Understanding your pupil’s behaviour: a pilot study from two primary schools in Kent

The Solihull Approach was developed to help frontline workers be more effective in their work as they are in the ideal position to intervene early in any potential emotional or behavioural difficulty for a child. The Approach has been developed for both early years’ practitioners and those working with young people in their school years. The theoretical model has been developed from three concepts: containment, reciprocity, and behaviour management, taken from psychotherapeutic, child development and behavioural models respectively. A new programme specifically for schools, Understanding Your Pupils Behaviour, has been developed.

At present most of the evaluation and research has been on the 0-5-year work with Health Visitors. Further work needs to look at the effectiveness of this in the school years and in other settings outside of the health sector. The piloting of the Solihull Approach in a school setting to help school staff better understand their pupils’ behaviour provides an ideal opportunity to assess the impact of the approach in this setting.

A mixed method design combining both quantitative measures and qualitative interviews was used to assess the impact of the training. The study focuses on 2 primary schools, an experimental school that received the training and another matched control school. Data was collected pre-training and 6 months after the final training session. The teacher variables measured included anxiety, burnout, compassion satisfaction and fatigue, self-concept and teacher efficacy. Interviews with 7school staff who have received the training were undertaken.

Quantitative statistical analysis found that six months after training, teachers in School A showed a statistically significant increase in satisfaction with their helping role, self-esteem, and teacher efficacy scores as well as a decrease in feeling burnt out/stressed. The teachers at School B who did not receive the training only showed an improvement in teacher efficacy over the period.
Qualitative thematic analysis found that overall, the teachers found that following aspects useful: that they were offered a framework that underpinned all aspects of the work they do; focus on the relationships not only with pupils, but teachers, support staff and parents as well; and the focus on well-being and its link with learning.

Conclusions should be treated tentatively due to limitations associated with samples size, matching of school and the inability to control for other factors.