Dealing with challenging behaviour in Alternative Provision schools: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Student’s challenging behaviour is found to be one of the greatest daily stressors that teachers experience daily (Kyriacou, 2009; Wilson, 2002). Even with a large body of research around this phenomenon, research is limited in Alternative Provision (AP) education with these staff members’ experiences being under researched. As a result, the current study aimed to explore how staff members perceive and talk about their experiences with dealing with challenging behaviour in AP schools. Semi-structured interviews were used, followed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Three themes were present after analysis, with the first theme surrounding the importance of a strong staff-student relationship in order to understand student’s displaying challenging behaviour, the second eliciting the psychological consequences that resulted from dealing with aggressive challenging behaviour, and the final theme considering the influence that dealing with challenging behaviour has on participants self-concept, positively and negatively. Following discussion of analysis, the current findings can have implications in shifting a focus onto AP staff who deal with more severe, volatile challenging behaviours and how these staff can be better supported personally and professionally.