Our commitment to Trauma Informed Practice will be further strengthened next week as expert Jase connects with our Senior Leadership Team on Monday.

Having worked closely with us, Jase has been instrumental in aligning our approaches to better support children. Read on to hear what he has to say when things go wrong.

Things don’t always go as planned at school. From time to time we see stress responses from our students. Yes, stress response, as in the body’s response to stress. This is the term that has replaced ‘behaviour’, and is backed by modern science.Our understanding of learning, how the brain works, and the importance of

connections and relationships has evolved since we were all students at school.

One of the things we’ve probably all experienced, either directly or indirectly, is

someone ‘misbehaving’ or responding to stress. When something happened it was always followed up by a consequence. Back in the day it was largely punitive, so in other words the student was punished. 

Fast forward to the present day, and we still follow up incidents with a consequence, and more often than not, that consequence is a conversation. This doesn’t mean we let kids get away with it, or let kids do whatever they want. It simply means we understand that underneath the stress response lies what is really going on.

Because we understand stress and the impact on the brain and body so much better nowadays it means we can meet everyone with compassion and understanding, rather than just punishment - which doesn’t work, and has never worked.

This response (rather than a reaction) is designed so that everyone involved gets to walk away with their mana.