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As well as high numbers of children who are persistently absent from school, ‘internal truancy’; children being at school but not attending lessons, has become an increasingly challenging issue within education settings across the UK since the Covid pandemic. The scale of the problem is difficult to quantify, as it’s not systematically recorded by schools, but reports by teachers show it’s a press

The Cultivating Change team at Jamie’s Farm hosted our first interactive online workshop, attempting to unpick the drivers of challenging behaviour in young people.  Stemming from the success of the 2023 Cultivating Change webinar series, which addressed overarching issues impacting young people, including behaviour management and the wider education sector, the workshop aimed to provide a platfor

When it comes to teaching, we are told from our first day that consistency is key in managing behaviour. Children need stability and are also very quick to sniff out injustice, so consistency is important in applying behaviour policies. Evidence suggests that consistency is indeed key for children in building trusting relationships with adults*. But how does this work in practice, when in reality,

Behaviour challenges in school are not new, but initial findings from a new Ofsted report show that 42% of teachers think that behaviour has deteriorated since the pandemic. In September, NASUWT released their ‘Behaviour in Schools’ report, which made for depressing reading. 90% of teachers reported being verbally abused by pupils in the last 12 months, and 37% reported being physically abused. Wh

Q. An individual who made great progress at the farm has slipped back into old habits… how can I re-engage them?    I recently accompanied a group to Jamie’s Farm and was impressed by the progress made by each of our young people over the week. One young person in particular underwent an incredibly positive transformation during our stay. Having been selected due to their low engagement and self-e

Back in 2021, we released the first of an online series called "Digging Deep". We're happy to share the video link with you now on the Cultivating Change portal. You can also expect to see recent, exclusive recordings going live very soon. In this session, Jonathan Dimbleby interviews Tish Feilden, followed by a debate chaired by James Westhead exploring the question, 'vulnerable children have bee

By Alice Mackenzie - Senior Visit Coordinator at Jamie's Farm  We’ve all been in that performance management meeting where so many strengths are listed and yet, the only things that stand out to us and stay with us are the things we did not do or those we did not do so well. We come out of those meetings often feeling underappreciated, undervalued and generally, ‘not good enough’. We also all know

The power of a trusted relationship with a single adult can be transformative for young people, especially those who face adverse childhood experiences.“She changed my life. What she did for me lived on forever. In a child who was really empty, she made me feel OK in myself and that was life-changing.” Katriona O-Sullivan, Lecturer and Author of ‘Poor’, describing one of her primary school teacher

Developing Relationships With technology replacing human interaction in our increasingly digital world, research continues to show the importance of human connection and secure relationships, especially in healthy childhood development. Humans are social beings, wired for connection in order to thrive physically and mentally.  The final evaluation of Headstart, a national programme piloting mental

Q: I teach Spanish at an inner city academy in Leeds. We have really good uptake at GCSE and our whole department particularly enjoys teaching KS4. I love my Y10 class and have taught them since Y9. We have a really positive relationship and enjoy mutual trust and respect. However, recently some of the male students have begun to test boundaries and mess around and I feel like our positive classro

Q: I'm an NQT in an Academy in Bristol. I have been teaching the same Year 9 class for almost a year now and despite my best efforts, there is one boy who I just cannot seem to remain positive with. He is at the lower end of the class in terms of attainment, and clearly struggles with the learning. In every lesson he starts off by distracting other pupils/shouting out in a fairly low level way, wh

Trigger Warning: This post contains details of self-harm and suicide  As a society we are not great at sanctioning expression of negative feelings; whether it be anger, despair, frustration or sadness. In the current world, so badly affected by the Covid pandemic and by global and financial insecurity, it’s unsurprising that children feel more anxious and alone than ever; many of them have very fe

‘Like Spiderman said; ‘With great power comes great responsibility’, but nobody’s teaching you about it’ Jack, 19 This morning alone I have Googled ‘how to mend a leaky tap’, made a dental appointment, and rung a friend for help when my bike got a puncture. Thank goodness for mobile phones! With almost 90% of adults in the UK now owning a smartphone, we’ve learnt to rely on their benefits, and the

Teachers are doing their very best but are seeing the detrimental effects of poverty daily. In the words of this secondary teacher in Wiltshire, so much that is taken for granted in reasonably well-off families is absent for those who grow up with poverty.“Children growing up in poverty overcome challenges before they even get to school and are more likely to be reluctant learners.  It can cause d