A JOINED-UP VIEW
I do not begin with another behaviour strategy or intervention
I start by reading the whole picture carefully: pupil need, communication and regulation, routines and environment, peer dynamics, adult practice and existing provision.
The task is to distinguish what is significant from what is incidental, understand how the relevant factors interact and identify where change is most likely to improve learning access, regulation and participation.
Sometimes the key issue lies in provision. Sometimes it is an adult response, an environmental pressure, an unmet communication or regulation need, or something important that has not yet been recognised.
ASSESSMENT TO IMPLEMENTATION
When good advice has not yet translated into workable provision
Schools can have a great deal of information and still lack a response that works consistently.
Plans, specialist reports and recommendations may all be sound. The challenge is turning that understanding into provision that holds together across classrooms, routines and different adults.
My work often sits between assessment and implementation.
I bring together specialist advice, direct observation, school evidence and professional discussion to identify where understanding has not yet translated into practice and what needs to change.
I do not duplicate specialist assessment. I help schools make better use of what is already known, while recognising when further assessment or specialist input is still needed.
WHEN THE PICTURE IS COMPLEX
When the current response is no longer enough
This work is particularly useful when concerns have become layered or persistent. Behaviour may be escalating, access to learning becoming more restricted, suspensions increasing, or a reduced timetable being considered or already in place. Staff may also be carrying growing uncertainty about what to do next.
The picture may include autism, ADHD, SEMH, communication or sensory needs, attachment-related needs or the effects of trauma, with or without a diagnosis.
The label is not the organising principle. The task is to understand which aspects of need, context and interaction are most significant now, and what that means for provision.
JUDGEMENT GROUNDED IN SCHOOL REALITY
Experience matters when recommendations have to work in practice
I’m Kamal Riar, a Behaviour & SEND Consultant. My professional judgement is grounded in more than 20 years across classroom teaching, behaviour support, specialist autism and SEND advisory work, staff development, school improvement and independent consultancy.
That breadth matters because complex school situations rarely sit in one place. I have worked with individual pupils, classes and groups, school leaders and wider systems, including exclusion risk, multi-agency involvement and coaching with teachers and senior leaders.
It means I can hold pupil need alongside the realities of the school around it, and therefore judge what is both educationally sound and genuinely sustainable in practice. Recommendations have to work for the pupil, the adults implementing them and the realities of the setting in which they will be used.
The aim is a clearer professional view of what matters most, what needs to change and what is realistic to do next.
Kamal puts the young people at the heart of planning. When other professionals say there is nothing else to try, Kamal has creative ideas that can be personalised for each individual student.
Natasha V., SENCO, Space Studio West London, Hounslow
