This online event will provide practical guidance for school staff in Wales on how to address disruptive pupil behaviours and build resilience in themselves and their students.

Expectations of schools and staff to provide solutions to disruptive pupil behaviours and underlying poor mental health have risen exponentially. The cost of living crisis, Ofsted inspections, strike action and the post-pandemic impact on mental health and public services are just some of the significant outside pressures increasing staff’s anxiety levels and increasing pupil disruption and disengagement.

This workshop acknowledges the long-term impact upon staff of ‘holding’ so much trauma alongside such high expectations. It highlights the often ‘missing link’ that to be both effective and trauma-informed practitioners, staff need to be truly well themselves.

Informed by our growing understanding of the human nervous system, it offers guidance on what to do, to remain a safe adult when pupils act out. It also shares a practical wellbeing framework for building real resilience and good health for everyone in schools.

This interactive masterclass will explore:
• Context: the human nervous system plus current existential anxieties
• How Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) show up every day in the classroom
• Impact on staff over time
• The cycle of trauma
• The missing link (between happy healthy staff and trauma-informed practice)
• Breaking the trauma-cycle: practical guidance on safe responses
• A well-being framework for building real resilience and good health.

This masterclass is designed for all school staff in Wales. Places on this masterclass are funded thanks to Welsh government, at no cost to you.