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Explore the evidence informing RefocusED and the emerging findings from its use in schools.
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Explore the research, methodology and emerging findings behind the development and use of RefocusED interventions in schools.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21951675
Want to see how evidence appears for a real pupil journey?
Book a demoRefocusED draws on established areas of educational, behavioural, and developmental thinking. The aim is not to overload staff with theory, but to ensure that what sits behind the model is clear, coherent, and professionally grounded.
Programme materials include rationale and references so staff can understand not only what to do, but why it matters.
RefocusED is informed by a range of educational, behavioural, developmental, and trauma informed literature, alongside statutory and professional guidance relevant to SEND, safeguarding, behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and school based intervention. This section provides an overview of the principal research domains informing the wider RefocusED model.
The material presented here is not intended to function as a complete bibliography for every element of RefocusED. Different interventions draw on different strands of evidence, and fuller intervention specific reference lists are included within individual programme materials. The reference list included at the end of this section is provided as an example from 1 intervention, Safe Starts, to illustrate the depth and range of sources informing programme development.
Research in trauma, stress, and adversity has contributed significantly to understanding how chronic stress, disrupted relational safety, and adverse experiences may affect emotional regulation, behavioural presentation, trust, and access to learning. This body of literature is relevant to intervention design where pupils may present with withdrawal, dysregulation, avoidance, heightened reactivity, or difficulty engaging safely with adults and school routines.
Relational and developmental literature has emphasised the importance of trust, co regulation, attuned adult response, and relational consistency in supporting pupil readiness for engagement. This has particular relevance for interventions designed to build safety, reduce defensiveness, and support more stable communication between pupil and adult.
Research relating to ADHD and executive functioning provides an important foundation for understanding difficulties in inhibition, planning, organisation, working memory, sustained attention, and self regulation. This area of literature is particularly relevant where interventions aim to support task access, emotional control, self monitoring, and the practical management of demand.
Literature relevant to autism, communication, sensory processing, and interoception supports the use of more structured, concrete, and predictable approaches to communication, self awareness, and regulation. This is relevant where pupils may experience overload, communication mismatch, or difficulty interpreting and responding to internal states and external expectations.
Research concerning emotional regulation and co regulation has informed understanding of how pupils identify, interpret, and manage internal states, and how adult response can either reduce or amplify escalation. This literature supports approaches that emphasise calm adult presence, early recognition of stress, and practical regulation strategies.
A substantial body of educational and behavioural literature supports the interpretation of distressed, avoidant, or dysregulated behaviour as potentially communicative of unmet need, overload, frustration, lagging skills, or compromised coping capacity. This does not remove the need for boundaries or accountability, but it does support more precise assessment and response.
The RefocusED model is also informed by literature and guidance relating to inclusive school practice, graduated response, implementation, and the practical realities of school systems. This includes the need for approaches that remain workable within staff capacity, time constraints, variable spaces, safeguarding expectations, and accountability requirements.
The literature informing RefocusED has implications for both intervention content and the wider structure through which interventions are delivered and evidenced.
Research informs the sequencing, pacing, and structure of interventions, including the balance between relationship building, reflection, regulation work, practical strategy development, and the translation of pupil insight into staff usable information.
The evidence base is also relevant to how adults are guided to deliver interventions. This includes attention to emotional safety, relational consistency, manageable task demand, clarity of language, pacing, and the reduction of avoidable stress within the intervention process.
Several interventions draw on evidence concerning regulation, self awareness, communication, and reflective processing. This informs the use of structured prompts, practical strategy work, grounding, visual tools, and guided reflection tasks.
The wider model is also shaped by the need for clear baseline information, proportionate session recording, progress monitoring, and the production of outputs that can support review meetings, staff communication, and ongoing planning. In this respect, the research base informs not only what is delivered, but how intervention work is understood and documented.
RefocusED is also informed by statutory and professional guidance relevant to school practice.
The SEND Code of Practice provides an important framework for identifying need, planning support, reviewing provision, and ensuring that interventions contribute to a coherent graduated response.
Department for Education guidance relating to mental health and behaviour supports the importance of understanding how distress, anxiety, unmet need, and wider emotional factors may affect classroom behaviour and access to learning.
Keeping Children Safe in Education provides the statutory safeguarding framework within which schools operate. This is relevant to any intervention model involving vulnerable pupils, adult pupil interaction, emotionally sensitive content, and school based support.
Relevant guidance, including NICE guidance on ADHD, provides additional clinical and professional context where attentional, behavioural, or executive functioning needs are part of the pupil profile.
Fuller intervention specific reference lists are included within individual RefocusED programme materials. The list below is provided as an example from Safe Starts to illustrate the depth and range of sources informing programme development.
Barkley, R. A. (1997). ADHD and the nature of self control. Guilford Press.
Barkley, R. A. (2014). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a handbook for diagnosis and treatment (4th ed.). Guilford Press.
Burke Harris, N. (2018). The deepest well, healing the long term effects of childhood adversity. Bluebird.
Deci, E. L., and Ryan, R. M. (2000). “The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of goal pursuits, human needs and the self determination of behaviour.” Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227 to 268.
Department for Education. (2015). Special educational needs and disability code of practice, 0 to 25 years, statutory guidance.
Department for Education. (2018). Mental health and behaviour in schools, departmental advice for school staff.
Department for Education. (2025). Keeping children safe in education, statutory guidance.
Diamond, A., and Ling, D. S. (2016). “Conclusions about interventions that improve executive functions.” Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 34 to 48.
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., et al. (1998). “Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults, the adverse childhood experiences study.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245 to 258.
Greene, R. W. (2014). Lost at school, why our kids with behavioural challenges are falling through the cracks and how we can help them. Scribner.
Kuypers, L. (2011). The zones of regulation, a curriculum designed to foster self regulation and emotional control. Social Thinking Publishing.
Langberg, J. M., Epstein, J. N., Becker, S. P., et al. (2012). “Evaluation of the homework, organisation, and planning skills intervention for middle school students with ADHD.” School Psychology Review, 41(3), 342 to 364.
Mahler, K. (2017). Interoception, the eighth sensory system. AAPC Publishing.
Maté, G. (2021). The myth of normal, trauma, illness, and healing in a toxic culture. Penguin.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2018). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diagnosis and management (NG87).
Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). “Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process.” Psychological Science, 8(3), 162 to 166.
Perry, B. D., and Szalavitz, M. (2006). The boy who was raised as a dog. Basic Books.
Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind, how relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Siegel, D. J., and Bryson, T. P. (2010). The whole brain child. Delacorte Press.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score. Viking.
See the kind of documentation schools can generate through structured delivery.
A brief, practical record of session by session delivery, engagement, and progress over time.
A clear, staff ready summary of what helps, what makes learning harder, and what adults should know.
A leadership facing summary of why support was used, what was delivered, and what changed.
A concise summary of presenting needs, baseline themes, and recommended intervention direction.
Illustrative examples are provided to show the style and purpose of outputs.
RefocusED is built so that evidence is created through a clear delivery process, rather than added retrospectively as extra paperwork.
Initial concerns, context, and presenting needs are recorded.
Structured information helps identify the most appropriate intervention pathway.
Staff record brief notes, ratings, and practical observations during delivery.
The platform builds a clearer picture of engagement, response, and development over time.
Information is translated into staff usable summaries and leadership ready reporting.
Outputs support review meetings, planning decisions, and onward support.
This creates a more consistent and defensible intervention record, without turning delivery into an admin exercise.
RefocusED is not built around generic wellbeing language or loosely structured pastoral activity. It is shaped around practical school delivery, psychologically informed design, and evidence processes that can be used consistently in real settings.
Every intervention is shaped by recognised educational and psychological principles that support safe, purposeful, and structured delivery in school.
Programmes are designed around the realities of implementation, including staffing pressures, limited time, varying spaces, and the need for consistency across staff.
The platform is designed to turn delivery activity into documentation that leaders and staff can actually use.
For schools, this means intervention work becomes easier to explain, easier to review, and easier to evidence.
A more structured baseline before targeted support begins.
A clearer account of what was delivered, how pupils responded, and what staff noticed.
Outputs that help teachers and support staff understand the pupil more clearly.
Better material for review meetings, leadership oversight, and next step planning.
The result is a model that supports more consistent practice, clearer review conversations, and stronger evidence of targeted support.
RefocusED is designed to improve through implementation. Programme materials, trackers, and outputs are reviewed in response to delivery experience, staff feedback, and practical school use. This helps strengthen clarity, usability, and evidence quality over time.
RefocusED is developed by experienced school practitioners, with specialist input supporting emotionally safe and professionally grounded implementation.