate predictor. The best predictor is actually whether a child has language needs and that makes total sense, right? If a child has difficulty with receptive language that's listening to, processing and understanding what the adults are saying to them, then they're going to have difficulty following school rules, routines and expectations.. If they can't communicate their needs, they're going to become frustrated and then often they end up communicating physically in an unsafe way, like hitting or kicking or throwing in an unsafe way like hitting or kicking or throwing objects or walking off or breaking things. Good language skills are the bedrock of success for a child's behaviour in school.

This means two things. One: 7:38

in the early years, preferably before the student walks into our reception classrooms, that screening process has already started. So we've picked up potential difficulties from day one. So they don't have to walk into the classroom and experience failure. We are proactively ready for them. We know what to expect and we can support them effectively. No surprises.

And two: 8:05

when an older student is presenting challenging behaviour, we almost make it our default position to rescreen and recheck for whether there is a language and communication need. Then when we address the need, the difficult behaviour should melt away. Another key indicator of a pupil having unmet SEMH needs, that child having social difficulties. Why is that important? Because when a pupil finds it difficult to follow social rules and expectations or to accommodate others, the result is usually social isolation or arguments and disputes and fights. Both of those things, the isolation or the arguments, are a result of the underlying need which is the students struggling with social rules, and many of those rules, especially as kids get older, are unwritten. They're implicit, and for kids that struggle with that, the isolation and arguments are like a big flashing warning sign that they need support. They haven't picked up those unwritten rules yet. So imagine what that feels like from the child's perspective. They want to join in a game but they just don't know how to ask, or they don't even understand from a social perspective that there's a need to ask the other kids if they can join in. So from the outside they appear to barge in and take over the game. At face value we might interpret that as selfishness or bossiness, but the child, while they can see the other kids are upset, they're not really sure why, or they think that they're in the right and everybody else must be wrong or they're being oversensitive. That means what that child actually needs to get the situation right next time is coaching. That means if we are seeing kids getting into lots of social disputes at playtimes and lunchtimes and that's happening consistently, so it's not just a one off incident or a two off, then that information should be a trigger for us. It tells us when we are regularly analysing our school or year group's behaviour data that if the child hasn't been referred to the SENCO already, there may be an unmet need there and it's something that we should consider. And I'm not saying we should jump to conclusions about there being an unmet need, but if they've got a history of incidents that should prompt us to ask the question, does this child need support? And that's where we get systematic again. We're going to need to do some screening and there are lots of tools available to assess the child's ability socially and pro socially. Our social skills are our ability to fit in with the group, to say and do the right things, and to follow the right unwritten rules to gain acceptance. Prosocial skills are how we contribute to the group, how we forego our own interests to accommodate the needs of the group. Basically, team skills. Skills. And then, of course, we have empathy. Can we read the needs or actions of others? Once we've considered these factors and assessed them, then we can put together an effective intervention programme. In terms of factors that predict SEMH needs, we also need to think about whether the family has a history of trauma and ACEs. And by the way, if you haven't come across the term, ACEs stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. Factors like domestic violence or a family bereavement or parents separating or divorcing, they all have been scientifically linked to a range of poor outcomes for kids back in the late nineties. But some people interpret this in the wrong way. So first of all, let's clear up some misconceptions. Trauma is complicated. For instance, the same event, such as a parent using drugs can make one child fall off the rails while their brother or sister seems almost unaffected. Ever wondered why that is? Well, there are 2 parts to trauma. It's made up of the external event that happens to us, in this case a parent using drugs, and our internal reaction to that event. That's our natural resilience and stories and explanations that we tell ourselves about the event. One child might draw the conclusion that their parent uses drugs because they don't love them. The other tells themselves that their parent is sad and is going through a bad time. So there's not a straight line drawn between trauma and potential behaviour issues, but there is a strong link, assuming the other child isn't masking or internalising of course. So here's the important thing to remember when it comes to ACEs and the early identification of SEMH needs. If a child experiences some form of trauma, they won't automatically present with behaviour and SEMH needs in school. They're more likely to, but it's not a definite. The probability goes up. That means when we want to proactively identify pupils with SEMH needs, we should consider ACEs as an indicator only. There's a history there to think about, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions. And when we're thinking about SEMH needs here, the temptation is to think about the kids who externalise, those pupils who throw chairs, walk out of class, show physical behaviours. If a child has ACES in their background, but we're not seeing that, it's important to consider if they are internalising or masking. Are they quietly struggling? Their emotional churn and anxiety going under the radar because they aren't acting out. As schools, we have to get better at the early identification of kids who internalise their behaviour, direct their pain inward, as well as the kids who do big outward challenging externalising behaviours that are obvious for everyone to see in the classroom. Because kids who mask and internalise still have a need and it's damaging their lives. So to summarise, early identification is key to a child achieving social, emotional and behaviour success. The key factors to proactively look for are challenges around language, both receptive and expressive, social difficulties, a history of trauma or ACEs in the family. There's a strong link here, but not one that's a 100%. If you found this episode useful, don't forget to like and subscribe or leave a review if you're listening to the podcast. And remember to grab your free copy of our SEND handbook, look in the comments or episode description for a direct link. Thanks for joining me today and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of School Behaviour Secrets.