Simon Currigan

Have you ever had a pupil come back from lunch looking fine, then 5 minutes later they're refusing to work and arguing with the adult, or shouting across the room, or just completely falling apart over something tiny?

My name's Simon Currigan, and I've worked with literally hundreds of schools where lunchtime behaviour was not just a lunchtime problem, it affected the behaviour and learning in class all afternoon long.

And in this episode, you'll learn why some pupils struggle so much after lunch and what schools can do to help pupils come back calmer, safer, and more ready to learn.

Welcome to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. My name's Simon Currigan, and I have trust issues with opticians. I'm not going to say why, just believe me when I say it's well-founded and I will only get burned once.

In today's episode, we're going to look at something that happens in schools every day, but often gets misunderstood or misinterpreted, maybe. So, we have like a pupil coming back from lunch and they look okay on the outside, but as soon as the adults start asking them to settle, to start their work or follow some basic instructions, everything goes to pot.

So, we're gonna dig into why that happens and how the impact of lunchtime can last long after the bell to come into school rings. But before we get into that, if you find today's episode useful or you're finding the podcast in general helpful, please remember to subscribe to School Behaviour Secrets in your podcast app.

That way, you'll never miss another episode, and it also helps other teachers, SENCOs, and school leaders find the podcast too. And if you know someone in school who regularly says, "The afternoons are always hard work," or, "The kids always come back from lunch like different children," please share this episode with them because it might give them a different way of looking at what's going on and help them move things forward for their class in a positive direction.

And it will rightly put them on red alert when it comes to opticians. I have my reasons. That's all I'm saying. If you want help improving lunchtimes, by the way, we've also got a free download that can help. It's called 6 Immediate Lunchtime Fixes. Guess what it's about? It's a free handbook for identifying avoidable lunchtime behaviour problems and putting in place simple yet effective solutions for fixing them in your school. 

You'll find it at beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources. That's beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources. I'll put a link in the episode description as well, so you can tap through from your podcast app.

So, let's imagine it's 5 past 1 or 10 past 1 or whatever, whenever your lunchtime ends in your school, because we don't have national standards for lunchtimes yet. I'm sure it's on someone's agenda. It's probably coming. And the children are coming back into your classroom and they're shoving coats on pegs, grabbing their water bottles. Someone's still complaining that they got pushed in football. Someone's lost a hairband. Someone's upset because their best friend played with someone else. Someone is still chewing and you're not quite sure what they're chewing, but they're definitely not meant to still be chewing. And then there's one pupil who comes in, sits down, and they look quiet. Not like obviously angry or simmering, not obviously upset, just a bit kind of closed off.

Then we give the class a normal set of instructions, something like, "Right everyone, we'll do the register, then we'll get your books out and start doing maths." And then that pupil says, "No," or they put their head down, or they turn around, or they say, "This is boring, I'm not going to do it." And what we have to do in this situation is disentangle what's caused that issue. Is it a reaction to what you've just said? Is it a reaction to an incident at lunch or something else going on?

Because I'm not saying every afternoon behaviour issue is caused by lunchtime. Of course it isn't. Some pupils find afternoons harder because they're tired. Some struggle with the lesson content. Some struggle with the change of an adult. Some are hungry. Some might have been having a brilliant time outside and now they're struggling with the transition into work mode. Some are worried about something that might be happening at home. Look, human beings are complicated, and I can verify this because I am a human being myself. And I know that's anecdotal, it's not research-based, but I reckon that statement stands up. Humans are complicated.

And that's why in many schools lunchtime is a major flashpoint, because it contains a whole cluster of different demands that we don't always recognise as demands. Adults often describe lunchtime as a break, and for many pupils, it genuinely is. It's a chance to run around, burn off energy, see friends, eat, reset, play some games. But for some pupils, lunchtime isn't really a break. It's an hour of social problem solving, sensory overload, transitional stress, peer conflict, uncertainty about what's going to happen, and unstructured time. And for them, that's not restful. That's work, and for some children, it's incredibly hard work. It's draining. It's demanding. And then they walk into class, and all that pent-up stress and emotion has to go somewhere, and then we see them refusing to engage or saying no. 

We see a similar pattern at home, by the way, with something called after-school collapse. That's where a parent says the school reports that child's been fine all day, They walk home with the child, they get through the door, and then their son or daughter falls apart over a snack or because their sister looked at them funny or being asked to take their shoes off. And the issue here, again, probably isn't the snack. It isn't the shoes, really. It isn't even the sister who's smirking at them, although I'm going to say siblings do have a special gift for breathing in an annoying way. What's often happening is the child has held things together all day and then when they get somewhere safe, that stress, that emotion finally kind of leaks out. It spills out or it explodes out of them. 

Now, in school, we sometimes see a mini version of that after lunch. Pupils may have held it together in the playground or the dining room. They may not have had an incident. They may not have been reported to an adult. They may have looked okay, but that doesn't necessarily mean that lunchtime was easy for them. Sometimes lunchtime loads up The student with stress and the classroom demands afterwards are simply the final straws that breaks the camel's back, that tips them over. 

This is equally true for primary and secondary students, boys and girls. In fact, especially for girls in secondary who, let's be honest, have the most complex social interactions and hierarchies known to man, and they have to navigate those hierarchies every single day, and that can be hard. And that's the key idea for this episode. Just because a child coped through lunchtime, there wasn't anything obviously wrong, it doesn't mean that lunchtime left them in a good state.

So what is going on? Why does lunch affect some people so strongly? And based on my work going into schools, how do we help develop inclusive lunchtimes? And I think, from my experience, there are several key things that are going on. So the first thing we need to think about is social stress. Lunchtime is one of the most socially complicated parts of the school day. In lessons, there is usually a clear social structure. Sit here, listen to this, write this, work with this person, work in a group according to this structured conversation, use this equipment, stop talking at this specific time. Now, that structure can create its own challenges, especially for pupils with learning or attention or demand-related needs, but at least the rules are explicit and often they're even visible.

At lunchtime, the rules are implicit and often invisible. Who am I playing with or hanging out with? Who decides the rules or leads the conversation? What happens if I want to join in after everyone else has started the game or conversation? What happens if they say no or exclude me from the group? When the group laughed, were they laughing with me or at me? Why did the game change? You can see all these questions that kids might have. That cause pressure. Why did my best friend spend all her time talking to someone else today? Why has the group suddenly moved to the other side of the playground?

For pupils who find social communication easy, those questions may not even register because the answers to them are so obvious. They just drift through the social world without having to think too hard about it. But for pupils who struggle with social understanding, anxiety, rejection, who find it hard to repair relationships with their friends or reading others' intentions. The social aspect of lunchtime can be an absolute minefield. So people might come back into class already carrying loads of unregulated social stress, and then they come back into class and we see loads of refusal. But underneath that refusal may be shame or rejection or just social exhaustion. And this is why the phrase, "They were fine at lunchtime," can be misleading. Fine sometimes means nothing major happened that was visible to the adults and the other kids, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a problem. 

The second reason lunch can be hard is sensory load. Dining rooms can be loud, really loud. You've got chairs scraping, you've got cutlery, you've got kids shouting over one another, then you've got the adults raising their voices to be heard to tell everyone else to be quiet. You've got the smell of the food, you've got people moving around. Then the playground on top adds more noise, more movement, more potential physical contact, running, bumping, shouting, you know, whistles, bells, changes in direction. For some pupils, that sensory environment is exciting and enjoyable, but for others, it's overwhelming. And when a pupil is drowned in that sensory feedback, you know, the noise or the movement or the touch or whatever's relevant to them, they might not be able to explain that in words to an adult. They may not say, "Excuse me, I'm currently experiencing auditory overload and my nervous system is struggling to integrate the sensory input from this environment," which, to be honest, if they could, would be an impressive reflection of your PSE curriculum. What you get instead is shouting or running away or refusing to go into the hall or kids who become silly because their body's trying to cope with that input and they can't manage it. And don't forget, silliness is another form of dysregulation, by the way. It's worth bearing that in mind. Or they might, just might, hold it together until they get back to class, and then the first adult instruction tips them into, I'm not doing that, when what they really mean is, I am done. I've got no capacity to regulate left.

The third reason is conflict that hasn't been resolved, or at least perceived to have been resolved. Kids often carry lunchtime incidents back into class at the back of their minds, and that small argument can sit inside their head for the next hour, gnawing away at them. Someone pushed me, or someone took my place in the line, or someone said it's my fault we lost at football. And then they went and had a discussion with the adult, and they didn't feel the adult believed them or glossed over it and told them to ignore it, or the adult said, They were as bad as each other and they walked away feeling like the other child got away with something. From the child's point of view, especially a child with a strong sense of justice or anxiety, that issue from lunchtime is most definitely not finished because the bell's rung, the adults moved on and the class has moved on, the timetable's moved on, but internally that child is psychologically still on the playground. They're replaying the incident, the thing that happened. They're thinking about what they should have said. They're thinking about how the adult should have responded from their point of view. They're kind of thinking about almost like there's a court system in school. Where do I go to appeal this decision? And then we ask them to multiply fractions with different denominators, which is ambitious. I struggle to multiply fractions under ideal conditions. So when we see a pupil fall apart after lunch, one useful question is, what unfinished business has come back into the classroom with them? Not because we can solve every friendship issue in class. We can't. In the real world, you just can't get involved in the tiny details of every disagreement between pupils. There isn't time. You'd never get any teaching done. But if students have difficulty regulating and we don't suspect that might be the cause, we may then misread their actions completely, and then we get the follow-up conversation wrong. 

The fourth reason kids struggle is transition. Moving from lunchtime back into learning for many kids is a big challenge of all ages. You've got a change of activity, a change of environment, a change of rules, a change of adult expectations. Outside, the kids might have been running, talking, playing, moving freely, then suddenly they're expected to sit still, to listen, to organize equipment, to process verbal instructions. That can be a huge shift for some pupils. This, of course, is particularly relevant for pupils who are neurodivergent, but it's not limited to those pupils. Some children just need more help moving from one physical state or physical location to another, and the harder lunchtime has been for them, the more support they may need with that re-entry. So that can be another cause. Transition can be a big issue.

And the fifth reason is what I'd like to call the pressure of the afternoon lesson. This is where lunchtime stress means the sudden demand of the classroom. Imagine a pupil has spent the lunch navigating noise and conflict and social pressure and hunger and unfairness and transition, and then they come back into class already close to their limit, and then the first thing they face is a writing task or a tricky maths task or a lesson with a supply teacher or a group activity with the very same children they just fell out with at lunch or an instruction with 6 steps in it. Come in, sit down, get your book, write the date, underline it, copy the learning objective, and start the first 3 questions on the board. For some pupils, that barrage is fine. It's just not an issue. For a pupil carrying a high stress load, that might be just too much. And this is where adults can accidentally make things worse, because the behaviour appears after the instruction that they gave. So the adult naturally focuses or links the behaviour to the instruction, and then they say things like, "I've only asked you to write the date," or, I've only asked you to sit down, or I've only asked you to get started with the work. And those things are true, but the child might not be reacting to that one instruction in isolation. They may be reacting to that instruction on top of everything else. And that's why it's so important for schools when this is persistent, by the way, not when it's a one-off, to track back before the classroom incident and ask, what was the pupil's stress load before this happened? So this is important when there's a pattern of this happening after lunchtime.

Now, before we get into what schools can do, I want to be clear about something. This episode is not an argument for lowering expectations. It's not saying, "Well, lunch is hard, so pupils don't need to learn in the afternoon, or they can be rude or disrespectful for the adult." No, pupils do need to learn in the afternoon. It's like half the day. Teachers do need to teach, and classrooms do need to be calm enough for everyone to get on with their learning. But if some pupils are repeatedly coming back from lunch dysregulated, or on the borderline of dysregulation, then just telling them to get on or make better choices isn't likely to solve that problem in the long term, because the problem may not be a choice problem, it may be a regulation problem, and regulation problems need structure to solve.

So, what can schools do? Well, let's start with reviewing how lunchtime itself is working. And I know there'll be a lot of teachers listening to this thinking about their class coming in from lunch like a tornado, and they're shaking their heads and thinking to themselves, "Lunch is absolutely not working in my school for the kids or for me." So a good question for leaders is this: Are our lunchtimes structured enough to help vulnerable pupils succeed? Because completely unstructured time does not suit every child. While all pupils need purposeful play, some need constructive help to do it, or structure to do it. Not because adults have to organise every second of their childhood, but because boredom plus social uncertainty plus high energy is a recipe for rough play and arguments and conflict.

One very practical approach, especially in primary schools, is to zone parts of the playground. Not in a complicated way. You don't have to create Disney World, just simple areas with activities that rotate, ideally every day. Or if you're in a secondary school, perhaps have options open to kids that aren't just ball games or hanging around. Those options don't have to involve an adult necessarily, just some structure or resources, something that channels their energy and focus instead of leaving them to invent their own entertainment, which, as anyone who has supervised a playground knows can quickly become, "Let's see if we can turn this stick into a medieval weapon." And we all know how that ends.

The next part is really for primary schools and focuses on adult engagement. Sometimes lunchtime supervisors are positioned around the playground like security guards. They stand at the edge, they watch, they wait for something to go wrong, and then they intervene. But pupils with SEMH needs often need adults who are more actively present than that. Adults who know them, adults who notice the early signs that something isn't right. Adults who can direct them to other things before a situation escalates. Adults who can say things like, "Come and help me set this up," or, "I can see that game's getting a bit heated. Let's take 2 minutes," or, "I noticed you looked a bit stuck when they changed the rules. Do you want me to help you join the game again?" That kind of adult engagement can make a huge difference and stop events spiralling.

Schools of all ages also need to think about pupils with known SEMH needs. If a child finds the dining hall overwhelming every single day, and every single day they come back to class dysregulated, that is useful information. If a child is repeatedly involved in conflict at lunchtime, that is useful information. If a child spends lunchtime isolated, or always hangs around with the adults, or is always in arguments, that is useful information. The question is then, what do we do with that information? What planned support does that information tell us that the child needs. 

For some pupils, that might be a quieter place to spend part of their lunchtime. And I want to stress the word here, planned. I'm not talking about sending kids to a punishment room after an incident. I'm not talking about detention or timeout. Not, "You've been difficult, so now you're missing your break." I mean, can they be supported with a planned positive space where selected pupils can regulate through board games or construction activities, or craft, or cards, or drawing, or small group activities. A place that helps them return to learning more settled, not a place that labels them as the problem. That doesn't have to be provided for the whole of lunch, just 20 minutes of it can make a huge difference to kids who are struggling with lunchtimes.

And lastly, we've got: do a dead time audit. Do you see kids queuing for ages in the dining hall Do you see kids waiting to be dismissed for long times or standing in lines while the adult gets themselves organised? Waiting for the class teacher to appear at the end of lunchtimes? Dead time, which is time when kids are just kind of hanging around, is dangerous because nothing good comes of dead time. The students get bored and then they get frustrated and then you get low-level behaviour and then they start poking and pushing each other or they start arguing with each other and they feel in these times that their social time is being wasted by the adults. So they kind of feel that injustice, and then they become louder, and then the adults become annoyed in response, and then the pupils become more defensive in response to that, and suddenly we've got an argument between the kids and the adults that was entirely preventable.

So, if lunchtime's a regular flashpoint in your school, one of the most boring but powerful things leaders can do is follow children through the system. Where are they waiting for long times? Where are the bottlenecks? Where are the queues too long? Where are the adults not clear to the children about what they should be doing? Where are people being held in a waiting area with nothing to do? Now, that is not glamorous leadership work. No one is writing best-selling leadership books called The Transformational Power of Shorter Queues. Although, now I've said it, I might pick up that pen when I finish the book I'm writing on dysregulation. It'll be a shorter book, I'm sure, but it will still be useful in schools. Because reducing dead time can have a big impact for a large number of pupils across the lunchtime hour.

And if you're an individual teacher who's not got any control over some of the things I've talked about, here's a simple change that you can make after lunch. When the kids come in, have a short transitional task waiting for them. Now, this transitional task is a predictable calm, and this is the important bit. It's a low-demand routine. Low demand that helps them move from lunchtime mode to learning mode. It might be reading quietly for 3 minutes, or completing a simple retrieval task, or completing a Calm Starter. The most important thing is about the task that everyone knows how to do it. So there's no pressure on the kids, and the adult doesn't get sucked into helping kids with a task because their role is focusing their attention on the kids who need help to come in, to be calm, and to settle. And that can unlock the rest of the learning time in the afternoon. It is 3 minutes very well invested.

So, to recap, some pupils fall apart after lunch because lunchtime is not always a break. It can be socially demanding, sensorily heavy, emotionally loaded, and full of tricky transitions. A pupil might look fine on the outside when they walk through the door, but come back into class still carrying loads of stress. And when we understand that, we stop asking why are they choosing to behave like this after lunch, and we start asking what did lunch demand from them? What stresses did it place on them? And what support would make their re-entry into class easier and more successful? And those questions give pupils a better chance of returning to our classrooms ready to learn. 

If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to download 6 Immediate Lunchtime Behaviour Fixes using the link in the episode description or visiting beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources.

That's beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources. It's free, it's practical, and it will help you look at lunchtimes in your school with fresh eyes. 

And please remember, subscribe to School Behaviour Secrets so you don't miss future episodes just like this one. And if you have a minute, while you've got your podcast app open, leaving a review also makes a real difference to the podcast.

You don't have to write an essay. In fact, please don't. I'm emotionally fragile and I get visually overwhelmed by paragraphs. But just a few kind words helps other school staff find this podcast. And if you could do that for me, That would be amazing.

Anyway, that's all I've got for you today. I hope you have a brilliant week, and I can't wait to see you on the next episode of School Behaviour Secrets.