CONTRIBUTORS
When behaviour feels threatening Education journalist and regular contributor, SAL MCKEOWN, explores
founder of Positive Assessments Support and Training (PAST) Laura Kerbey’s insights into how teachers can work with more challenging students.
It’s always difficult to work with a student who is intimidating. In the movies, the teacher finds the secret holding back the apparently unteachable adolescent. They come to respect one another and by the end of the year that student is the most popular person in the school with shed- loads of friends. In real life, after three terms teacher and student still struggle to make eye contact and the learner regularly has bad days.
This is one of those times when teachers in mainstream can learn from SEND staff, especially those supporting learners with
social and emotional needs. Fifteen years ago, Laura Kerbey worked as an Assistant Head at a specialist school. She found that her tried and tested ‘autism strategies’ were totally ineffective for young people with pathological demand avoidance (PDA). In her first book, The Educator’s Experience of Pathological Demand Avoidance, she admitted that these students used to scare her and that it was a long time before she could get past the barriers and appreciate their quirkiness and creativity. It’s not just learners with an EHCP who are menacing. Many teachers will have students in their class who are scary. Apparently sullen and unresponsive, at times they might be aggressive or even violent. Only a few will ever be diagnosed with PDA but some of Laura’s insights might help teachers look at life from their perspective.
The received wisdom is that you need to take the time to build up genuine, authentic, reciprocal relationships but it is difficult when you are seeing a class of 30 kids for one lesson a week. Many secondary schools are now the size of an old style factory with such a high staff turnover that teachers don’t always know each other’s names. However, you need to pay attention to the child who is making you uncomfortable; not just ignore them and hope someone else will deal with the issue. Laura’s advice gives an insight into what is going on in their heads. One 16 year-old reviewer called Caitlin said: “I wish Laura had written this book ages ago. It gives a really clear picture of what it is like to have PDA and some excellent ideas of how to help in school and college. Every teacher should own a copy of this book, not just those who work with students with PDA.”
Here are the key points for educators to bear in mind when dealing with more challenging pupils: • Behaviour is driven by high levels of anxiety. It appears in many different guises: it can look like sadness, it can look like defiance, it can look like anger.
• Many adolescents are mentally and emotionally overloaded – noise, lights, smells, people, other people’s needs and expectations. On a bad day they can’t filter these out.
• Often their behaviour is not personally directed against you. Something you said or your tone of voice may have triggered it but there will be layers of anxiety underneath.
• Be careful about giving advice. Telling a young person to calm down and take deep breaths may be well-meaning but it is another demand in a world full of instructions and might just send them over the edge.
• Reasonable adjustments should be based on need and not diagnosis and might include: a reduced or flexible timetable, a Time Out or Exit card, a safe place to access during moments of high anxiety in the day.
• I was interested to learn from Laura that the term Pathological Demand Avoidance is no longer universal and that some eminent researchers believe that the phrase ‘Persistent Drive for Autonomy’ describes the students’ behaviour and motivation more accurately.
• This need for autonomy might be the key to improved relationships. If February 2026
they need to have a measure of control, talk to them and find out what could work for them. This might be a quiet time listening to music instead of going to registration or a walk in the fresh air if noise levels are rising. Once you understand their needs, you move away from the idea that any accommodations are rewarding bad behaviour.
• Praise can be as bad as criticism. It puts the person in the spotlight and makes them feel embarrassed and anxious about how they should respond. Opt for ‘I statements’ such as, ‘I like the way you used shading’, ‘I thought you used vocabulary well in the last answer.’
• Re-evaluate rules and rewards. Attendance certificates, merits and house points represent the school’s set of values, not theirs. An Amazon or Spotify voucher, making a meal to take home or a chance to personalise a mug for someone in their family is much more concrete. We all have a choice of rewards when we sign up for a mobile phone, why not when we sign up for education?
• When it comes to conflict, ask yourself, ‘Does it really matter?’ Does it really matter if they write in pencil and not ink? Does it really matter if they put their head down on their desk? Probably less than you think. But does it really matter if they show aggression to another student? Yes, it does. Choose your battles well.
Credits: Pictures by Eliza Fricker from the book, ‘The Educator’s Experience of Pathological Demand Avoidance’ by Laura Kerbey.
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