Louise Wales Safeguarding & Behaviour Consultancy

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Users will soon have to verify their age by providing identification or using an artificial intelligence age estimation tool. The move comes days after ITV News reported that teenagers were exposed to multiple examples of extremist content on the platform #itvnews @georgehancorn

Some children aren’t ready to learn — and that’s okay.

The most important work we can do is offer nurture. Ensure children feel safe, start to know that they are worthy of love and offer them connection. 🤍

Never underestimate how important that is.

Because one day, those children will look back and they will remember the love, the safety, and the kindness that helped them grow ✨🤍✨

Before we label a child, listen to their story ✨🤍✨
(𝒬𝓊𝑜𝓉𝑒𝓈 𝑜𝓃 𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓊𝓂𝒶, 𝓊𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓂𝒾𝓈𝒹𝒾𝒶𝑔𝓃𝑜𝓈𝒾𝓈)

🤍 Safety first 🤍

For children to engage in academic learning they need to be able to access their frontal cortex or ‘thinking brain’ - this is where we’re able to listen, respond, process, retain and learn information. It’s a great place to be!

However, many of our children aren’t functioning from their frontal cortex, they’re functioning from their reptilian brain.
When children are stuck in their ‘red brains’ their ‘thinking brain’ has gone off-line.

When children are stuck, they need adults to help them to feel safe, we need to build trusting relationships, offer empathy, validation and co-regulation.

Our reptilian brain is there to help us survive. It gives us the power and strength to flight or fight when there is a perceived threat.

It’s important we begin to recognise the difference. Children aren’t ‘choosing’ or ‘deciding’ to behave in a way which isn’t acceptable. The likelihood is, they are having a strong feeling and need help. Often children will present as angry but if you look closer and get curious, the child is probably terrified.

So, it’s not really a matter of whether we decide to prioritise academic learning or emotional well-being, the choice is an illusion. Without well-being, there is no learning ✨🤍✨

Amazing training from Gareth K. Thomas to remind us how trauma impacts on our children’s emotional brain development. Children who’ve experienced trauma develop strategies to survive.

As we return to work tomorrow, let’s try and not take things personally because children with trauma believe they’re monsters.

To protect them from this feeling, they activate a forcefield. We call this SHAME.

When the forcefield is active, nothing gets in or out.

To everyone else, they look like every other child.

The monster is nowhere to be seen.

If someone suggests they’re a monster, they’ll fight back.

This is why, even a gentle chat about a tricky behaviour (“Why did you say those unkind words to your friend?”) can be met with denial and deflection.

To the untrained eye, it appears they don’t care. They aren’t taking this important feedback on board. They’ll never learn.

But when the force field is active, there is no learning.

Shame is a survival strategy. It helps children with trauma survive.

Through the safety and predictability of strong, reliable relationships, we gradually begin to permeate the force field. We show our kids that we see who they are behind their protective shield, and that we love what we see.

𝐀 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

I created this page to share my views — and recently, I’ve noticed increasing criticism directed towards schools and school staff. I hope this post resonates with other DSLs and school leaders, and if it reaches parents or carers too, even better 🤍

Across the country, school staff are working tirelessly under immense pressure and ever-reducing budgets. In all my years visiting and working in schools, I’ve never met a single leader or teacher who didn’t want every child who walks through their doors to achieve their full potential.

Many of us arrange childcare for our own children so we can come to work and care for other people’s children. Often, our own children get what’s left of us after seven hours of enthusiasm, encouragement, and dedication.

We arrive early, we stay late, and we often skip breaks — not because we have to, but because we care deeply about creating a safe and positive environment for every child.

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𝐈 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝.
I go to work to do my job — a job I’ve loved and taken pride in for over 16 years.

My role is to help protect children from abuse and neglect. That means having difficult conversations with parents and carers, and sometimes, it means I’m not liked. And that’s okay.

Because my focus is, and always will be, the wellbeing of the children. 🤍

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Lately, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the impact of negative narratives around schools and staff. When children hear adults speaking disrespectfully or angrily about their teachers, it causes real confusion.

Children think, “My parents chose this school. They send me here every day. Surely they trust these adults?”

That conflict can make children feel emotionally unsafe and uncertain about who to trust — which, understandably, affects their engagement and learning.

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𝐈 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲.
I also sleep well knowing that, if doing so means some parents may not like me, that’s a price worth paying.

What would not sit well with me is knowing a child came to harm because I avoided a difficult conversation in order to keep the peace.

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Schools have a statutory responsibility to keep children safe. Our aim is always to build positive, respectful relationships with parents and carers, to listen, to question, and to understand — not to judge.

But ultimately, whether we like each other or not is beside the point. What truly matters is that we work together for the children.

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𝐖𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥-𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐟-𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦.
Let’s take this time to recharge, reflect, and remember that we are all working towards the same goal: giving children the best possible start in life.

Breaking News!

British courts will no longer presume contact with both parents is in “the best interest of the child.”

Finally. Now let’s see what changes.

It was already stated in the 1989 Children Act that the needs of the child are paramount, but the family courts managed to ignore that for the last 35 years and continued making orders that force children to be retraumatised when seeing abusive parents.

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Anna Maxwell Martin had some strong words on BBC Radio 4 this week, do you agree with her? We will discuss this on Points of View tomorrow at 10am live on YouTube - Tune in! #sen #education #schools #funding #needs #teachers #teachertok #teaching

“We need to fundamentally rethink how adults relate to children.”

By removing punishment,
control,
coercion,
belittling,
manipulation…

By sharing power,
building connection,
nurturing trust,
showing respect,
listening with empathy…

How are you rethinking how you relate to children?

Comment below!

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Reposted from

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