This is my second post in a series of reflections on the tendencies that stop us from addressing systemic issues in education—a series I’m calling Beyond the obvious.
In my last post, Forced rhubarb (and the tyranny of short-termism), I explored why we so often prioritise what’s immediate over what’s important. This time, I want to examine a closely related tendency: our fixation on behavioural solutions.
When faced with complex, deeply embedded problems in education, why do we so often reach for interventions that focus on individual behaviour, rather than systemic change?
Why do we tell students to be more resilient instead of reducing the stressors that make resilience necessary?
Why do we launch attendance incentive schemes rather than addressing the underlying reasons students struggle to get to school?
The DfE’s statutory guidance for all schools and local authorities to improve attendance emphasises a collaborative approach to promoting regular attendance and highlights the importance of understanding and addressing barriers to attendance including a range of behavioural and structural challenges. The guidance places significant responsibility on families and schools to fix these issues that may, if we’re not careful, encourage us to inadvertently overemphasise behavioural approaches—such as improving school-family engagement (a good thing) and monitoring individual attendance (another good thing)—at the expense of addressing the structural determinants of student behaviour—like poverty, mental health support and community resources—that require systemic changes beyond schools’ immediate control.
I think the answers to these questions lie in visibility, immediacy, and control—but I also think this tendency comes at a cost.
Why do we default to behavioural solutions?
It’s easy to understand the appeal of behavioural solutions. They feel practical, tangible, and within our control. Changing systems feels slow and difficult; changing behaviour feels like something we can get on with quickfast.
There are structural reasons why we reach for these approaches:
1️⃣ They’re visible: A change in student behaviour is easier to spot (and measure) than a change in systemic conditions.
2️⃣ They’re immediate: Teaching students a growth mindset or launching a resilience programme delivers faster results than pushing for long-term structural reform.
3️⃣ They align with existing accountability models: Schools are judged on student outcomes, not the deeper conditions that shape them.
Take student attendance, for example. If student absence is rising, the easiest intervention is to change student behaviour—offer attendance incentives, call home more often, introduce fines for persistent non-attendance. These are direct, trackable interventions.
But this framing sidesteps the structural factors that actually drive poor attendance: the cost, reliability and accessibility of transport, unpredictable home environments, mental health struggles, or the disengagement that comes from students not seeing school as a place for them.
Why does this feel like our only option?
"Look, I hear what you’re saying but schools have to operate in the real world. We can’t fix poverty. We can’t build transport infrastructure. We can’t increase wages. We can teach kids to be resilient. What else do you expect us to do?"
I get it.
This article isn’t advocating for the rejection of behaviour-based solutions entirely. The problem isn’t that we use them—it’s how much we rely on them. Because when we over-prioritise behavioural solutions, we risk treating symptoms instead of causes. And that comes with consequences.
What do we lose when we default to behavioural fixes?
1️⃣ We reinforce the idea that failure is personal, not systemic.
When we tell students that success is about grit, resilience, or mindset, we risk implying that those who struggle just aren’t trying hard enough. The same is true with staff too.
This approach individualises failure (success too) and downplays the structural barriers—like underfunding, staffing shortages, and economic inequality—that shape student experiences and outcomes.
For example, a student who is chronically late to school is given punctuality workshops instead of transport support or flexible scheduling. The issue is framed as their deficit, rather than a solvable logistical challenge.
2️⃣ We create fragile success—dependent on willpower, not systems.
Behavioural interventions often help students ‘succeed’ within a broken system, rather than fixing the system itself.
This means success becomes dependent on individual willpower, rather than predictable, stable support structures. And while stories of students overcoming adversity through sheer determination are inspiring, they shouldn’t be the blueprint for how the system works.
As W. Edwards Deming put it, “A bad system will beat a good person every time.”
Teaching students ‘exam resilience’ doesn’t fix the fact that some schools have access to experienced teachers and small class sizes, while others face staff shortages and high turnover. The playing field remains uneven, but students are expected to ‘grit their way through’ regardless.
At what point do we stop demanding more resilience from individuals and start demanding more from the system itself?
3️⃣ We limit the ambition of what schools (and education policy) can achieve.
Behavioural interventions make small tweaks to individual actions rather than redesigning the systems that produce inequitable outcomes.
When we over-prioritise behaviour, we let systems off the hook—avoiding harder but more impactful questions about funding, curriculum design, and long-term reform.
If student well-being is suffering, it’s easier and quicker to offer mindfulness sessions than to push for an alternative assessment system.
Are we ignoring individual effort?
I know how this argument will sound to some people.
"Are you saying individual effort doesn’t matter? I’ve seen students succeed through sheer determination. I’ve seen teachers transform lives through skill and effort. Are you saying that doesn’t count?"
I’m not saying that. I’m saying this isn’t structure vs. agency—it’s structure and agency. Individual choices matter. But they are shaped—and often constrained—by the systems around them.
A highly motivated student in a well-funded school with strong pastoral support is not the same as a highly motivated student battling food insecurity and an unpredictable home environment.
Yet we often celebrate outliers while ignoring the barriers that hold others back. And when we do this without checking ourselves it produces an analgesic effect.
The leadership dilemma: What are schools supposed to do with this?
Here’s the practical challenge:
"I have to show improvement. I have to deliver results. If the system is broken, do I just blame it and give up?"
No.
But leadership isn’t just about managing what’s in front of us (‘controlling the controllables’)—it’s also about knowing which constraints to challenge. It’s about:
1️⃣ Balancing interventions: If 90% of your improvement plan focuses on student mindset and teacher effort, what would it look like to devote ten more per cent to questioning and reshaping the structures around them? How can we make the desired behaviour the easiest behaviour?
2️⃣ Pushing for broader change: Are there ways to advocate for structural shifts—whether that’s in funding models, curriculum flexibility, or community partnerships—that would address root causes instead of just symptoms? A first step might be in simply collecting data and information about why certain individuals (students and/or staff) find it hard to conform to particular expectations or to work within certain systems.
It’s about building a Matryoshka doll to match Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory.
Where the smallest doll works on the microsystem and supports individual behaviour. The next doll works on the mesosystem to improve staff-student and school-family relationships. The next one produces school policies, frameworks and resources. The next influences education policy, economic inequality, housing instability, healthcare access, and social mobility. The largest doll of them all? They’re here to address the most deep-rooted stuff: the historical, cultural and inter-generational attitudinal stuff that our schools swim in. The largest doll of all shapes what is considered ‘normal’ or ‘possible’ within education. That last one might sound like a lofty ambition but schools are doing this all the time, often without even knowing it.
Breaking the habit: What now?
This tendency—to fix behaviour instead of fixing systems—is deeply ingrained, not just in education but in how we think about change more broadly. See: our politics.
There’s clearly no simple fix to this. So, what can we do? Ironically, I’m going to propose a behavioural shift, to check and challenge ourselves around decision making. Next time you propose an intervention, ask yourself:
Are we trying to change individuals because it’s genuinely the best solution? Or are we doing it because it’s the most visible, most immediate, and most convenient option available?
Are we ignoring any of the dolls?
Because the question isn’t ‘behaviour or systems?’ It’s ‘how do we make sure we’re not just fixing the symptoms while leaving the structures untouched?’