Re-engaging Students Through Relationship, Skill, and Responsibility

Across schools, families, and support services, one pattern is becoming increasingly clear: disengaged students are not re-engaged in school through removal, exclusion, or lowered expectations. They are re-engaged when adults are equipped to teach the skills that allow children to function within the classroom and school environment — while maintaining firm, realistic expectations for behaviour and learning. This is not an argument for reducing standards. It is an argument for how standards are actually achieved.

Engagement Is Not a Personality Trait — It Is a Skill Outcome

Not all children do not arrive at school with a fixed capacity to:

• Regulate emotion

• Manage frustration

• Respond flexibly to authority

• Persist through difficulty

• Repair mistakes after conflict

• Adapt to different environments and demands

These are developmental skills, not character flaws or moral qualities. They must be explicitly taught, modelled, practised, and consistently reinforced across environments.

When a child struggles at school, what is often labelled as “behaviour”, when in practice it is often a skills gap — in regulation, communication, flexibility, or coping under pressure. Behaviour, in this sense, is not defiance; it is a communication that the child is unable to meet the demands of a particular environment at that time.

This explains why some students can function well in one classroom or with a particular teacher, yet struggle significantly in another. The issue is not motivation or willingness; it is the interaction between the child’s current skill set and the demands of the environment.

If these skills are not explicitly taught, modelled, and practised, children cannot consistently meet expectations — no matter how clear the rules are or how firmly they are enforced.

The purpose of schooling is not only curriculum delivery. It is also to prepare young people to function within the broader community and, ultimately, the workforce, so they can contribute meaningfully and independently. That preparation requires skill development alongside academic instruction, not in place of it.

Why Relationship Matters — Without Lowering Expectations

The idea of relationship in schools is frequently misunderstood as permissiveness. In effective classrooms, the opposite is true.

A relationally capable teacher:

• Maintains authority

• Sets clear boundaries

• Enforces expectations consistently

• Intervenes early to prevent escalation

• Repairs ruptures so learning can resume

Relationship does not replace discipline — it stabilises it.

Teachers with strong relational skills are better equipped to recognise the individual needs of their students and to take timely, proportionate steps that support each child to engage with both the learning environment and the task demands within it.

When students experience this consistency from teachers, they feel understood and predictably supported. As a result, behaviour becomes:

• Less reactive

• More receptive to correction

• More willing to re-engage after mistakes

• Better able to tolerate challenge

This directly increases time on task and access to learning.

Importantly, relationally stable classrooms also provide a safe and structured environment in which students can recognise their own emotional responses to learning demands and take proactive steps to manage them — either through self-regulation or supported co-regulation. This benefits not only individual students, but the entire class.

By contrast, classrooms that rely primarily on removal or exclusion often experience repeated escalation, loss of instructional time, and long-term disengagement. In these environments, the student is frequently framed as the problem, and the response focuses on removal rather than resolution. Without a solution-focused lens, short-term management decisions can create compounding difficulties as the child progresses through school. Relationship is not about being lenient. It is about keeping students in the room, maintaining authority, and preserving learning.

Teaching Children the Skills to Manage School

Re-engagement is most effective when the focus shifts from simply “stopping behaviour” to building capacity.

Children need to be explicitly taught how to:

• Recognise early signs of dysregulation

• Ask for help in appropriate ways

• Cope with correction, feedback, or failure

• Transition between tasks and activities

• Follow instructions even when frustrated

• Repair relationships after conflict

These skills are not acquired through consequences alone. They are learned through:

• Modelling by adults

• Coaching in real-time situations

• Repetition and practice

• Consistent responses from the adults around them

When children develop these skills, behaviour improves not because expectations are lowered, but because capacity increases. Students become better able to meet classroom demands, manage themselves within structured environments, and remain engaged in learning.

Over time, this approach supports greater independence and reduces reliance on external or crisis-driven interventions. Teaching behavioural and regulatory skills early is not an accommodation; it is a precondition for responsibility.

The Role of Parents: Firm, Realistic Expectations

Re-engagement does not work if responsibility rests solely with schools.

Parents play a critical role in:

• Reinforcing expectations

• Supporting consistency between home and school

• Holding children accountable for effort and behaviour

• Teaching respect for authority, structure, and boundaries

The students in my research — and those I work with now — consistently remain connected to schooling when parents maintain firm, realistic expectations around attendance, effort, and behaviour. Parental expectations matter, particularly when they are clear, predictable, and reinforced over time.

Lowering expectations does not build resilience or independence. Clear expectations, paired with skill support, do. In fact, my research showed that lowered teacher and parent expectations sent a message of not caring and believing in the child.

When children experience both structure and support across home and school, they are better able to develop responsibility, regulate their behaviour, and remain engaged in learning — even when school becomes challenging.

What the Research Warned Us About

When I concluded my doctoral research, the final chapter drew together a consistent finding: student engagement was sustained not by pressure alone, but by relationally capable teaching that built students’ ability to manage the classroom environment, curriculum demands.

The research did not argue against accountability or high standards. It cautioned that tightening expectations without a corresponding investment in teacher capability was likely to increase exclusion rather than engagement — particularly for students with additional needs.

Teachers who demonstrated strong relational capability were not lowering expectations. They were more effective at:

• Maintaining classroom order

• Preventing behavioural escalation

• Repairing learning after conflict

• Keeping students connected to school

The key system lever identified was professional capability, not removal. Strengthening teacher skill in regulation, relationship, and re-engagement was shown to be more effective than exclusionary responses in sustaining both learning and standards.

Policy Intent and Practice: What Was Meant to Improve Teaching — and What Has Actually Occurred

Over the past several years, both federal and state governments have publicly acknowledged that Australia is facing a significant teaching workforce challenge. Strategies have been released, funding announced, and commitments made to strengthen recruitment, retention, and professional capability. On paper, these initiatives recognise many of the pressures schools are experiencing.

At a federal level, workforce plans have focused on increasing the supply of teachers through scholarships, strengthening initial teacher education, and improving professional development. At a state level, Queensland has released its own teaching workforce strategy, committing substantial funding toward attraction, retention, wellbeing, and professional support.

The stated intent across these policies is clear: to stabilise the workforce, improve teaching quality, and ensure classrooms are well staffed by capable professionals. However, when we look at what has occurred in practice, a significant gap remains between policy aspiration and day-to-day reality in schools.

What the Data and Practice Now Show

Despite these initiatives data from AITSL, AEU, Federal Department of Education, Qld Department of Education and media and news outlets show that:

• Teacher shortages persist across Queensland and nationally, particularly in high-demand subjects, specialist roles, and schools supporting students with complex needs.

• Retention, rather than recruitment alone, has emerged as the most critical issue, with many early-career teachers leaving within the first five years.

• Schools continue to rely on temporary staff, out-of-field teaching, or reduced staffing continuity, all of which undermine relational stability for students.

• Reports from schools consistently indicate that workload, behavioural complexity, and lack of practical support remain central drivers of teacher stress and attrition.

From a practical perspective, there has been little visible evidence of a large-scale, sustained workforce increase that matches the scale of the problem. Recruitment activity has been limited, with minimal public advertising or coordinated campaigns compared to other critical workforce sectors.

This matters, because policy settings that raise expectations in classrooms assume the presence of a stable, skilled workforce capable of meeting those expectations.

Capability Has Not Kept Pace With Expectations

What is particularly notable is that many workforce strategies emphasise numbers — attracting more teachers — without adequately addressing the conditions required to keep teachers effective and in classrooms.

In practice, teachers are being asked to:

• Manage increasingly complex behavioural and learning needs

• Maintain high curriculum and accountability standards

• Support inclusion without consistent access to specialist skill development

• Do so within constrained time and staffing environments

Yet there has been limited system-wide investment in practical, relational, and behavioural capability — the very skills that my research identified as critical to sustaining engagement and reducing exclusion.

As a result, the burden of managing complexity often falls on individual teachers and schools, rather than being supported through coherent workforce capability structures.

Why This Matters for Engagement and Exclusion

When workforce capacity is stretched and capability is under-supported, predictable patterns emerge:

• Behaviour is more likely to be framed as non-compliance rather than a skills gap

• Teachers have less time and support to repair learning after conflict

• Exclusion becomes a management response rather than a last resort

• Students who require greater regulation support are disproportionately affected

In this context, exclusion is not simply a disciplinary choice — it is often a system response to unmet workforce capacity.

The Missed Opportunity

The intent of government workforce initiatives has been sound: to strengthen teaching and stabilise classrooms. However, without visible improvements in staffing stability and relational capability on the ground, those initiatives have not yet translated into the conditions required to sustain engagement for all students.

Raising expectations without addressing workforce capability risks undermining the very outcomes these policies seek to achieve.

The consequences of this gap between policy intent and practice are now becoming increasingly visible in schools, families, and support systems.

One Year On: What Has Occurred in Practice

One year after completing that research, the patterns emerging in practice align closely with those warnings.

Across schools and support services, I am now seeing:

• Increased formal and informal exclusion, particularly for students with disability

• Behaviour managed through removal rather than skill development

• Reduced tolerance for dysregulation under tighter expectations

• Greater reliance on external supports where internal regulation could previously be built

• Heightened stress for families as responsibility is displaced rather than shared

For many students, exclusion is not resolving the issue — it is interrupting the very process through which behavioural capacity develops.

Expectations Alone Are Not Enough

What has become increasingly clear is that expectations alone do not produce engagement.

Students are able to meet expectations when they have the skills to:

• Regulate emotion

• Cope with correction and feedback

• Persist through challenge

• Repair mistakes

• Re-enter learning after conflict

Relationally capable teachers explicitly teach and reinforce these skills while holding clear boundaries and consistent expectations. When this capability is present, expectations are experienced as achievable and fair.

When this capability is absent, expectations can feel punitive rather than attainable, and disengagement accelerates.

Exclusion, in this context, is not a solution to behaviour; it is a response to unmet capacity that removes the very opportunity for those skills to be developed.

Why This Matters for Standards

Exclusion is not a neutral act. It is the complete removal of access to learning.

If the goal is:

• Orderly classrooms

• Reduced disruption

• Higher levels of engagement

• Long-term independence for students

Then relational capability is not an optional extra — it is a foundational requirement.

The evidence from my research, now reinforced by practice data, indicates that standards are best protected when teachers are equipped to regulate behaviour, not simply respond to it. Teachers who can stabilise behaviour, repair learning after conflict, and maintain authority without constant escalation preserve both classroom order and access to curriculum.

Standards are not upheld through exclusion alone. They are upheld when students are supported to develop the skills required to meet them.

A Balanced Path Forward

Sustainable education systems are neither permissive nor punitive. They are deliberate, skill-focused, and consistent. They recognise that standards are upheld not simply through enforcement, but by ensuring that both adults and students have the capability to meet expectations.

A balanced and effective approach begins with firm, clear expectations. Standards for behaviour, effort, and learning provide structure and predictability. When expectations are consistent across classrooms and schools, students understand what is required of them and what they are working toward. Firm expectations are not the problem; inconsistency and unmet capacity are.

However, expectations alone are insufficient if teachers are not equipped to manage the complexity of real classrooms. Teachers cannot maintain order, engagement, or learning if they are expected to respond to increasingly complex behavioural and learning needs without appropriate professional capability.

Effective systems therefore invest in teacher capability, particularly in understanding how learning and behaviour are shaped by development and neurological diversity. This includes a practical understanding of how reduced verbal comprehension can affect a student’s ability to follow instructions or process feedback; how reduced executive functioning can impact organisation, impulse control, task initiation, and emotional regulation; and how cognitive load, stress, and fatigue can impair learning and behaviour even when expectations are clear.

This knowledge does not lower expectations. It allows teachers to adjust how expectations are taught, scaffolded, and reinforced, so students have a genuine opportunity to meet them. When teachers understand the science of learning and regulation, they are better able to prevent escalation before it occurs, maintain authority without repeated conflict, and keep students engaged in learning rather than removing them from it.

Balanced systems also explicitly teach students the skills required to succeed. Engagement improves when students are taught how to regulate emotions, persist through challenge, cope with feedback, and recover after mistakes. These skills do not develop through consequences alone; they develop through instruction, modelling, and repeated practice embedded in everyday classroom interactions.

Re-engagement is strongest when schools and parents operate in partnership. When expectations, responsibility, and skill development are aligned across home and school, parental firmness reinforces accountability and supports long-term independence rather than dependency.

Finally, effective systems intervene early rather than exclude late. Early support for regulation and engagement prevents escalation and preserves learning time. Exclusion, when used as a primary response, often occurs after patterns have already become entrenched. Early intervention strengthens classrooms, reduces disruption, and limits the need for crisis-driven responses later.

Re-engagement is not about lowering the bar or avoiding accountability. It is about building the capacity required to meet expectations consistently. When systems invest in teacher capability, student skill development, and aligned expectations across school and home, standards are not compromised — they are strengthened. Classrooms become more orderly, learning time increases, and students are better prepared to function independently within school, community, and future workplaces.

Closing summary – What Effective Reengagement Requires

Effective re-engagement of students does not come from lowering expectations or increasing exclusion. It comes from aligning standards, capability, and responsibility across the system.

A balanced and sustainable approach requires:

• Firm, consistent expectations for behaviour, effort, and learning, applied predictably across classrooms and schools.

• Investment in teacher capability, particularly in understanding regulation, learning differences, and how behaviour is shaped by developmental and neurological factors.

• Relational competence as a core professional skill, enabling teachers to maintain authority, prevent escalation, and repair learning after conflict.

• Explicit teaching of regulation and engagement skills for students, including coping with feedback, persisting through challenge, and re-entering learning after mistakes.

• Early intervention rather than late exclusion, preserving instructional time and preventing escalation before patterns become entrenched.

• Strong alignment between school and home, where parents reinforce realistic expectations and responsibility while schools focus on skill development.

• A shared focus on long-term independence, reducing reliance on exclusion, external systems, and crisis-driven responses.

Re-engagement is not about being permissive. It is about building the capacity required to meet expectations consistently. When systems invest in teacher skill, student capability, and aligned responsibility, standards are not compromised — they are strengthened. Classrooms become more orderly, learning time increases, and students are better prepared to function within school, community, and future workplaces.