Kesia Nagle

I'm reminded, as schools start to trickle back into action stations, of the time when I attended a course for gifted and talented children (remember that?), where I learned all about high-challenge, 24-step activities. 'These sound great,' I said, 'But lots of my classes are really challenging, and I couldn't do this with them, without chaos erupting. What to do?' 'Ah yes, replied the trainer,' You can only really do this when the behaviour is pretty good.' And that's when I first realised that behaviour is prior to every other aspect of high quality provision for students. Without that, you're juggling on the wing of a plane.