🚫 When Consequences Don’t Work: What Next?

Understanding behaviour as communication and moving beyond traditional consequences in UK schools

👋 Welcome to SEMH Education

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 consequences alone rarely change behaviour, and what to do instead when sanctions stop working.

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🤔 The Moment You Realise Consequences Aren’t Working

You’ve tried the warnings. The detentions. The removal of privileges. The behaviour log is growing longer, but nothing’s changing.

Sound familiar?

It’s one of the most frustrating situations in education. When a child seems completely unaffected by the consequences you’re applying. You’re following the behaviour policy. You’re being consistent. But the same incidents keep happening.

Here’s the truth: if consequences aren’t working, it’s not because you’re doing them wrong. It’s because behaviour isn’t a choice problem, it’s a communication problem.

And when we treat behaviour as something to be punished rather than understood, we miss the real message the child is trying to send us.

📢 Behaviour Is Communication

This phrase has become something of a mantra in SEMH circles, and for good reason. Every behaviour, even the most challenging, disruptive, or unsafe, is a form of communication.

When a child lashes out, refuses to work, or storms out of the classroom, they’re telling us something. They might be saying:

• “I don’t feel safe here”

• “This work is too hard and I’m scared of failing”

• “I’m exhausted and I can’t regulate myself right now”

• “I don’t trust the adults around me”

• “Something happened at home that I can’t talk about”

Consequences don’t address any of these underlying needs. A detention doesn’t make a child feel safer. A loss of break time doesn’t teach emotional regulation. A behaviour point doesn’t rebuild trust.

This doesn’t mean we abandon structure or accountability, far from it. But it does mean we need to ask different questions when behaviour persists despite sanctions.

Instead of asking “What consequence will make them stop?” we need to ask “What is this child trying to tell us?”

🧩 Working With the Whole Picture

One of the most common mistakes we make in schools is trying to solve behaviour in isolation. But children don’t exist in a vacuum, and neither does their behaviour.

If a child is involved with Social Care, Youth Justice, CAMHS, or community services, their behaviour in school is almost certainly connected to what’s happening outside of it. A difficult handover with a parent. A court date is looming. A change in placement. A missed therapy session.

We can’t support a child effectively if we’re only seeing one piece of the puzzle.

That’s why building strong, collaborative relationships with everyone involved in a child’s life is essential. This includes:

• Social workers and family support workers

• Youth Justice Teams

• Educational Psychologists and CAMHS professionals

• Sports coaches, youth workers, or mentors

• Foster carers or kinship carers

• Youth Workers

• Placement Staff

A quick phone call or email to check in with these professionals can provide vital context. It also ensures everyone is working towards the same goals, rather than accidentally pulling in different directions.

Yes, it takes time. Yes, it requires consent and careful information sharing. But when it works, it transforms outcomes, because suddenly, the child isn’t being managed in silos. They’re being supported as a whole person.

🤝 Restorative Practice: Repairing Relationships, Not Just Applying Sanctions

When consequences don’t work, it’s often because the relationship has broken down, and no amount of punishment will fix that.

This is where restorative practice comes in. Rather than focusing solely on what a child did wrong, restorative approaches focus on repair, reflection, and reconnection.

A while ago, I posted about how to solve conflicts in schools using three simple questions. I still stand by those questions and still use them, but after listening to a podcast by Megan Corcoran and her guest, Marie McLeod, I’ve added a fourth question that completely shifts the conversation.

You can read the original post here:
3 Questions to Solve Conflict in Schools

❔ What Did You Need?

This question is deceptively simple, but incredibly powerful.

When a child is in crisis or conflict, we often ask closed questions to try to work out what they needed: “Was it too noisy?” “Did you want to go outside?” “Were you feeling tired?”

But these questions keep the child within our assumptions. They rarely get to the heart of what was really going on.

By asking openly “What did you need?”, you give the child space to fully explain what they truly needed in that moment, and that insight is gold dust for prevention.

Depending on the age and understanding of the child, you might phrase it as:

• “What did you need?”

• “When you were upset/frustrated earlier, what would have helped?”

• “What did you need to make you happy again?”

• “What do you think you needed most when you were upset?”

• “Is there something that would have made you feel safer or calmer?”

• “What do you think your body or feelings were asking for?”

I’d ask this question separately from any conflict resolution conversation with another child. This gives them privacy and safety to be honest, they might not want to open up about their needs in front of someone they’ve just had a disagreement with.

📑 The Four Questions (Recap)

When conflict or repeated behaviour occurs, I use these four questions, once the child is calm and regulated:

1. What happened?

2. Who was hurt (emotionally and physically)?

3. What can we do next time?

4. What did you need?

The first three build accountability and empathy. The fourth builds understanding, and gives you the insight you need to actually prevent the behaviour from happening again.

⚠️ Disclaimer: Only use these questions when the child is regulated and able to talk about the incident. For some young people, this may be hours after the incident. For others, it may be days or weeks.

🔄 Moving Beyond Punishment

When consequences aren’t working, it’s a signal. Not that the child is “bad” or that your behaviour policy is failing, but that something deeper is going on.

Behaviour is communication. And if we want to change the behaviour, we need to listen to the message.

That means:

✅ Asking curious questions instead of applying automatic sanctions
✅ Working collaboratively with everyone involved in the child’s life
✅ Using restorative approaches that rebuild relationships
✅ Reflecting on what the child truly needed, not just what rule they broke

This work is harder than issuing a detention. It requires patience, time, and emotional investment. But it’s also the only approach that creates lasting change, because it addresses the cause, not just the symptom.

💭 A Final Reflection

The next time you find yourself thinking “Consequences aren’t working with this child,” pause.

Ask yourself: What is this child trying to tell me?

Because once you hear the message, you’ll know exactly what to do next.

💬 Have you used restorative questions with a child who wasn’t responding to consequences? What changed? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments.

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