Ensuring behaviour policy closes the gap with Adam Hayes

Behaviour policies were never designed to be a log of misery. But for too many children, that's exactly what they've become.

In this episode, Dale is joined by Adam Hayes, Managing Director of Therapeutic Thinking, to discuss behaviour policies - and what it would actually take to make them work for every child.

Adam brings extensive experience across social care and education, and a refreshingly honest perspective on why so many schools are still punishing children for having an unmet need rather than helping them address it.

Together, they explore:

- Why behaviour policies too often focus entirely on deficit - what children aren't doing - rather than building a shared understanding of what we value and why.

- What a behaviour curriculum actually is, and why it's the missing piece that turns a policy from a document on a shelf into something that's lived and breathed across a school.

- Why children should be taught why a rule exists, not just expected to follow it.

- Why every interaction is an intervention, and why children need to feel liked, loved, respected, or safe before behaviour change can happen.

- The problem with rewarding 100% attendance.

- Why we need bold children who ask why — and what we lose when we train that instinct out of them.

"Experiences lead to feelings, and feelings create behaviours. If my intervention wouldn't work in the staff room, why do I think it will work in the classroom?"

Adam Hayes