Editorial

Welcome to this double issue 29 (01 and 02).

In the first paper in the collection Ariadna Albajara Saenz, Anne-Marie Burn, Kate Allen, Lorraine Hansford, Rachel Hayes, Matthew Allwood, Bryony Longdon, Anna Price, and Tamsin Ford present the findings of a one-year qualitative follow-up study concerned with teachers’ views on the sustainability of the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management programme. This is an important issue: the field is littered with programmes that were announced as being an important contribution, but which proved to be unsustainable in the hurly-burly of school life.

The Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (TCM) programme is an evidence-based training with documented positive effects on teachers’ classroom management strategies and pupil mental health. However, as the authors rightly note, programme effectiveness alone does not ensure sustainability. This study explored teachers’ views on the sustainability of the TCM programme. One year after attending the TCM training, 25 UK primary schoolteachers participated in three focus groups and ten individual interviews. Data were thematically analysed using the Framework Method. A year after the training, teachers were still using TCM strategies, adapting their use to their new cohort of pupils and still reported positive effects on children, teacher–parent relationships, and themselves. However, some school-level and educational policy changes hindered their intended use of TCM strategies. Teachers shared TCM strategies with their colleagues, with mixed responses from the latter. The ‘pyramid sell’ approach to training and programme implementation does not always work. The authors argue that to ensure the sustainability of the programme, refresher sessions and a whole-school training approach were required.

In the next paper Lauren Cross, Emma Carey, Simon Benham-Clarke, and Tamsin Ford reflect on children and young people’s experiences of public health and social measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article is based on a purposive, qualitative follow-up from a national probability sample. It used semi-structured interviews to explore how participants navigated national lockdowns (including school closures), social restrictions, and the reintegration back into pre-pandemic routines. Twenty children, young people and parents were purposively sampled from the Mental Health of Children and Young People’s Survey, 2020. The authors identified three major themes through thematic analysis, with participants discussing (1) learning experiences, (2) emotions and coping, and (3) decompression and discovery. Experiences during the pandemic were highly variable. Participants emphasised the importance of social and familial connections, access to engaging learning environments, and structure/routine in promoting health and well-being.

In paper 3, Helena Rogers and Catherine Kelly present a scoping review of the literature exploring and evaluating the Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) intervention. This intervention was designed to build schools’ capacity to support pupils’ emotional wellbeing needs from within their own resources. A wide-ranging research base spanning over 10 years has grown around the ELSA intervention. This scoping review was commissioned by the ELSA Network to systematically identify and map the current composition of the ELSA research body, including the purpose, methods and range of research available. Fifty-three studies met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed: including 9 published studies, 31 doctoral or student studies and 14 local authority evaluation reports. When used alongside practice-based evidence, the findings provide a basis to inform practitioners’ selection and use of intervention. Mapping of ELSA research indicates a tendency towards qualitative approaches, perhaps reflective of challenges measuring an adaptive intervention. Through identifying gaps related to topics, designs and participant voices, recommendations for future research are suggested.

In paper 4, Shanyan Lin, Francesca Giovanna Maria Gastaldi, Claudio Longobardi, and Matteo Angelo Fabris, investigate the interplay of student–teacher relationships, general anxiety, and school adjustment among Italian primary school children. They argue that school adjustment is an important factor in children’s later development, and research attributes an important role to the quality of the teacher–student relationship in predicting more favourable school adjustment. The purpose of this study was to expand the knowledge base of the relationship between teacher-student relationship quality and school adjustment (academic achievement, peer social preference and problem behaviour) by examining the possible mediating role of general anxiety. The authors recruited a sample of 1135 Italian primary school students (51.6% girls, aged 6 ~ 10 years, M = 7.7; SD = 0.99) and their teachers, who completed an anonymous questionnaire. Results showed that a close teacher–student relationship was significantly and negatively associated with problem behaviours and positively associated with peer social status and academic achievement. Conversely, their data showed that a high-conflict teacher–student relationship was significantly and positively associated with problematic behaviours and negatively associated with peer academic achievement and social status. Their data also suggested a mediating role of general anxiety in explaining the association between a conflictual relationship with the teacher and measures of academic achievement. In this sense, a high-conflict relationship tends to be associated with high levels of general anxiety, which in turn is associated with more problematic behaviour and worse peer social status and academic achievement.

In the next paper Luana Sorrenti, Concettina Caparello, Arianna Nicita, Angelo Fumia, Carmelo Francesco Meduri, and Pina Filippello discuss the mediating role of Emotional Intelligence in social support and risk of victimisation. Their study aimed to assess the role of perceived parental and peer support in promoting individual emotional intelligence (EI), and reducing the risk of victimisation. The sample consisted of 348 Italian middle and high-school students. Victimisation risk, perceived parental and peer support, and EI were measured using questionnaires. Their data suggest the need to structure training to promote support in the social and family context to increase students’ EI and thus reduce the risk of victimisation among students.

In paper 6, Rebecca Jones, Jana Kreppner, Fiona Marsh, and Brettany Hartwell, present a much needed exploration into school staff perspectives on the journey from punitive approaches to relational-based approaches. Their work captures the perspectives of UK primary school staff regarding the advantages and disadvantages of different behaviour support approaches, in addition to exploring the facilitators and barriers to adopting relational-based approaches. Virtual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 school staff across three mainstream primary schools. A reflexive thematic analysis identified nine themes. Participants commented on the approaches’ flexibility, familiarity, positive long-term behaviour change and emotional wellbeing and relationships. Key facilitators to adopting relational-based approaches included: whole-school training and understanding; quality and type of training; and working together and feeling supported. Key barriers included: changing perspectives; ease of implementation and familiarity; scarcity of resources; and persevering in the face of difficulties. The authors discuss these themes in light of psychological research and the implications for educational practitioners.

In the next and final paper Kefayat Delf Loveymi, and Rezvan Homaei the mediating role of brain-behavioural systems in the prediction of school bullying based on school climate and emotional self-regulation. Two hundred and fifty-seven participants completed the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire, Organizational Climate Index, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and Behavioral/Brain Systems Questionnaire. The findings suggest that the school bullying model based on the school climate and emotional self-regulation with the mediating role of brain-behavioural systems had a good fit. They also demonstrated that the school climate had a direct negative effect on school bullying, whereas emotional self-regulation had a direct positive effect on it. The school climate and emotional self-regulation were found to have a positive indirect effect on school bullying through the mediating role of brain-behavioural systems. The authors argue that it is necessary to develop plans to improve school climate, emotional self-regulation, and brain-behavioural systems to reduce school bullying.