Memorandum submitted by The Association
of Education Psychologists
THE ASSOCIATION
OF EDUCATIONAL
PSYCHOLOGISTS AND
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
The Association of Educational Psychologists
(AEP) is the professional association and trade union for educational
psychologists (EPs). It is the only organisation in the UK run
exclusively for and by EPs, representing around 90% of the professional
work force. The AEP seeks to promote the overall well-being of
children and young people, represents the collective interests
of its members, promotes cooperation between EPs, and seeks to
establish good relationships between EPs and their employers.
The AEP currently has 3250 members across England, Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland.
Educational psychology is a key frontline education
service that underpins the understanding of how pupils develop
and learn. Many practicising educational psychologists undertake
doctoral study as part of their continuing professional development
and three year doctoral level initial training has been developed
for all new entrants to the profession. EPs work with children
and young people aged from 0-19 but the majority of their time
is spent with school-aged children.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The AEP's membership works on a daily basis
across a range of educational settings that include schools, early
years, Pupil Referral Units and within multi-disciplinary settings
with close colleagues from the NHS and Children's Social Care.
As such, EPs are uniquely placed to ensure consistency and continuity
when managing challenging behavior, which is the bedrock of any
effective behaviour or discipline policy.
In this response, the AEP will focus on the
role, associated benefits, and additional resources that educational
psychologists can provide to schools in order to effectively manage
challenging behaviour and discipline. EPs play a key part in helping
shape how educational settings approach a vast range of educational
issues training in child development, curriculum development and
special educational needs, all of which impact on schools' abilities
to manage behaviour.
However, despite these benefits, the impact
of EPs is being undermined by the lack of resources on the frontline.
This is attributable in part to a lack of understanding about
the range of work across educational settings that EPs perform,
and the unclear and unsustainable funding mechanisms for trainees
that translate as a result. This is leading to a shortfall of
trained EPs able to undertake statutory work, and equally important
preventative work that has a real impact on children's outcomes,
especially in areas such as behaviour management.
The AEP recommends that the Department for Education
strongly addresses these areas of concern by reviewing the current
training arrangements for EPs and how they are funded. Crucially,
this would not require any increase in funding budgets.
BEHAVIOUR AND
DISCIPLINE IN
SCHOOLS
The AEP noted with interest that this inquiry
will look at the strategies that schools have in place to manage
both positive and challenging behaviour, and how to identify the
root causes of challenging behaviour; inviting views from the
professional children's workforce to share examples of best practice
and offer recommendations. As such, we would like to comment on
what steps the Government should take to maximise the input of
EPs, who as a key part of the children's workforce whose skills
are currently under utilised, can make effective interventions
towards improving behaviour and discipline in schools.
We would in particular like to comment on the
following aspects of the inquiry:
How to support and reinforce positive behaviour
in schools
(1) All children and young people, particularly
those within vulnerable circumstances, need access to a range
of well trained and highly skilled professionals who can recognise,
manage and support their individual needs. This is especially
important for those children with disabilities or complex special
educational needs, as they often move between settings.
(2) EPs work on a daily basis across a range
of educational settings that include schools, early years, Pupil
Referral Units and within multi-disciplinary settings with close
colleagues from the NHS and Children's Social Care. As such, they
are uniquely placed to ensure consistency and continuity when
managing challenging behavior, which is the bedrock of any effective
behaviour or discipline policy.
(3) An AEP investigation in 2008 found that the
EP's role was often different across the country, indicating their
ability to respond to local need. EPs work across the full range
of educational settings and are well positioned in Local Authorities
to identify and analyse trends across localities and implement
strategies to address local need accordingly.
(4) EPs are a highly skilled section of the children's
workforce, who are trained in applied scientific methods, diagnostic
and assessment skills, and have a thorough understanding of child
development. As such, an EP's skills are most effective when used
to identify children who cause concern early on and implement
preventative strategies, rather than through, what is very often,
reactive statutory assessment work.
(5) A school's approach towards managing behaviour
and discipline should develop from a sound understanding of child
development and an awareness of the root emotional, wellbeing
or social causes that precipitate challenging behaviour. EPs are
ideally placed to raise a school's capacity to share best practice
and provide support to teachers based on these principles.
(6) The AEP is concerned by the level of knowledge
and training in basic child development held by mainstream elements
of the children's workforce. The AEP has found that EPs are often
told by teachers that the pupils they are expected to teach now
would not have been in school five to ten years ago. The expectations
on teachers, especially in secondary settings, do not seem to
be matched by effective training.
(7) EPs are vital in ensuring that the principles
of child development are recognised in schools' strategies for
all children, but especially those with generalised and complex
special educational needs. The root causes of behavioural difficulties
among these vulnerable groups are often developmental and behavioural
assessment is more effective if understood in terms of an individual
child's needs.
(8) The most effective behaviour interventions
are those that are taken at a systemic level via a whole school
approach, involving teachers, parents and the pupils themselves,
in order to improve problematic elements of a school's ethos/culture
and to promote the emotional wellbeing of the entire school. It
is essential that senior management teams in schools communicate
behaviour policies to all staff members and ensure that its principles
are adhered to at all times.
(9) Schools should move the focus away from individual
referrals around behaviour, and be challenged to look at their
practice as a whole. Such systemic approaches on a preventative
scale are more effective than reactive individualised casework.
This not only helps to support teachers and pupils in dealing
with and reacting to challenging behaviour, but it also creates
a healthy school environment that prevents such behaviour developing
to levels when the most serious interventions are required.
(10) EPs play an integral role in helping schools
to adopt such a holistic approach towards behaviour management.
By working as part of multi disciplinary teams and in close liaison
with other elements of the children's workforce, EPs ensure a
continuous and consistent multi-agency approach when dealing with
vulnerable children across the range of educational and care settings.
(11) From their knowledge of child development,
EPs are also essential in delivering in-house training to build
the capacity of the workforce to recognise and address the causes
of challenging behaviour. This can include conducting and providing
feed back on classroom observations, designing and running INSET
across the workforce and setting up training workshops. As a result
teachers become able to identify and mitigate the effects of potentially
problematic situations more readily. Training should also focus
on how certain adult behaviours can trigger challenging behaviours.
Initiatives such as learning and reflection groups can cement
this awareness.
(12) Basing teacher training and behavioural
management on an understanding of child development not only provides
teachers with strategies to deal more confidently and appropriately
with individualised instances of challenging behaviour but more
importantly it prevents escalation to a level when physical intervention
becomes necessary.
(13) Schools should not just have in place measures
to penalise bad behaviour. School strategy should be refocused
to build resilience, reduce risk and promote emotional wellbeing.
Guidelines should outline how teachers themselves can consistently
model positive behaviour to reinforce and reward good behaviour.
Personal assessment of work, individual appraisal and peer support
all contribute towards pupils developing an intrinsic sense of
responsibility and ownership of their behaviour. This also helps
to reinforce and address the link between behaviour and learning
outcomes, which although related is often addressed by schools
as separate concerns.
(14) Schools should develop positive management
strategies, which train teachers to manage classrooms in a proactive
manner. A key element of this approach is positive feedback and
to acknowledge appropriate behaviour when it occurs. It is important
that disruptive behaviour is not condoned, but dealt with in a
graduated way. Pupils who fail to respond to directions should
never be ignored, but caught early. Teachers should redirect behaviour
by acknowledging the appropriate behaviour of pupils around them
and giving clear choices as to what will happen if they continue
not to do as they are told.
(15) These changes to teacher practice have been
found by the AEP to reduce the number of fixed term exclusions
and improve long term outcomes for all children and young people,
although especially those who show signs of challenging behaviour.
(16) Despite the positive contribution that EPs
can make towards helping schools to manage behaviour, supporting
schools to avoid the most serious interventions and ensuring improved
outcomes for the most vulnerable children, the AEP is concerned
that this is undermined by a lack of EP resources delivering frontline
services. The biggest challenge to supporting behaviour management
in schools is a lack of time and capacity, which results in attempting
to show teachers what strategies to employ, but without necessary
time to follow up on advice.
(17) A lack of frontline capacity is in part
caused by the unclear and uncertain arrangements that are in place
to fund the training of EPs. All trainees receive a bursary to
cover the first year of training, securing a paid placement in
their second and third years to complete their doctoral study.
University fees and first year bursaries are currently paid through
the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC), funded by
voluntary annual subscriptions from Local Authorities.
(18) Local Authorities are allocated non-ring-fenced
funding for EP training, and this money should be paid into the
central pot administered by CWDC for this purpose. However, due
to the voluntary nature of the system, and pressures on budgets,
Local Authorities are increasingly reluctant to either pay their
voluntary subscriptions or appoint trainee EPs.
(19) As with the training of other statutory
front line service professionals, eg teachers and social workers,
the joint training approach between employers and universities
is crucial in order to ensure that training is linked to the very
real needs of children, young people, schools and families. As
guaranteed funding supports the training of other statutory front
line children's services professionals it seems anomalous that
a similar system cannot be implemented for educational psychologists.
(20) This is precipitating a shortage of trained
EPs who are able to carry out statutory work and equally crucial
preventative interventions. This is an immediate problem that
needs to be resolved urgently. Current figures from the CWDC indicated
that approximately 33% of first year trainees only had their placements
for September 2010 finalised in July and August. Additionally,
the CWDC has announced that recruitment for the 2011 course is
frozen. This not only affects those wanting to enrol, but those
already in the training system, leaving them with no guarantees
that training can be completed.
(21) It is crucial to note that no increase in
funding is required to address this issue; rather funds that have
always been intended to support the training of EPs are used for
that purpose in an efficient manner. The previous funding model,
which was to top-slice all Local Authorities rather than seek
voluntary contributions, provided for a steady uptake of training
places.
(22) These developments threaten to restrict
an EP's work to statutory assessment and reactive casework. This
reduces the capacity of staff to be involved in equally vital,
but non-statutory preventative work. This includes working with
teachers and parents to manage behaviour and discipline, in spite
of the demonstrable outcomes and expertise that EPs can deliver.
Ways of engaging parents and carers in managing
their children's challenging behaviour
(23) The AEP has found that changes to a home
environment often affect children's behaviour in more ways than
changes to a school environment, making the involvement of parents
in managing a child's challenging behaviour essential. Early intervention
and identification when a child is young is equally important
when involving parents and carers because intervention can occur
when the child and parents have more changes to turn behaviour
around and see results. However, this requires sensitive handling
and mandating parents to attend parenting classes should not be
viewed as the only available strategy to engage parents.
(24) Parents are less likely to support schools
if they perceive that schools are being unfair to their child.
Schools can negate this by having a clear set of values and procedures
for dealing with challenging behaviour and discipline. If parents
are aware that their child is rewarded for appropriate behaviour,
it is more likely that they will support the school over matters
of discipline. Initiatives such as use of parent letters, merit
stars and personal appraisal can cement this approach.
(25) However, even more importantly, behaviour
management strategies should incorporate the child's perspective
in order to work on targeting the reason for behaviour and addressing
these points. This work is usually undertaken in consultation
with a teacher who can then devise a strategy to deal with these
difficulties. An EP is crucial in eliciting the child's perspective
and addressing the root causes of problematic behaviours.
How special educational needs can best be recognised
in schools' policies on behaviour and discipline
(26) The AEP has found that the consistency provided
by adopting holistic, whole school approaches for behaviour and
discipline will benefit all children, including those with SEN.
However, school policies should at the same time take account
of the individual child, their particular generalised or complex
SEN needs and the root causes, often developmental, that trigger
challenging behaviour.
(27) Nurture Groups, which are school-based educational
resources that try to meet the underlying needs of children who
have not had the opportunity to develop the necessary skills to
be successful learners, can also help to reintegrate children
successfully into the mainstream classroom, while supporting their
individual needs in a specialised setting.
(28) Typically, children participating in Nurture
Groups have difficulties in accessing the curriculum within the
mainstream classroom. A Nurture Group will always have a teacher
and support assistant who work closely with between eight to ten
children, meaning that the teachers can develop a close relationship
with each child, anticipating difficulties, intervening quickly
and tailoring their approach to each child's particular needs.
All children will spend some part of each day in their own mainstream
classroom.
(29) Nurture Groups can also provide parents
with a clear point of contact within the school to provide support
and advice as well as follow up on the positive reinforcement
that takes place in the educational setting.
(30) The benefits of Nurture Groups should be
more widely communicated across schools and Local Authorities
as they ensure close liaison and joint planning between class
teachers and other members of the workforce who are responsible
for the child's needs in school and at home.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In order for EPs to be able to contribute to
improving the performance and ability of schools to manage challenging
behavior, the Government should:
— look at how the children's workforce
can be trained appropriately in child development so as to better
equip teachers with the skills and knowledge to identify and address
the root causes of problematic and challenging behaviour
— encourage schools to adopt a holistic,
consistent whole school approach towards behaviour and discipline
that focuses on positive classroom management and acknowledges
how behaviour is related to learning outcomes
— give direction to Local Authorities that
educational psychology services should not only be available to
all children but also parents and teachers, so that the children's
workforce can draw on the added resource offered by EPs to provide
support and advice on how to identify causes of challenging behaviour
correctly and implement strategies accordingly
— look at the voluntary and unsustainable
funding of EPs and ensure that national funding is made available
to train EPs and ensure there is no reduction in their current
number.
September 2010
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