But you’ve got to go to school you’re the headteacher!

We all remember the joke. The thing is, as adults we also know that, just like pupils, there are days when we could use some time out for ourselves. Call it what you will, a mental health day, a time-out. Maybe adults have fancier names for the same thing but what can children do when they need it? Their behaviour communicates that to you! As adults we know that we can’t cling to an adult at the gate, describe stomach aches or refuse to work so we (usually) find more sophisticated ways out. It’s difficult being a child though, you literally grab at the first thing that allows you to escape! And anything other than compliance can make it difficult to adhere to a school behaviour policy but perhaps the policy needs to change - after all the word is rather punitive in the schooling context. It is like calling the highway code the fixed penalty code. Perhaps a relational policy about how we wish to interact with one other in school would help children recognise that they are finding it hard to relate, that there is a difficulty they can’t express (and therein lies their problem). Perhaps by listening we can move away from the shame of rule-breaking to where the difficulty lies? Breathing space is something the curriculum and staff could really use. A relational approach also communicates the school ethos and more importantly the response - something very soothing to parents who worry about education being how it used to be in their day.