ABSTRACT
The need for schools to focus as much attention on overall ethos as on providing targeted support for individuals has been a consistent theme in the literatures on tackling emotional and behavioural difficulties and promoting positive mental health. The argument is that the way individual students behave in school results from an interaction between how they experience school life and the impact of their personal histories, and that messages which affect the way young people feel and behave are picked up both from what is explicitly taught and what is implicit in the way they are treated.
