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Teachers are confident managing behaviour. But confidence alone doesn't solve the challenge schools are facing.
Across primary and secondary education, staff already know how to respond when behaviour disrupts learning. They apply behaviour policies, use consistent routines and work hard to maintain positive classroom environments.
Yet many schools are still experiencing the same pattern: repeated incidents, repeated follow-up, and significant amounts of staff time being diverted away from teaching, learning and support.
This raises an important question for school leaders, SENDCos and pastoral teams.
If staff already know what to do, why is behaviour still taking up so much capacity?
The issue isn't always confidence
96% of primary teachers and 94% of secondary teachers said they felt confident managing misbehaviour. Yet teachers reported losing around seven minutes in every 30 minutes of teaching time to it (DfE School and College Voice, May 2025).
Staff feel equipped, but a considerable amount of time is still being lost.
That matters because confidence and capacity are not the same thing.
A member of staff can know exactly how to respond to behaviour and still spend a significant part of their day managing disruption, following up incidents and supporting pupils who need additional help.
When behaviour becomes a capacity challenge
Lost lesson time is only part of the picture.
Repeated incidents often create additional demands across the wider school:
- Follow-up conversations
- Behaviour recording and monitoring
- Pastoral support
- Parent communication
- Planning and reviewing interventions
Over time, these demands accumulate.
The DfE's Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders research found that 59% of teachers and middle leaders said they spent too much time following up behaviour incidents.
Again, this is not a confidence issue. It is a capacity issue.
Schools may have staff who know what to do, but repeated disruption can still place significant pressure on classroom teachers, pastoral teams, SEND staff and leaders.
For senior leaders, this can create a difficult tension. Behaviour systems may be working as intended, yet staff still feel stretched. Lessons may be calmer than they once were, but repeated disruption continues to absorb valuable time and energy.
The challenge becomes less about knowing how to respond and more about reducing how often the same situations need responding to.
Looking beyond managing behaviour
Responding effectively in the moment will always be important.
But for many schools, there is growing interest in what can help reduce the need for repeated intervention in the first place.
This means becoming curious about recurring patterns and considering what might help staff recognise need earlier across the school.
Not to replace behaviour management. Not to lower expectations.
But to complement existing approaches with a deeper understanding of what may be affecting a pupil's ability to regulate, participate, engage and learn.
Beyond Managing Behaviour
If staff already know how to respond to behaviour, the next question is where schools focus their effort.
More training in behaviour management may not be the answer. Creating greater capacity might be.
Over the coming weeks, Thrive will be exploring how schools can move beyond managing behaviour alone and consider approaches that help staff recognise earlier and respond consistently.
Because the issue isn't always confidence. Sometimes it's capacity.
Explore Beyond Managing Behaviour
Creating greater capacity starts with understanding how behaviour is experienced across a school.
Join Thrive's upcoming webinar, Bridging the Behaviour Gap: Are Leaders and Staff Seeing the Same Picture?, where we'll explore why leaders and classroom staff can sometimes have very different experiences of behaviour, what this can mean for consistency and support, and how schools can bridge the gap between policy and day-to-day practice.
Tuesday 6 October | 4pm to 4.45pm
