‘The energy of violence’: Transformations in Adolescence

by Dr Catherine Brennan | Jan 16, 2026 | Behaviour management, Blog

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In their 2023 crime survey the National College of Policing report that violence against women and girls (VAWG) accounts for 20% of recorded crime, and that reported VAWG has increased 37% since 2018 (though the actual figure may be much higher)[1].

VAWG is not confined to any social grouping, but for the purposes of this blog I will concentrate on my own area of specialism; I spent many years engaging with, and working on behaviour change, with students in alternative educational provision for children who experience social, emotional and mental health difficulties. The work brought challenges and much joy to those of us involved – personally I have been deeply affected by the humour, optimism and love of life I’ve seen in children with every reason to surrender to the impact of trauma, historic and ongoing which they experience.

The majority of young people educated in non-mainstream settings are boys[2] and, whilst I have worked with girls, it is with the male cohort where my experience has been focused, and it is here, I would argue, that work on improving outcomes around attitudes and behaviour towards women and girls is most urgent. Having spent many years designing, implementing and assessing initiatives around behaviour change, I am convinced of the generative potential of intervening during adolescence to effect meaningful and enduring change among students; this is the case in terms of the ways in which they perceive and interact with others and the world around them, and is arguably more crucial to their futures than their academic attainment.

Professor Sarah Jane Blakemore and others have produced an impressive body of work to evidence the potential in adolescence to change brain chemistry among children, regardless of the adverse childhood experiences they have been subject to. Blakemore’s work shows the way in which appropriate teaching and support during a period when the brain is ‘particularly malleable’ has the potential to help children to make choices which will have positive impact on their future life chances [3]

In my own work with boys aged between 12 and 18 I have seen depressingly high levels of casual misogyny in the attitudes they express. The rise of online influencers such as Andrew Tate has exacerbated the issues and normalized the language and ideas which boys, young men and often girls see as ‘banter’; this can range from relatively low level comments to deeply disrespectful and often threatening utterances – all of which contribute to a toxic atmosphere for women and girls. It was our responsibility as educators to create a zero-tolerance culture where warm and mutually respectful relationships could endure regardless of the challenge to attitudes and behaviour which was essential to supporting boys and young men to understand the importance of respect and consent in healthy relationships and in a safe and healthy world for everyone.

A key element of the strategy used in the school where I worked was to challenge all breaches of our rules around positive behaviour. Challenge needed to be direct, immediate and clear enough for the child to understand what was being challenged and why; challenge could be made in informal ways, relying on the relationships of warmth and trust between staff and students.

Another key component of our work on attitudes around VAWG was to deliver targeted bespoke education work promptly and shaped to the needs of groups and individuals. In creating successful interventions it is essential that systems are in place which identify problem behaviour in individuals, groups and sub-groups. To be effective our work needs to be relevant and current and to be rapidly deployed as soon as the issues are noticed. A management information system needs the capacity to recognize and analyse thematic strands of problem behaviour and attitudes; it needs to help staff tailor innovative interventions which can be delivered by engaging students without jeopardizing the relationships between staff and students upon which effective work with children and young people depends.

VAWG is one area of problem behaviour which those of us working with children need to address urgently with specialist interventions, there are many others. If encouragement were needed for institutions working with children and young people to identify and focus on attitudes and behaviours towards women and girls, the Office of National Statistics summary provides sobering evidence:

Crimes which disproportionately affect women and girls, such as sexual violence, domestic abuse, and stalking have devastating consequences. .. considering some of the less hidden crimes, we estimate 1 in 3 women over the age of 16 in Great Britain were subjected to at least one form of harassment in the last year. This increases to 2 in 3 for women aged 16 to 34.[4] (My emphasis)

The Netflix series Adolescence[5] has brought to the fore in recent weeks the impact of misogyny on the lives of children, families and communities. I don’t particularly want to add my voice to the chorus of comments about this deeply affecting piece; however, I do think it’s important to keep in view the potential to shape young minds in positive ways, and against the barrage of harmful ideas and language which bombard them. In my experience it is possible to offer alternative views and embed respectful ways of being. Those who work with children and young people must build authentic adult/child relationships where mutual respect and trust are established and maintained. This means having integrity as the adult, creating healthy boundaries and being willing to challenge, even at the risk of being unpopular; it means being proactive and success-orientated and creating environments where children and young people can make positive choices. [6]None of this is easy, but the consequences of abandoning the effort at this point are unthinkable for women and girls, for boys and young men, and for the world at large.

[1] Crime Survey 2023, National College of Policing

[2] Ofsted Investigative Report into Alternative Provision, 2018 notes that over 70% of pupils in Pupil Referral Units, unregistered AP and independent special schools are boys from impoverished backgrounds

[3] Blakemore, S-J, Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain, London 2018, p.95

[4] Elkin, M, ‘Violence against women and girls: Helping ot understand the scale and impact of the problem’, Newsletter of the office of National Statistics, November 2021

[5] For a discussion of ‘being the adult’ in professional relationships wtih children, see Bluestein, J, The Win-Win Classroom: A Fresh and Positive Look at Classroom Management, Thousand Oaks, 2008

[6] Adolescence, Thorne J, Graham S, Netflix, 2025

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Being the Adult in Behaviour Management

by LearnTrek Writing Team | Oct 11, 2023 | Alternative Provision, Behaviour management, Blog

Behaviour Management in Alternative Provision

Children who struggle to cope in mainstream settings often present with behaviour which the adults find difficult to deal with. There are different schools of thought about how best schools should manage problematic student behaviour. England’s Behaviour Tsar, Tom Bennett advocates ‘zero tolerance regimes’ where children are sent out of classrooms if they threaten the learning of others. In common with, from what I can see is most professionals who post on LinkedIn, I favour a needs-based approach founded on authentic relationships of mutual respect, when it comes to creating the best outcomes for children, and this applies, perhaps most acutely, for those for whom inclusion is a daily challenge.

Regardless of the philosophical perspective on behaviour management one adopts, I suggest that key to an effective strategy is the commitment of the professional to the role of “the adult” in the relationships they have with the children they work with.

For many of the children who find themselves in ‘Inclusion Units’, Alternative Provisions or Special Schools, the adult/child relationship is a complex proposition; they will all have had difficult interactions with staff at school, for some, relationships with adults in their communities and families are painful and unsafe.

For this reason it’s important to establish what a positive adult/child relationship entails, and to model it in our work. Jane Bluestein, the American educator, breaks down what she calls the ‘win-win’ approach necessary for a positive adult/child relationship in the classroom (Bluestein J, The Win Win Classroom: A Fresh and Positive Look at Classroom Management, Thousand Oaks, 2008).

Jane Bluestein on Behaviour Management

For me, Bluestein’s model is as good a description of being the adult and professional in working with children as I’ve seen, and I’d like to suggest that we could all benefit from acquainting ourselves with it.

Bluestein notes the importance of 8 key factors:

Suppotiveness
Boundaries
Integrity
Eliminate double standards
Win-win
Proactivity
Success orientation
Self care

According to Bluestein, it’s the responsibility of the adult to ensure that all these elements are present at all times in our relationships with our students. We need to be sure that whatever we say or do is driven by supportiveness for the child; that we set and hold boundaries and communicate them clearly; that we create situations where the child and the professional both feel they have the outcome they need from any interaction; that every aspect of the environment is geared towards the child achieving success; that we are proactive in anticipating any problems and mitigating them in advance; that we have the integrity to stand up for what we think is right, even when it’s difficult; that we don’t demonstrate double standards and that we look after our own wellbeing and resilience so that we can continue to be a positive adult in their school lives.

Bluestein’s model asks a lot from the professional, and balancing all 8 elements of being the adult can be an extremely big ask for staff working at the sharp end of challenging behaviour. The best possible model for implementing this doesn’t just ask for more from individual staff; it puts the onus on leadership to find ways to ensure these 8 features can be embedded in the fabric of the school or community. Using these 8 as a starting point can help ensure that processes, policies and practice are aligned to create the best possible set of circumstances for staff to “be the adult”.

Being the Adult in Practice

An example from my own experience involved the concept of eliminating double standards. One of the hard and fast rules of the AP I worked at was that fizzy drinks were banned from school grounds. In order to give this policy the best chance of succeeding, staff were also banned from consuming fizzy drinks on site, a policy which (during my first week) I had failed to register in my cursory reading of the staff handbook. I thus strolled into the lunch area one day with a can of diet coke in my hand, only to be met with (playful) consternation from one of my senior colleagues. He publicly challenged me on my consumption of the offending item and made me pour the contents down the kitchen sink in full view of our students.

It was done with a light touch and in good humour, but it underscored for me the importance of being able to challenge problem behaviour in adults in order to show that the same rules apply to all. Had I been allowed to consume the diet coke in view of students, it would have contributed to a culture where students felt a strong sense of injustice around the ways the rules were applied. While in mainstream settings it could be argued that understanding the complexities of how rules apply differently to children and adults is possible, it is certainly not a great idea to operate a set of double standards in the context of children whose relationships with adults in education has been fraught. Here was an example of how integrity and the elimination of double standards had been built into the culture of a school in such a way that staff felt comfortable to challenge a senior person (new as I was). In this way, I argue, it is possible to embed these 8 principles in practice across a provision to ensure the best possible chance of success and limit the extra “work” staff need to do to inhabit the role of adult.

In her book Bluestein also gives detailed examples of what this might look like in practice; it’s an accessible and insightful read and I recommend it. I want to suggest that by really thinking through our responsibility as the adults in our professional relationships with children, our philosophical stance will develop in ways in which ensure that practice is effective and outcomes for children and young people are consistently positive.