16 / ➜
FEATURE
TEACHING & LEARNING G
Breaking g the cyycle of challeng ging g behaviour Joel Beeden, SENCO at Duckmanton Primary School in Derbyshire, believes that active learning can be a game changer when it comes to managing behaviour in class. t is apparent throughout my school that children who have recently returned are undergoing a period of readjustment. Settling into the new routine has been a bit of a shock to the system. Some students are experiencing grief for lost loved ones. Many have had their home life affected by financial worries as a result of the pandemic. These challenges are particularly exacerbated in my area, which is a small, remote ex-mining village with high unemployment and deprivation levels. At my school, over half of the children receive free school meals and more than a third have special educational needs.
I
There is no doubt that the changes are having an impact on emotional and behavioural difficulties. This was also borne out in a recent study by researchers at the Universities of Essex, Surrey and Birmingham.
LACK OF ACTIVITY More than two thirds of UK parents have said that their children became less active during the pandemic. Hundreds of hours spent sitting in front of screens during lockdown and the general lack of physical activity are known to be key contributors to challenging behaviour. For children with SEND, this has been compounded by the lack of routine and regular support they had before Covid struck.
nasen connect
nc
As a SENCO and a sports lead in our school, I see a direct link between physical activity and SEND pupils’ improved wellbeing and behaviour. As a result, we will be incorporating more physical activity into our school day to help children adjust as we creep back to normality after all the disruption.
A PHYSICALLY ACTIVE CURRICULUM A physically active curriculum has been the cornerstone to improving behaviour at our school for some time now. This is not about doing more sport – although that is also important. Instead, it means getting all children up and moving about during their lessons most days of the week. We decided on this approach as we began to notice the positive impact that PE lessons were having on many students. Some of our pupils with SEND who were disengaged and disruptive in the classroom became model students during PE. They
