Beyond classroom ‘management’: Understanding students with SEBD and building their executive skills

Nearly all children and young people in English schools do not disrupt their classrooms on a regular basis (Ellis and Tod 2009; Ofsted 2005: 4; Ofsted 2010), but the behaviour of a minority of students continues to be of considerable concern to school staff. Within the disruptive minority are students who may be called ‘the normal naughty’. These should be distinguished from that small percentage of pupils with serious social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD), on whose classroom needs this chapter focuses. It is argued that teachers need to understand and respond to the complex causation of these learners’ difficulties. School professionals will be helped by having an understanding of the likely deficits in the development of these children’s cognitive executive skills and teachers should think of how they can address these difficulties. A standard ‘behaviour management’ approach will usually prove insufficient.