Before Engagement and Motivation

As a school over the past five to six years we have been working hard to understand what Engagement and Motivation looks like and how it is achieved for all children. Over this time we have refined our practice, using approaches like Mantle of the Expert and Play to increase student agency and in turn increase the level of engagement and motivation without the need for dangling carrots. This journey has been huge for us and I have been so glad that I have written about it along the way, because there has just been so much learning going on.

Over the past few years I feel like we have really started to nail this, but there has still been a niggling group of children, that despite our best efforts have remained not disengaged, but definitely not as engaged as everyone else. Now we could have accepted that we can't reach 100% of the children 100% of the time, but that wouldn't fit with who we are. These children were a conundrum, and there is nothing that sparks an inquiry more effectively then a nice conundrum.

These children, their behaviour and lack of buy in has caused us to dive deeper, to really look honestly at ourselves, our approaches, our relationships with children..the whole package. What has come out of all this hard work has been the realisation that engagement and motivation is a great goal...but there are elements that need to be in place, solid foundations, for it to be even possible for this goal to have an impact on some children.

What we have come to understand is that for some children, they are not even in the place that such grand goals can have an impact on them, they are just not ready to access the learning on offer, not in the right place to allow them to be fully engaged or motivated...their energy is elsewhere and in some cases this energy is on self-preservation.

These children can often be a real source of frustration in the classroom for us as teachers, we feel like we are almost standing on our head to engage them and keep them motivated, but still they stay on the periphery, avoid the learning on offer, opt out, appear disinterested...almost appear to have a learned helplessness. However the fact of the matter is these children are not ready for the tricks of the trade we are pedalling and no matter how exciting we wrap up the present that is learning, they are quite simply not able to, or ready to unwrap it. So we have a choice, we could blame the child "hey we are doing everything we can right?" Or we could accept that something is currently blocking their ability to engage and find out more.

As a school we are still early days into our learning in this area, but so far we have come up with four levels that children need to be able to pass through, or have in place first.

These levels fit with the brain development 'framework' that I have based largely on the work of Nathan Wallis, I made this to represent the phases of development children needed to go through to build their brain before we start to engage with what we can loosely call 'academic' learning.

The intention of these levels is to slightly expand on this and for us to be able to pinpoint a child's needs when they may be presenting as disengaged or have a lack of motivation. Because this usually presents as children move into a more 'teacher' directed environment it is seen as useful more for children older than seven/eight who we would expect to be in a good state of engagement given we have worked hard on the foundations.

These are my levels, based on what I have learned around this goal, they are not intended to be hard and fast and I am sure I will need to amend and add to them over time as I learn more about the brain.

The idea with these levels is to pinpoint the level a child is actually at, so that we can engage at this point, rather than expecting them to progress academically, or to be showing us learning dispositions we would expect of a child their age, we can provide support and coaching at the point it is needed, in order to help them ultimately be an engaged and motivated learner.


Level One – Do I feel safe, am I attached or am I trauma affected (if a child is in here for development, this needs to be where we engage with them) I am currently working on the idea of a nurture room to help these children.
Link to a draft of this idea here.

Level Two – Do I feel connected to my school, family, community, culture and have a strong sense of self and who I am.  The nurture room would also be of benefit here.

Level Three – Can I self-regulate, can I name my feelings, do I have emotional IQ, do I have empathy? Do I feel good about myself?

Level Four – Growth mindset and learning talk – do I understand how my brain learns, appreciate challenge and understand that with persistence I can always improve?

Level Five - I am ready and able to be engaged and motivated in the classroom.

Ultimately what I have come to realise is that for some of our children, there are barriers to being able to be motivated and engaged, no matter how amazing our teaching.  It is then up to us to figure out these children, to have a good enough relationship with them, that we no at what point we need to engage and how to help them. 

For us this is very much a work in progress, but my aim is that we can make school a place where 100% of the children are being catered for according to their needs and not being put in the too hard basket, or being blamed for their lack of engagement.  A goal worthy of striving for in my opinion.

I like this quote, but would change interested, to able to....because in order to be interested, we have to be in the right place to be able to accept this learning and then in turn be interested in it.  If all of my energy is going on just existing, and staying safe, then how an earth do I have the energy to be interested.

Trauma and Play - What is happening for those children that struggle to regulate in a play based environment?

Throughout this journey into play over the last five years, one question comes up often, it has been one I have struggled to answer and actually have felt ill equipped to answer. The question is around those children that just cause absolute chaos in a play based class, that break things, fight, basically run riot. Those children who are oppositional and rebuff our attempts at forming strong relationships, basically seem to undermine everything we do.  What do we do about these children? 

I have not felt able to answer this question, because I am incredibly lucky to work in a school where children usually come in with the ability to auto-regulate or to regulate with support from an a trusted person (co-regulate.) Don't get me wrong, we still have children who come in with obvious issues with regulation, due to early trauma or otherwise, but we don't usually have groups of them, we have one or two who we can work effectively with and help to self-manage.





After reading this book






I now feel a little more able to answer this question.  But please know I am no expert.

Firstly however let me say this. For children who come in with strong attachments and for want of a better word 'normal' abilities to regulate, a play-based environment based on self-direction is the absolute best. Children starting from this foundation learn so much within this environment and absolutely blossom emotionally and socially. They cope beautifully in this environment because this is how they are programmed to learn.  They don't need us to direct them or manage them.

Children with early trauma are still built to learn this way, however they are as yet unable to thrive in this environment without a few modifications (which we can make very simply, without going back to our old methods of control.)


Before I go any further:

This short article is helpful if you have not read anything about attachment theory and the link to self-regulation.

This is an excerpt from that article:

What might extreme or unhealthy ways of auto-regulation look like?

Unhealthy patterns of auto-regulation most often include behaviors that are attempts to control. A sense of control of people, places, and things provides a sense of safety; since it is vulnerability for children with attachment disorder that is the scariest position in which to be.

Individuals who feel completely out of control are going to fall apart and do anything they can to gain that control. They attempt to achieve control over other people, places, and things; they find this helps them to achieve control over their own activated nervous system and their emotions. For children, attempts to control can come out in physical, emotional, or psychological manner.

In physical control, children will exert physical force to cause fear in those around them. Rages, throwing and breaking items, and physically hurting others are attempts to control out of a need to help themselves feel better.

In emotional control, children will be able to play with the emotions of others, making others angry, sad, or happy. Depending on the background and prior experiences of the child, they may be quite “street-smart” at being able to know instinctively how to play others emotions to get what they need.

In psychological control, children will lie, triangulate relationships of those in authority, and otherwise manipulate. Much of this is done on such an instinctual level to help calm their own nervous system down; they feel that they are doing these things to survive.

These become the behaviors that seem crazy and extreme to parents of children with attachment disorder; therefore, make daily live very chaotic and difficult. It is dysregulating to live with a child with controlling behaviors The children are not able to communicate any of their internal happenings, so these behaviors come with no warning

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Children who have developed unhealthy strategies for regulation will initially struggle in an environment where they have complete choice.  Unlike their peers, who are able to regulate, this environment will cause them stress and because of this stress we will see the behaviours that are described above (that have been described to me by so many teachers over time.)

Sadly many see this as a reason to ditch play and go back to complete structure.  I can absolutely see why, in essence it is the environment based on too much choice that creates these behaviours, and if you are one of those teachers where the majority of your class struggles with regulation for whatever reason, it would seem easier to go back to complete structure.

However I urge you not to do this.  While too much choice is stressful for them, an environment based on play is ultimately what they need.  Just like any other learning, they just need some scaffolding around this environment.  As we would for any other learning, we need to meet their needs and in this environment this may mean shortening periods of play.  Coming back together more frequently for emotional and social coaching or reflection.  Recognising triggers and providing safe places for them to go to.  Specifically teaching them calm down strategies (benefits all.)  Teaching them about their brain and how it works (benefits all.)  Providing more structure around the play for these children, a few choices, rather than complete self-direction to start with.  Trying a strategy we use, which is ten by ten, ten seconds connecting with that child positively, ten times a day.  Harder than it sounds.  Watching what we say and how we redirect behaviour, these children see themselves as bad, the language we use with them is important.  We also don't want to over praise them, they won't believe you and it will make their behaviour worse.

You will gradually see them developing regulation skills and be able to remove some of the scaffolds.  With these children, as with most, it will be ten steps forward and nine back....progress will often be slow emotionally and socially and they will try to deliberately hijack situations as a form of defence.  We must stay strong and constant for them despite what they throw at us.

What we do need to recognise and absolutely understand is that play is going to be difficult for them, their brain has been in a constant state of stress, relationships have been traumatic and disconnected, they don't trust us, why should they?  Free play (for want of a better word) will cause them stress, they will feel out of control and they will take back control in ways we perceive as 'behaving badly.'  They can not help this.  Having to regulate themselves for any period of time is tiring, they become exhausted and it is hard for them.  Safe spaces are important.

So, my answer, please don't let this type of behaviour stop you journeying into play, but recognise it for what it is, and respond to it by putting in place strategies to support regulation.  The most important thing we can teach children is the ability to regulate...from that everything else will come.  The last thing we want them to become is adults that can not regulate.

Why it is struggle, not acceleration we should be aiming for.

The word acceleration has been one that has irked me since it became the catch phrase of the Ministry and ERO.

In my opinion it is productive struggle we should be aiming for, not acceleration.

I got thinking more about this after a conversation I had with a group of learners identified as Maori and working below their expected stage in mathematics.

Our data had thrown up some interesting patterns and I wanted to hear first hand what might be going on with mathematics for some of these children.  If in doubt, I always turn to student voice...I absolutely always learn something and am presented with ideas I wasn't expecting.

So I gathered together this group, posed myself as an investigator, wanting to know more about maths in our school and proceeded to ask them about maths.    I was prepared for them to tell me they were bad at maths, found it hard and wanted more teacher support.

Not only did these so called 'lower' level learners not do this but they talked about their love of maths.  They could also speak eloquently of how they behave if things are hard...they spoke of loving challenge and knowing what to do if it was just out of their reach.  When asked how they would feel if all maths was abolished tomorrow and the never had to do it again, they all responded very loudly "NO."  They spoke of loving the challenge of problem solving and the 'surprise' of the answer at the end.

This conversation got me to thinking.  These children that struggle, really learn a lot about themselves as learners.  In an environment where the process of learning is made visible, where children are well supported in productive struggle, where challenge and mistakes are embraced....these learners flourish.   They are heavily involved in the process, it does not come easy, they have to develop many strategies and in turn they don't shy away when things are hard.  They are also working with teachers who have actively worked to improve their mathematical pedagogy over the years and in my opinion are doing a top notch job!

I would hypothesise that in an environment such as the one I describe, children are well served by the struggle and don't need us to accelerate them through this process.  What they do need from us is the time to struggle and work through this.

In fact as a parent I would rather my child was engaged daily in productive struggle than find things easy or be so supported/scaffolded that little learning was going on.

If they are not, what happens?  Well in my opinion I don't think they ever truly understand themselves as a learner and when things get hard, they are much more likely to give up.   I am sure we all know those children or young adults, or even adults, full of potential, full of ability, that never truly achieve what we expect, or even shy away from what they are truly capable of.

In my opinion it is our job as teachers to give all children this gift...the gift of failure, mistakes and challenge and the absolutely amazing feeling of getting back up again and having success because they didn't give up on themselves!

Productive, supported struggle - the gift we can give all of our learners.