Behind the Behaviour: training on behaviour as communicationEvery behaviour is a message.

Story. Jade, 13, is told in front of the class to put her phone away. She swears and walks out. Her teacher writes “defiant”. What Jade knows, and the teacher doesn’t, is that the last time an adult took her phone she lost contact with her mum for a week.

Theory. Behaviour is communication. We separate what a child does from the reason underneath it, and show why a warning or sanction given in the moment usually answers the behaviour and misses the reason.

Action. Separating Reason from Behaviour. In pairs, staff take a moment from their own week, write down what the child did, then list three possible reasons from the child’s side, before deciding what a response to the reason would look like.

By the end of this part people can describe a behaviour from the child’s side and name at least two possible reasons behind it before they respond.

You leave with Separating Reason from Behaviour, and five questions to ask yourself before responding to a behaviour.

Story. Kai, 14, has moved three times this year. In his new home he goes silent and stays in his room whenever his carer raises her voice, even when she is laughing on the phone.

Theory. Dan Siegel’s window of tolerance (1999) explains why a child whose early world was not safe can tip into fight, flight or shutdown at things other people barely notice. Bowlby’s attachment theory (1969) explains why that shows up most around the adults closest to them. Kai’s silence is a stress response, not rudeness.

Action. Window of Tolerance. Staff map an anonymised child they support: what happened to them, what tips them out of the window, what it looks like when they go up (shouting, running) or down (silence, switching off), and what brings them back.

By the end of this part people can explain the window of tolerance in plain words to a colleague, and map one child’s triggers and early signs onto it.

You leave with A one-page Window of Tolerance map linking a child’s history to what they do now.

Story. Mason, 9, is under the kitchen table at his foster home, kicking at anyone who comes close. His carer, her partner and his social worker, there for a visit, are all talking to him at once. Each one is asking him a question.

Theory. Bruce Perry’s Regulate, Relate, Reason: a child has to feel calm before they can connect, and connect before they can think it through. Dan Hughes’s PACE describes how the adult stays alongside the child while that happens. For schools, we cover what the DfE’s 2026 guidance on restrictive interventions says about prevention, de-escalation and seclusion.

Action. PACE and Spot, Soothe, Shift. Staff replay Mason’s moment in threes, with one adult, fewer words and low-demand phrases, then rehearse scenarios from their own classrooms and homes and swap roles so everyone practises as the adult.

By the end of this part people can use PACE phrases and the Spot, Soothe, Shift steps to bring a tense moment down without threats or ultimatums, and say what their setting’s rules expect before any physical intervention.

You leave with De-escalation steps and phrases, written on a card staff keep with them.

Story. The next morning Jade walks into school expecting to be sent home. Nobody mentions yesterday. The incident record says she was “aggressive and abusive”. One day she will read it.

Theory. Relationships survive hard moments when an adult comes back and repairs them, and children in care often have little experience of that happening. We cover the school duty to record significant incidents involving force and to tell parents or carers in writing, and record-keeping in children’s homes under regulation 35 of the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015.

Action. Rewind and Replay. Staff rewind one incident and replay it from the child’s side, plan the first two minutes of a repair conversation, then rewrite a sample incident record together so it describes what happened, what came before, what helped and what the child said.

By the end of this part people can plan and open a repair conversation, and write an incident record with no labels that a child could read without shame.

You leave with A repair conversation guide and a checklist for recording incidents.