Setting the scene
Recent UK directives increasingly emphasise the role of educational establishments in preventing mental health problems and promoting wellbeing.1 Changes to the Ofsted School Inspection Handbook include new reference to pupils’ emotional and mental health.2 Indeed, parents have identified teachers as ‘the ones who provided the most help in these situations in comparison with other groups such as family doctor and family friends’.3
However, the incentives and funding to support mental health and wellbeing objectives in education, social and health services have been reduced. Early intervention funding to local authorities fell by 55 per cent between 2010/11 and 2015/16 in the UK.4 In 2016, 90 per cent of secondary school head teachers reported increases in anxiety and depression within schools, suggesting they ‘are being forced to pick up the pieces as a result of cuts to community-based early intervention services, and a rising tide of mental ill-health’.5
The needs of children
For any child to be receptive to formal teaching and learning, they need to have physiological and psychological security in their environment and relationships.6 Accessing supportive relationships and environments in settings could be beneficial to sustain learning potential, particularly for children who are adversely affected by relational discord, violence and abuse.7 Indeed, for those with additional learning challenges to overcome, the classroom and school setting can lead to stress-related mental health difficulties, emotional disorders and subsequent behavioural difficulties.8 Children with specific learning difficulties (SpLD) have an increased risk of social isolation and behavioural problems, such as disruptive and aggressive behaviour in a co-concurrence with psycho-emotional problems.9 The inherent frustrations many SpLD children and young people experience in meeting the demands of the school environment may present as challenging behaviour. For example, behavioural disorders have a long-term association with reading difficulties.10
Current behavioural policies and practices which utilise the systems of sanction and reward do not necessarily address the complexities of social and emotional needs of children, particularly those who are high-risk or identified with SpLD. Therefore, attention is now being given to not only promoting behavioural, cognitive behavioural and systemic methods to support children and young people with social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties, but also relational approaches.11 The call for integrated universal support for pupils in schools is evidenced by meta-analyses that suggest that school staff are effective in delivering universal interventions to support pupil social and emotional learning12 and by a survey of what schools in England do effectively to promote emotional well-being of their pupils.13
It is increasingly accepted that ‘emotions matter to learning’.14 MacCann et al.’s research suggests better educational outcomes are achieved by ‘targeting skills relating to emotion management and problem-focused coping’, i.e. emotional and behavioural self-regulation.15 Davis highlights various studies which have shown how the quality of teacher–child relationships shape classroom experiences and influence children’s social and cognitive development.16 How teachers respond to children’s behaviour in particular can affect outcomes. For example, responsive, nurturing and attuned teachers are likely to diminish externalising or maladaptive behaviours.17 Through positive relationships, educators can engage the affective domain of their pupils’ minds and attend to their affective needs to maximise learning at school.18