Every September, schools renew their focus on behaviour. Rules are reissued, expectations set, and systems tightened. The logic is simple: order creates the conditions for learning. But in practice, behaviour policies often achieve the opposite. Rigid systems may produce silence in classrooms, but they also produce silence in young people. Silencing their curiosity, their engagement, and too often their belief that school is for them.

When a student struggles with behaviour, it is rarely just defiance. A slammed door or a refusal to work is almost always a symptom of something else. It might be hunger, tiredness or anxiety. It might be an undiagnosed learning need that makes the lesson feel impossible. It might be trauma outside school that no one has asked about. Behaviour is communication: a signal that something is not working.

I know this personally. As a teenager, I spent time in an isolation booth. I was not violent or unsafe. The problem was that the system expected every student to learn in the same way, to fit into the same box. But people learn differently, and I was disengaged because the curriculum did not connect with me. I was capable, but I could not see the point of what we were learning or how it connected to life outside the classroom. That lack of flexibility left me struggling to relate to education at all.

For many young people, the reasons are different: unmet needs, challenges at home, or a lack of support for mental health. But the pattern is the same. Behaviour issues are not about students being unwilling. They are about schools failing to meet students where they are.

In 2023 to 24, schools in England issued more than 954,000 suspensions, the highest on record and a 21 per cent rise in just one year. Permanent exclusions also increased by 16 per cent to almost 11,000. That figure represents hundreds of thousands of moments where a young person was removed from learning.

We know the consequences. Exclusion, whether temporary or permanent, is strongly linked to worse long term outcomes, from lower qualifications to higher risks of unemployment and poor mental health. And the impact is not felt equally. Children on free school meals are more than four times more likely to be permanently excluded than their peers, while pupils with special educational needs face significantly higher suspension rates.

Yet despite these record numbers, behaviour outcomes are not improving. If punishment alone was effective, exclusions would be falling. Instead, the system is recycling the same problems year after year.

If we want better behaviour, we need to start by recognising that young people are human beings first. Too often, punishment falls hardest on those dealing with things beyond their control. A child might end up in isolation for wearing the wrong shoes, but what if their family simply cannot afford the right ones? In those moments, we are not teaching responsibility; we are punishing circumstances.

Behaviour is not a problem to be solved, it is a message to be understood. Schools that take time to ask why something is happening rather than simply reacting create the conditions for change. Trauma-informed approaches help staff see the story behind the behaviour. Flexible policies recognise that students learn in different ways, and that a curriculum must feel relevant if young people are to feel a sense of belonging.

But the bigger shift is cultural. It is about moving away from seeing children as risks to be managed and towards seeing them as potential to be nurtured. Discipline should not be about compliance at all costs. It should be about creating the conditions where every student feels safe, supported and able to take part in learning.

None of this is about lowering expectations. It is about raising our expectations of what schools can achieve when we build trust and connection into the heart of education.

We already see evidence of schools taking this approach and succeeding. Some secondaries that have embedded restorative practice report not only a reduction in exclusions but an improvement in academic results. Primary schools that invest in nurture groups and targeted support see calmer classrooms and stronger progress. Staff in these schools often describe a cultural shift: behaviour improves not because rules are harsher, but because relationships are stronger.

This does not mean behaviour policies should disappear. Clear expectations, consistency and fairness are essential. But they must be combined with humanity. Rules on their own create order, but not connection. And without connection, order is fragile.