Toward a Positive Environment in Irish Afterschool Contexts
- Introduction
Imagine, for but a moment, a child who is disrupting the afterschool classroom – perhaps they are raising their voice too loudly, or tipping over boxes as the other children are trying to tidy up, or maybe they are loudly decrying the ongoing activity. For anyone who has spent any amount of time working in childcare, this is not a particularly challenging image to conjure to mind, though this is hardly the point here.
Instead, at least for the purposes of the point being made here, the focus is rather on the two staff members attempting the ‘manage’ the situation. The first may see a ‘bold’ child, and may reach out for a warning or declaration – ‘behave or else’, or ‘stop it’. The second instead sees a child who has already spent six hours that day, exhausting themselves following strict rules and social protocols, and who has arrived at the one part of the afternoon where that structure and routine become a little more relaxed. Rather than declaration or warning, this staff member instead asks what it is about that particular moment which makes the behaviour they are seeing the most likely response.
This second interpretation reflects a simplified essence of Positive Behavioural Support (PBS). While a more negative or punitive model might treat the difficult moment as something which must be met with consequence, PBS instead treats the very same moment as a source of information regarding the room, the routine, the structure, or the ongoing environment, rather than a verdict on the child’s character – and thus reduces the risk of falling to some kind of attribution error.
Read this way, that staff member’s goal shifts toward building a more inclusive setting in which the good and positive behaviour we all want to see is the natural and most likely outcome. As a means of intervention, the PBS brings about a slower – and sometimes less radical – change, but is also often the most sustainable and long-term in effect because it also largely preventative. By creating an environment where inclusive needs are addressed and met, and where regulation strategies are appropriately supported, a significant amount of negative behaviour can be mitigated or prevented outright.
- The Three Pillars of Implementation
Understanding, then, the purpose and underpinning philosophy of the PBS approach, we may turn to the actual implementation thereof. In this regard, some of the clearest thinking on how this kind of culture change actually takes root comes from Finland – as a part of the ProVaka model which, although targeted more specifically at early years, does identify three fundamental dimensions of implementation which can be applied in just about any group setting for children.
The first of these is simply structure. Change of this kind does not happen through scattered good intentions, no matter how sincere. It requires a dedicated team who own the process, and it needs communication channels between staff, parents, and children that actually function – as opposed to existing only on paper or in thin air. Without that foundation, PBS tends to become whatever the most enthusiastic staff member happens to be doing that particular week, which rarely survives that staff member’s next day off.
The second is comprehension, and it has two halves that are often mistaken for one another. Staff need to understand the theoretical why: that behaviour is functional, that consistency reduces anxiety, that a child is not being difficult for its own sake. But they equally need the practical how, which is entirely setting-specific. Knowing the theory does very little for a staff member standing in a room with mismatched ages, forty minutes of free play, and one colleague on snack duty, unless someone has also worked through what the theory actually looks like in that particular room.
The third pillar, experimentation, is where most of the real learning happens. Staff must try new strategies – whether that is a new transition routine, a change to how praise is delivered, or a different layout for the activity tables – and they must, then, honestly assess whether it worked before adjusting again. This process can be untidy in practice, and the reality is that the process is easily disrupted by staff turnover, school holidays, and even new children arriving mid-year.
- Practical Tools for the Afterschool
Now return, for a moment, to that earlier child, the one who disrupting the class. A structured team and a well-understood culture will have already prevented a great deal of what might otherwise go wrong for this child. But on the days when disruption still happens – and it will still happen, albeit far less frequently – staff need a way of understanding that behaviour in a way that goes beyond simply responding to it in the moment.
One useful starting point – sometimes remembered as the ABCs of Behaviour – is drawn from several proven models and approaches. It asks staff to notice the Antecedent, meaning whatever happened immediately before the Behaviour, whether that is a transition, an instruction, or a change in the room. It asks them to describe the behaviour itself in plain, observable terms, rather than in judgement. Finally, it asks them to notice the Consequence, meaning what happened immediately afterward, including how adults and other children responded.
Another very useful model is the Zones of Regulation, which categorises behaviour and affect – that is a person’s emotional state – into a simple and shared vocabulary. Blue for low energy or sadness, green for calm and ready, yellow for heightened or anxious, red for overwhelmed. A child who might otherwise struggle to explain that they feel excited, or a bit anxious, energetic, a tad frustrated, but who can say “I am in the yellow zone” has handed staff an antecedent that may have been missed.
Similarly, if staff can learn to identify signs that a child might be in that yellow zone, they can implement strategies to help the child regulate those emotions – or better yet, teach to child to identify that experience, and regulate themselves. It is a substantial enough tool that it deserves a fuller piece of its own another time, but even this brief outline points at why it pairs so naturally with the ABCs: one names what a staff member sees, and the other gives the child a way of naming what they feel.
Once a pattern like that is visible, the Premack Principle takes the spotlight. This principle is really just the formal version of a bargain most parents already strike without knowing it has a name: a high-frequency, preferred activity, outdoor play or a favourite game, can be used to reinforce engagement with a lower-frequency, less preferred one, such as homework or tidying. The key is sequencing rather than bribery. The preferred activity is presented as what naturally comes next, not as a prize held out for good behaviour.
Then, it is time to design a more deliberate response to the child, it is important to make sure that the response be SMART. That is, Specific enough to name precisely what will happen, Measurable enough that staff can tell whether it happened, focused on an Achievable action rather than a vague aspiration, connected clearly to something Relevant, and bounded by a realistic Timeframe rather than left open-ended.
In an afterschool setting, these goals tend to work best when they are tied to an actual point in the session, arrival, homework, free play, rather than framed as something abstract like “improve behaviour.”
- Conclusion
Ultimately, PBS is not about eliminating every difficult moment. These moments are important, and without them, children may never learn to process those more extreme emotions in a healthy way. So children will still become frustrated, tired, excited, disappointed, and overwhelmed. They will still make mistakes, test boundaries, and communicate their needs in ways that are not always easy for adults to understand. That is, after all, an entirely normal part of childhood. However, by making the appropriate changes in the environment, it is very much possible to reduce the frequency with which a child might become dysregulated. Moreover, such an approach can help Staff support these children in scaffolding their ability to regulate and manage their own emotions.
Of course, no single framework, strategy, or intervention will achieve this on its own. It is the combination of the models described – and several others – as well as a willingness to adapt or experiment that gradually shapes an afterschool culture where children feel safe, understood, and capable of success.
