Providing effective support to teachers in addressing social, emotional and behavioural difficulties in mainstream classrooms in a Bangalore pre-primary school

This article reports a study conducted on children’s social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in a single pre-primary school in Bangalore, with the objective of developing a behaviour management policy for use by teachers. Limited evidence is available in the Indian literature in the area of SEBD and it remains important to know how the teachers address behaviour in their classrooms and what proposals they have for the provision of effective support for these children in schools. Eight teachers who had expressed concerns about children’s SEBD were selected for the study. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to gather data from these teachers. The first part of the study was focused upon the teachers’ understanding of the concept of SEBD and the characteristics associated with this label that they encounter in the classroom. Further attempts were made to explore teachers’ strategies and ‘solutions’ to meet such difficulties in their classrooms. The paper discusses the adaptable framework with guidelines for teachers, formulated from the data gathered from the study, together with ideas accumulated through the use of relevant literature to address SEBD in early years settings in India