There’s a child in your school right now who is struggling to verbally tell you what’s wrong, but who could show you. If only you gave them the space to.
There’s another child sitting still, looking compliant, who is dysregulating completely on the inside.
We’ve become very good at identifying what behaviour looks like.
We’re less practised at creating the conditions where it doesn’t need to happen in the first place.
Art and movement aren’t just nice extras for children with SEMH needs. They’re powerful, research-backed tools for every single child in your building, and it’s time we treated them that way!
🧠 What’s Actually Happening in the Body
Before we talk about paintbrushes and brain breaks, it helps to understand why this matters neurologically. So lets dive into it!
When children experience stress, such as anxiety about a test, a difficult morning at home, or a fallout with a friend at lunch, their nervous system responds.
Cortisol and adrenaline rise, the prefrontal cortex (the bit of the brain responsible for reasoning, focus, and self-regulation) becomes less accessible, and the body enters a state of alert.
You can’t teach a child who is in that state. Not really. You can tell them information, but learning, in any meaningful sense, requires a regulated nervous system.
This is where movement and art become less about enrichment and more about readiness to learn.
🏃 The Case for Movement Breaks, For Everyone
Movement breaks have sometimes been filed under “strategies for children with ADHD.” That framing undersells them enormously!
Research from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has consistently highlighted the link between physical activity and improved cognitive outcomes. This includes attention, working memory, and academic attainment.
A landmark review by Hillman et al. (2008) found that even a single bout of aerobic exercise can produce immediate improvements in attention and processing speed in children, regardless of any identified need.
The DfE’s own guidance has acknowledged the role of physical activity in supporting mental health and wellbeing in schools, and Ofsted’s updated framework increasingly expects schools to demonstrate how they support the whole child, not just their academic progress.
Movement breaks don’t need to be elaborate at all!
They might look like:
🟢 Brain breaks between lessons - two minutes of stretching, shaking out hands, or a quick movement sequence before sitting back down.
🟢 Walking meetings or outdoor check-ins - particularly powerful for pastoral conversations that feel less confrontational side-by-side than face-to-face.
🟢 Corridor movement opportunities - intentional transitions that allow children to reset between contexts, rather than rushing from one demand to the next.
🟢 Structured movement within lessons - carousel activities, standing tasks, or hands-on learning that incorporates physical engagement as standard.
The key insight here is this: when movement is embedded into the school day as a universal feature, it stops being something that marks certain children out, and starts being something that regulates all children.
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🎨 Art-Based Approaches: More Than Expression
Art therapy, in its clinical form, is a specialist intervention, and an important one. But art-based approaches (sometimes called expressive arts or creative arts strategies) sit on a broader spectrum, and they have a great deal to offer in whole-school SEMH support.
Research by Malchiodi (2011) and others in the field of trauma-informed practice has shown that creative activity engages different neural pathways to verbal processing, which is precisely why it can reach children who struggle to articulate their inner world through words. This isn’t unique to children with SEND. Children across the attainment spectrum benefit from learning environments that invite diverse forms of expression.
But the benefits don’t stop at emotional regulation. There’s compelling evidence that engagement with the arts is associated with:
📌 Improved academic outcomes - A meta-analysis by Winner, Goldstein & Vincent-Lancrin (2013) for the OECD found that arts education can develop transferable skills including critical thinking, creativity, and persistence, all of which have a direct impact on academic engagement.
📌 Increased intrinsic motivation - Creative tasks that allow for personal interpretation give children a sense of agency that more prescriptive learning can sometimes remove. Where agency exists, motivation tends to follow.
📌 Reduced anxiety and improved emotional vocabulary - Regular engagement with arts-based activities has been associated with reductions in anxiety symptoms and improvements in children’s ability to name and manage their emotions, a key protective factor for positive behaviour.
📌 Stronger peer relationships - Collaborative creative projects build social skills, shared purpose, and a sense of belonging, all of which are foundational to a positive school climate.
If you’re interested in more research in this area. Please take a look at my friend’s systematic review below!
🏫 What This Looks Like in Schools
You don’t need an art therapist on staff or a dedicated movement suite to begin embedding these approaches. Schools doing this well tend to share a few common features.
They normalise regulation as part of the curriculum. Rather than treating calm-down strategies as something children need to earn or access discretely, they build them into the rhythm of the day. A five-minute sketch at the start of tutor time. A movement wake-up before literacy. A reflective doodle alongside an exit ticket.
When teachers understand the neurological rationale behind these strategies, they’re far more likely to implement them consistently, and far less likely to deprioritise them when under time pressure. This is a CPD conversation worth having.
They apply these approaches universally, then adjust. The graduated response framework (Assess-Plan-Do-Review) remains essential for children with identified SEMH needs, but the universal layer matters just as much. Tier 1 support that genuinely works reduces the pressure on Tier 2 and 3 provision.
📋 A Note on Policy Alignment
If you’re building a case internally for embedding these approaches more formally, it’s worth noting that they align clearly with several current policy directions:
The Every Child Achieving and Thriving white paper (DfE, February 2026) places renewed emphasis on holistic development and early intervention, including non-clinical, school-based approaches to supporting mental health and wellbeing. Schools that can demonstrate proactive, evidence-informed universal provision are increasingly well-positioned for Ofsted scrutiny, particularly around behaviour, personal development, and SEMH support.
Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) and school-based counselling provision are expanding, but they cannot substitute for a school culture that embeds regulation and expression into daily life. Art and movement are part of that culture.
💬 The Bigger Picture
We talk a lot in education about the children who “can’t sit still” or who “won’t engage.” Less often do we ask what sitting still is costing them, or what we might unlock if we stopped treating physical and creative expression as a privilege for compliant children.
Every child benefits from a body that feels safe enough to learn. Every child benefits from a classroom that invites them to make meaning in more than one way.
The research is clear. The policy direction supports it. What’s needed now is the professional courage to build it into the school day, not as a reward, not as a niche intervention, but as a right.
If this resonated with you, consider sharing it with a colleague who might find it useful. And if you’re not yet subscribed to SEMH Education, hit the button below, there’s a new post in your inbox every week. 📩
💭 Reflective question: Think about the last time a child in your school was described as a “behaviour problem.” How much of their day included an opportunity to move, create, or express themselves in a way that wasn’t assessed?
📬 Did You Miss These?
💚 Children’s Mental Health: Activities That Go Beyond Posters
A laminated poster about feelings has never once helped a child regulate in the middle of a meltdown.
🏃♀️Active Breaks in Education 🏃♂️
You arrive at work one day to find out you and your work colleagues are no longer allowed to move from your desk. If you need the toilet, want a coffee or need some fresh air you have to put in a request. Your manager will judge these requests and there is no guarantee they’ll be granted.
🚀 Up-Regulation Activities
These activities are useful for all pupils, particularly for children with SEMH needs, ADHD, Autism, or sensory processing differences, as they support focus, motivation, and overall engagement in learning.