Setting Therapeutic Boundaries with Your New Class

Boundaries that teach not punish
Teaching emotional safety through connection and consistency

At the start of term, it is important to set boundaries with your class, but what does that mean and how do you do it? The ‘how’ is what really matters here because boundaries, doesn’t mean punishment, though the two can often be thought to go hand in hand. Children don’t need punishment they need safe, consistent adults who help them understand their feelings and give them space to regulate. They need teachers who are going to teach them, not only about maths, spellings and their work but about their feelings, emotions and their mental health.

Your impact is huge

Children come into school at the age of 4 and are in school until they are 16. This spans the most important developmental years of their lives. They spend 6 hours a day, 5 days a week in school, which means teachers and school staff play a huge role in the person they become. Whether we subscribe to the idea or not, we have a hand in raising the children who come into our schools. The experiences they have with us, the responses/ relationships and lessons they learn from the interactions with the staff and the ethos and culture of the school impact who they will become.

Boundaries should feel safe, not scary. They are a way to tell children:
“You are safe with me.”
“I can guide and teach you”
“I can help you understand what’s going on inside.”

When a child puts their head down, gets upset, shouts out, or refuses to do the work, our instinct might be to redirect them/ tell them off or solve the problem. But this means our focus is on the outward behaviour, instead it should be on their feelings and emotions. If we use connection first, everything changes.

Therapeutic Teaching

Step 1:
This term, when you notice a child is struggling in your class. Try focusing on their feelings, frame of reference or experience first, rather than the behaviour. Name their feeling/ frame of reference and link it to their behaviour. This will raise their self-awareness and shift them out of their survival emotional brain and into their rational brain (Which means they will learn from the situation).

Instead of “Come on, have a think about this question. Jack, concentrate on your maths please” try “This work feels hard and it’s making you want to give up. I can see that because you’ve got your head on the table.”

Step 2:
Then help the child regulate if they need it, “Go and have a drink of water and have a quick look out the window, and then come back and try again”

This doesn’t mean removing expectations. It means supporting the child to stay regulated enough to meet them.

Instead of “Jack why did you just kick over the bin? Pick it up, come on Jack or you will need to go on red card”

try

“You are frustrated and annoyed, break has been hard, and you don’t feel like anyone has listened to your side. Let’s have 5 mins in the calm room” (you might also have a chat about how the child is feeling too) Once calm you can say, “Okay, let’s go and pick up the bin and do PE”

Build a connected, safe classroom with:

1. Raise their self-awareness and emotional intelligence:

• Start a daily circle check-in with your class. Sit on the floor together and give them prompts to help them connect with you and one another. “If you were a colour/ superhero/ place/character, who would you be and why” or just talk, “Today I feel…” use reflective language to show you are listening. “Okay, so you feel like brown, you are a bit murky and down and you are not sure why”
• Use reflective language throughout the day to connect to the children and raise their self-awareness: “The room is loud and it’s stopping you from being able to concentrate…” “It has been a tricky break and now you feel unsettled” “It’s so hot in here it is hard to think!”

2. Boundaries as teaching moments:

• Focus on the feeling first: “You’re feeling frustrated… so you threw the pencil”
• Follow up later when calm with specific scripts: “Next time, talking some deep breaths or having some water to give yourself a chance to calm down and reflect”
• Redirect where needed avoiding buzz words like, no, don’t can’t and stop “Don’t throw that pencil” becomes “Put the pencil down” or “Stop shouting out” becomes “Wait two minutes while Jack finishes his answer, and then I want to hear your idea!”
• Give children opportunities to make a mends, rather than just punishing them. If a child throws something, once you have focused on their feelings, linked it to their behaviour and let them regulate- ask them to pick it up. If a child hurts someone, discuss how they can make a mends and ‘show’ sorry not just say it. “Now you feel a bit calmer, let’s go and tape up that book”- making a mends is far more powerful than just missing break as a punishment and teaches them life skills

3. Foster belonging:
Children are more likely to follow the rules and stay within your boundaries if they feel seen, valued and liked.

• Take a photo of each child or ask them to bring photos into school and create a photo wall. This creates a sense of togetherness and belonging 😊
• Invite them to draw something that represents them and create a collage on the wall

Boundaries are your way of showing that you are a safe, reliable adult and the more consistent you are the more you can be trusted. Boundaries don’t just manage behaviour — they shape the brain.

I hope this weeks newsletter has been helpful. Everything I talk about can be found in my Therapeutic School Approach book, my podcast and in my whole school courses.

Further resources:

🎧 Podcast: What is trauma informed practice? The therapeutic teaching podcast: Shahana Knight

*    Read: The Therapeutic school approach

📎 Enrol: The therapeutic teaching course