Jun 19 / Michelle Bramley-Brook

Blog One: Behaviour in English Schools in the 1990s – A SEND and SEMH Blind Spot

This is part one of a series of three blogs examining behaviours, SEND, and systemic change in English schools. Part one reflects on behaviour in the 1990s; identifying a SEND and SEMH blind spot. Part two will consider current practice - reflecting on what has been learnt from the past - what is working and how much change can we still develop. Part three is theoretical and considers what behaviour will look like in the future, reflecting on the past and current behaviours, and identifying where it could be with the right changes.

The Traditional Classroom of the 1990s

In the 1990s, behaviour in English schools was largely understood as an issue of discipline rather than development. Educational culture prioritised order, compliance, and uniformity, leaving limited space for recognising additional needs, emotional vulnerability, or the wider context behind a child’s behaviour. From today’s SEND and SEMH perspective, this period represents a significant systemic blind spot.
Behaviour was typically viewed through a compliance lens. Children were expected to regulate themselves, conform to classroom norms, and respond to authority without challenge. 

Behaviour as Communication

Those who struggled were often labelled as disruptive, defiant, unmotivated, or poorly parented. In this climate, behaviour was more likely to be judged as wilful misconduct than interpreted as a possible sign of unmet need.
For children with undiagnosed SEND - particularly those with autism, ADHD, speech and language needs, or attachment-related difficulties - school environments could be overwhelming, dysregulating, and at times, profoundly unsafe. Yet, this was rarely understood in those terms.

Exclusion v Support

What we might now recognise as sensory overload, communication difficulty, emotional dysregulation, or a trauma response, was often interpreted simply as disobedience.
This context matters because the policy framework of the time did not offer schools a strong conceptual basis for understanding behaviour in relation to need. The Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs, issued in 1994 and implemented from 1 September that year, provided guidance on identifying and assessing special educational needs.

Whilst it marked an important policy step forward, its emphasis remained on identification, assessment, and staged provision, rather than on trauma, co-regulation, relational safety, or the emotional meaning of behaviour.

In practice, implementation was often uneven. Behavioural or emotional presentation was less likely to be recognised as SEN, unless it clearly affected attainment. As a result, children whose difficulties manifested through refusal, dysregulation, aggression, withdrawal, or non-compliance, could remain largely invisible within the system, even when their needs were significant.

What schools now describe as social, emotional, and mental health needs (SEMH), had not yet been established as a distinct category. This clearer framing emerged later in the SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years, which formally identified SEMH as one of the four broad areas of need. Subsequent guidance also reflected a shift away from viewing “behaviour” as a category in itself, towards understanding behaviour as a form of communication, often signalling anxiety, distress, attachment difficulty, or other underlying needs.

As a result, many behaviour policies in the 1990s were organised around compliance, sanctions, and escalation. Common features included:
  • Zero tolerance
  • Clear sanctions
  • Structured escalation procedures
  • Exclusion as a behavioural “solution”

Within this framework, there was limited conceptual space for understanding dysregulation, trauma, or neurodivergence as drivers of distress. Children whose behaviour communicated need were therefore particularly vulnerable to being perceived as troublesome rather than unsupported.

Although drawn from a later period, evidence from the Timpson Review of School Exclusion (2019) offers a useful lens through which to interpret these earlier patterns.

The review found that 78% of permanent exclusions involved pupils with SEN, those classified as in need, or those eligible for free school meals. It also noted that exclusion rates in the late 1990s and early to mid-2000s were higher than in 2016/17, suggesting a longstanding link between vulnerability and exclusion within the English school system.
Seen in this light, the disproportionate exclusion of boys, neurodivergent learners, and socially disadvantaged pupils, can be understood not simply as an issue of discipline, but as part of a broader pattern in which unmet need was frequently managed as misconduct.

This does not imply that all sanctions or exclusions were inappropriate, but it does challenge the idea that behaviour in this period can be fully understood without considering SEND, disadvantage, and emotional wellbeing.

There were also significant missed opportunities within the wider system. With limited specialist input and less developed multi-agency coordination, schools often responded to behaviour only once it had escalated, rather than identifying needs early and intervening preventatively.

Although the 1994 framework outlined staged processes for identification and assessment, the system lacked the later emphasis on joined-up support across education, health, and care.
In practical terms, emotional regulation, self-concept, and relational safety were rarely treated as central to learning or inclusion. Many children’s distress was managed behaviourally rather than understood developmentally, with support often introduced only after crisis, breakdown, or repeated sanction.

What later policy would define as early identification, graduated response, and coordinated support was, for many pupils in the 1990s, not meaningfully available.

Understanding behaviour in the 1990s through a SEND and SEMH lens helps to explain why many challenges faced by schools today are not new, but systemic and historical in nature.

Approaches shaped primarily by compliance and sanction have left lasting legacies for children whose distress, neurodivergence, or vulnerability fell outside narrow behavioural norms. Whilst policy, research, and practice have evolved significantly since then, these earlier frameworks continue to influence school culture and responses to behaviour.

The next blog in this series will explore contemporary behavioural practice, examining what has changed, what is working, and what lessons from the past remain essential in developing more inclusive, relational, and developmentally informed approaches.