🎤 Including Pupil Voice in Behaviour Planning

How to Meaningfully Include Pupil Voice in Behaviour Support Plans and Why It Changes Everything

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I post weekly strategies and insights for professionals supporting children with social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) needs.

I’m Kieran, a former teacher and current Education Officer. Each week, I share evidence-informed tools, practical advice, and real-world reflections to help you create safer, more inclusive learning environments.

📌 In this post: Why gathering and using pupil voice transforms behaviour support from compliance to connection

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🙋 “They Never Asked Me What Would Actually Help”

A Year 9 pupil said this to me during a reintegration meeting after three fixed-term exclusions in six weeks.

His behaviour plan was detailed. His risk assessment was thorough. His targets were SMART. But nowhere in any of those documents was his voice. Not really.

We’d written about him, for him, even because of him... but never with him.

And that’s the problem.

When we plan behaviour support without genuinely including the young person at the centre of it, we’re building strategies on guesswork. We might get it right. We might get close. But we’re also far more likely to miss what actually matters to that child, and in doing so, we reduce their ownership, their agency, and ultimately, their success.

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🧠 Why Pupil Voice Matters in Behaviour Planning

Let’s be clear: including pupil voice isn’t just good practice. It’s essential practice.

Here’s why:

1. Children are experts on themselves
No matter how well we know a pupil, we can’t feel what they feel or experience what they experience. They know what helps them stay calm, what triggers them, and what adults say or do that makes things better or worse. When we don’t ask, we’re flying blind.

2. It builds trust and connection
Behaviour support is relational. When a child feels genuinely heard and sees their views reflected in the strategies around them, it strengthens the adult-child relationship. It shifts the dynamic from “adults managing me” to “adults supporting me.”

3. It promotes autonomy and self-awareness
Co-creating behaviour plans with pupils helps them recognise their own patterns, identify their needs, and develop a vocabulary for self-advocacy. That’s not just useful for school, it’s a life skill.

4. It improves outcomes
Plain and simple: strategies are more effective when they’re informed by the person they’re designed to support. A behaviour plan that reflects what the pupil has told us is far more likely to work than one based purely on adult observation or assumption.

5. It meets statutory expectations
The SEND Code of Practice (2015) is explicit about involving children and young people in decisions about their support. Pupil voice isn’t optional, it’s a requirement, especially for pupils with SEND or those at risk of exclusion.

🗣️ Effective Methods to Capture Pupil Voice

So, how do we actually do this? Especially with pupils who find it hard to articulate their needs, who’ve learned not to trust adults, or who simply don’t have the language yet?

Here are some practical, tried-and-tested approaches:

🗣️ 1:1 Conversations

Sometimes, the simplest method is the best. A quiet, low-pressure chat during tutor time, mentoring, or over a regulation activity (yes, Lego works brilliantly here too!) can give pupils the space to open up.

Keep it informal. Ask open questions like:

• “What helps you when things feel tough?”

• “What do adults do that makes things harder?”

• “If you could change one thing about how we support you, what would it be?”

✍️ Sentence Starters and Prompts

For pupils who struggle with open-ended questions, try sentence starters:

• “I feel calm when...”

• “It’s hard for me when...”

• “Something that really helps is...”

• “I wish my teachers knew...”

These work brilliantly in Pupil Passports (if you’ve not tried them yet, check out my previous post on them!) and can be completed independently, with a trusted adult, or even digitally.

🛠️ Visual Tools and Scales

For younger pupils, those with EAL, or children who find verbal communication difficult, visuals can be powerful. Use:

• Emoji scales (e.g. 😊😐😟😢) to identify feelings

• Traffic light systems for regulating strategies

• Photos or symbols to show preferences

🎨 Drawing, Writing, or Creating

Some pupils express themselves better through creativity. Ask them to draw what helps them feel safe, write a letter to their future teacher, or design their own “calm corner” using images from a magazine or iPad.

📑 Questionnaires or Feedback Forms

Anonymous or semi-anonymous forms can work well for older pupils or those who don’t feel comfortable speaking face-to-face. Keep questions simple and purposeful, and make sure there’s an option for free text.

🔍 Observations in Context

Sometimes, pupil voice isn’t verbal. Watch when a pupil self-regulates, what they reach for, where they go when overwhelmed. That behaviour is communication, and it’s telling you something.

📝 How to Implement Pupil Voice into Behaviour Planning

Gathering pupil voice is only the first step. The real impact comes from using it.

Here’s how to weave it meaningfully into your behaviour planning and documentation:

📝 Include It in Behaviour Support Plans

Don’t just record what adults have observed. Add a section titled “What [Name] Says Helps Them” or “In Their Own Words.” Even a single sentence can transform how staff read and respond to that plan.

Example:
“Kieran says: ‘I need to move when I’m stressed. Sitting still makes it worse.’”

That’s clearer and more powerful than any observation note.

🛂 Reflect It in Pupil Passports

As I’ve mentioned before, Pupil Passports are most effective when they’re co-created with the child, not just written about them. Their voice should be front and centre, whether that’s through direct quotes, their choice of words, or even their handwriting.

🔄 Use It in Meetings and Reviews

Whether it’s an early help assessment, EHCP review, or reintegration planning meeting, start by sharing what the pupil has said. It centres the conversation on the child, not just the systems around them.

If the pupil isn’t present (and sometimes they shouldn’t be), their voice can still be represented through written feedback, video clips, or an advocate reading their views aloud.

🛟 Inform Risk Assessments and Safety Plans

Risk assessments are often written in quite clinical, deficit-focused language. Including pupil voice can humanise them. A pupil might say, “I don’t like being shouted at, it makes me want to run,” which is far more useful than “Flight risk when verbally reprimanded.”

🏫 Train Staff to Use It

Behaviour plans are only effective if staff read and act on them. Make pupil voice visible in handovers, briefings, and on classroom walls (with the pupil’s permission, of course). When a supply teacher or TA knows what the pupil has said works for them, they’re far more likely to get it right.

🔄 The Importance of Updating Pupil Voice

Here’s something we often get wrong: we gather pupil voice once, write it into a plan, and then never revisit it.

But children change. Their needs evolve. What worked in September might not work in March. A strategy they found helpful at age 10 might feel patronising at age 12.

That’s why pupil voice must be a living, breathing part of behaviour planning.

Try this:

✅ Review regularly – Termly at minimum, more often for pupils with high needs or in crisis
✅ Check in after incidents – “What could we have done differently?” is one of the most powerful reflective questions
✅ Celebrate progress with them – Revisit their goals and acknowledge what’s changed
✅ Update documents as you go – Don’t wait for the annual review. If a pupil tells you something new, add it straight away

In my experience, pupils are often the first to tell you when a strategy has stopped working, if we’ve created a culture where their voice is genuinely valued. When a child says, “I don’t like fidget spinners anymore, I find them boring, can I try something else?” that’s not a problem, that’s progress.

✨ Final Thoughts: From Compliance to Connection

Including pupil voice in behaviour planning isn’t about ticking a box or meeting a statutory requirement (though it does that too). It’s about shifting from a culture of compliance to a culture of connection.

When we ask, listen, and act on what pupils tell us, we’re saying: “You matter. Your experience matters. You have a say in what happens to you.”

And in a world where many of our most vulnerable pupils feel powerless, unheard, or labelled, that message alone can be transformative.

So this week, try this:

Pick one pupil. Ask them one question. Listen to their answer. Then use it.

You might be surprised at how much changes when we simply start with the child.

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