Why FE’s behaviour systems may need a rethink

By Shaun Deakin, Director of Curriculum, Student Wellbeing and Safeguarding at the Trafford and Stockport College Group

Earlier this year, an article in the sector press asked a bold question: “What’s behind the rise in bad behaviour in colleges?” Their findings were clear—cyberbullying, smartphone addiction, vaping, revenge porn. College staff are facing anti-social behaviours that were rare just a decade ago.

As FE leaders, we must ask: Are our current responses keeping pace with the growing complexity of what learners carry with them?

The behaviourist approach, rooted in early 20th-century theories by Watson, Pavlov and Skinner centres on observable behaviours—rewarding compliance and punishing disruption. These principles shaped much of mainstream education policy. But they were developed on experiments with dogs and rats—not young adults navigating trauma, identity formation, and social disconnection.

FE learners may be older than school pupils, but they are still forming a sense of belonging, agency, and regulation. Traditional consequence-based systems can escalate rather than de-escalate behaviours. For example, a student late due to a difficult home situation may be met with punitive sanctions rather than support, reinforcing shame and mistrust. In doing so, we often miss the root of the behaviour entirely.

Attachment theory, first proposed by Bowlby (1968), highlighted the critical importance of secure emotional bonds during early childhood. Today, neuroscience extends this understanding: brains continue developing into the mid-20s, and trauma, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and social isolation have lasting effects on a young person’s ability to self-regulate.

Researchers like Dan Siegel, Bruce Perry, and Stephen Porges have shown that when the brain perceives threat, it reverts to survival mode: fight, flight, freeze or flop. In this state, learning is biologically impossible. As Perry puts it, “The brain can’t learn if it doesn’t feel safe.” If our behaviour policies do not account for these neurological realities, they risk compounding harm rather than promoting growth.

Relational practice is not soft—it is structured, care rooted in respect, trust, and co-regulation. It prioritises professional relationships that create safety and predictability, enabling learners to engage and thrive. In FE terms, this means moving beyond a tick-box policy response to a whole-college culture that sees behaviour as communication—not defiance.

Strategies like “connect before you correct” or “know my name, see my story” exemplify relational practice in action. This isn’t about removing consequences—it’s about contextualising them, understanding what a young person is trying to say before rushing to judgment. Consequences remain—but they are restorative, not retributive.

For relational practice to succeed, it must be more than a classroom strategy—it must become the cultural fabric of the organisation. This starts with leadership. Senior leaders must reframe behaviour not as a discipline issue but a wellbeing and inclusion priority.

Systemic change involves:

• Embedding relational language in policies and protocols

• Whole-college CPD on trauma, attachment, and adolescent brain development

• Inclusive, non-escalatory behaviour strategies

• Safe spaces for reflection rather than punishment

Where this has been trialled—such as with initiatives like Belong—it has led to significant reductions in suspensions and improved staff morale.

In FE settings, the terms relational practice and trauma-informed practice are often used interchangeably—but they are not synonymous. This mislabelling can create confusion in policy, training, and implementation. Understanding their distinction is critical to embedding effective culture change.

Trauma-informed practice is a framework based on recognising the widespread impact of trauma, understanding its signs, and integrating knowledge into policies and interactions to avoid re-traumatisation. It asks: “What happened to you?” rather than “what’s wrong with you?” Its foundations come from neuroscience, public health, and psychology—often rooted in the work of pioneers like Felitti, Perry and Harris.

However, recent critiques—such as that in the sector press —warn that education policy may be tipping into a “trauma-informed trap”, where the term becomes a buzzword, stripped of nuance, and used without genuine systemic change. One-off CPD sessions or checklist approaches risk reducing trauma-informed practice to surface-level compliance rather than deep cultural reform.

Relational practice, meanwhile, is not necessarily dependent on a trauma history—it’s about how we engage, not just why. It is proactive, not reactive. Where trauma-informed practice provides the lens, relational practice provides the language and the toolkit. It focuses on humanising systems through connection, co-regulation, mutual respect and belonging.

Both practices are necessary. But equating them dilutes their power. Trauma-informed practice is the why. Relational practice is the how. When misapplied or oversimplified, colleges may believe that a single training session ticks the box—when in reality, lasting change demands relational consistency in leadership, curriculum, behaviour and policy.

Staff in FE are under immense pressure. Managing behaviour with limited resources and rising complexity is emotionally and professionally taxing. But the cost of exclusion—academic, emotional, and economic—is far greater.

We need a sector-wide narrative shift: Behaviour is communication; exclusion is not accountability. Evidence from relational models shows decreases in fixed-term exclusions and suspensions, higher student engagement and retention and improved staff wellbeing and relational confidence

We have the science. We have promising practice. What we need now is courage. A courage to lead differently. A courage to challenge inherited systems.

I urge sector leaders, AoC, DfE, and Ofsted to:

• Review national behaviour frameworks with a relational lens

• Pilot CPD programmes on neuroscience-informed behaviour practice

• Evaluate “belonging” as a core metric—not just logs of behaviour incidents

Imagine if Ofsted inspected colleges on how safe students feel—not just how safe they are. Imagine if policy prioritised trust, not just control.

Behaviourist models aren’t obsolete—but they are incomplete. To truly support our learners, it’s time to lead with connection, not just correction. FE deserves nothing less.