If back to school isn’t going as smoothly as you’d like, Educational Psychologist Dr Adam McCartney shares on the questions to ask to get your child the help they need.
When your child is struggling at school, it can be difficult to know how to move beyond vague reassurance that they are “fine” or that staff will, “keep an eye on them”.
A useful meeting should help you understand what is happening, when difficulties arise and what will change next and it’s the opportunity to ask for specific examples rather than labels such as “disruptive”, “anxious” or “not trying”. You can also use this time to explore patterns in learning, behaviour, attendance and emotional wellbeing, as well as the support already attempted.
The following three questions can reveal whether the school understands your child as an individual, and whether the right relationships and support are in place.
1. “Which adults does my child feel most comfortable with, and what do they do that helps?”
This may seem an unusual place to begin, but it can reveal a great deal. A school’s answer should help you understand where your child feels safest, most understood and most able to engage.
The trusted person might be the adult who spends the most time with them, but not necessarily. It could be a teaching assistant who explains things calmly, a teacher who uses humour, or a member of staff who notices when your child is becoming overwhelmed. Ask what your child seeks from that adult and what is different about their interactions.
This can identify practical strategies that other adults could adopt. For example: Does the adult prepare your child for changes? Do they offer choices? Are they using fewer words when your child is distressed? Are they given time to process a request? Are they able to notice early signs of anxiety?
Psychologist Dan Hughes’ PACE approach—Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy, offers a useful way to think about interactions that build safety and trust.
If nobody can identify an adult your child trusts, that is important information and a helpful next step would be to agree who will become your child’s key adult, when they will check in and how the school will assess whether this is helping.
2. “What do you recognise as my child’s strengths?”
When a child is experiencing difficulties, conversations can quickly become dominated by what they cannot do. Asking about strengths changes the lens and can offer another perspective on how your child is experienced and create a fuller, more balanced understanding of them.
Listen for specific examples. “They are kind” is positive but broad whereas “They noticed that another pupil was upset and invited them to join the game” tells you much more.
Strengths might include creativity, humour, fairness, persistence, detailed knowledge of a particular subject or the ability to communicate confidently when they feel secure.
Then ask how the school is using those strengths to support areas of difficulty. Could a special interest increase engagement with writing? Could practical learning help a child who struggles with lengthy verbal instructions? Could trusted friendships support transitions or attendance?
The answer may also reveal something about the school’s culture. An associate of mine once had a teacher say that they couldn’t think of a single thing they liked about the child and while such cases are extreme, would you like your child to be in that environment?
Staff who know a child well should be able to identify qualities they value, even when that child’s behaviour is challenging. Strengths are not an optional extra; they are often the best starting point for designing support and rebuilding confidence.
3. “Do you have a relational policy?”
Every school needs clear expectations, but parents should understand what happens when a child cannot meet them.
You can ask to see the relevant policy and request a practical explanation? Ask what happens after an incident and how a child is helped to understand it? Who repairs the relationship? How are unmet needs, disability and reasonable adjustments considered?
A relational policy should explain how the school maintains boundaries while also asking what contributed to the behaviour and what the child needs to succeed next time. It should treat behaviour as information rather than considering it only as misconduct.
Ask the school to examine patterns, for example, do incidents occur during transitions, unstructured periods, difficult lessons or sensory overload? What happens beforehand in these situations? Look at whether attendance difficulties are linked to particular days, subjects or relationships? Also find out what support has already been tried, for how long and with what measurable effect?
Repair is particularly important and we need to note that a restorative conversation can help a child understand another person’s perspective, express what happened for them and plan a more constructive response. This also communicates that conflict does not have to end a relationship.
This is not about removing consequences or lowering expectations but about combining accountability with curiosity, support and reconnection. A recent Cambridge study found that students who reported higher levels of belonging scored, on average, the equivalent of one GCSE grade higher across every GCSE they took than their more isolated peers. The study accounted for bullying and found that nurturing relationships between adults and students were associated with improved academic outcomes. This is vital to consider at a time when many schools advocate compliance and zero tolerance of “deviations from school expectations”.
A substantial research review involving approximately 2.64 million pupils also found that teacher, student relationships were significantly associated with academic achievement, behaviour, engagement, belonging and wellbeing (Emslander and colleagues, 2025).
Leave with a plan, not a promise
You should leave the meeting knowing what the school thinks is happening, the evidence behind that view and what it will do next. Ideally you need to ensure there is a summary of what everyone has agreed before the session ends.
Ask for actions to be specific: who will provide support, what they will do, when it will begin and how its impact will be measured. Agree a review date rather than relying on an open-ended promise to “monitor the situation”.
Progress might be measured through attendance, participation, completed work, incidents, emotional check-ins or, crucially, your child’s own account of whether school feels more manageable.
It is also reasonable to ask what will happen if the plan does not help and when the school would seek advice from its SENCO or other professionals.
The aim here is not to catch the school out. Parents and teachers usually hold different pieces of the same picture,
which means these questions will help bring those pieces together, keeping your child’s strengths, experiences and relationships at the centre of the conversation.
For more information, visit: https://www.dradammccartney.com