Description

Challenging behaviour on the part of children and adolescents at school can disrupt the classroom and cause feelings of helplessness and overwhelm in teachers – but also in other pupils.

Canton of Zurich schools are currently seeking effective and realistic ways to deal with problematic behavioural issues; identifying such actions and support options is the aim of the “Challenge II” project. The main focus is placed on using measures to deal with challenging behaviour that have proven effective in practice. On the basis of a needs analysis, these approaches are “customised” to the situation at hand: in action research projects, specific measures are selected for individual schools, adapted to local needs and observed in practice.

The participating schools receive support through two interrelated components:

• Needs analysis and action research: using standardised instruments (online survey), the current situation at a school is recorded and analysed. These data serve as an empirical foundation for selecting an appropriate and relevant measure. The research and school teams work together to interpret the data, set goals and select a promising measure; all aspects are adapted to the local needs and setting. The researchers then observe and evaluate how the measure is implemented.
• An appropriate measure is implemented during a school year. The evidence-based measure is customised to the needs of an individual school. The research team and the school work together on formulating the specific aim, content and form of the measure on the basis of the survey; as such, the measures selected can differ from school to school.

Project outcomes

The Challenge project was conducted from 2022 to 2026 on behalf of the Volksschulamt (Office of Elementary Education) of the Canton of Zurich. Its aim was to support schools in responding to challenging student behaviour.

Central to the project was a data-driven self-assessment at the level of entire school teams. Participating schools completed a standardized questionnaire covering several dimensions: the frequency of challenging behaviour in everyday school life, staff perceptions of stress and self-efficacy in classroom management and individual learning support, as well as school climate and collegial support.

The results provided schools with a structured basis for joint team reflection. Unlike external school evaluations, the focus was not on rating individual schools but on fostering data-informed dialogue about stressors, resources, and pedagogical attitudes. The findings made internal perceptions visible and highlighted differences within teams.

Between 2023 and 2025, 26 schools took part. Their data could be compared with findings from an earlier round in 2018 involving 15 schools from urban settings. As the two groups differ in composition, the comparisons point to broader patterns and trends rather than direct change over time. School climate and collegial support remained stable to positive across both rounds. At the same time, teachers rated their own effectiveness in classroom management and individual learning support more cautiously than in 2018. Stress levels did not increase overall, but showed greater variation, with some staff reporting very low and others markedly high levels of strain.

An important finding for interpretation is that challenging behaviour affects schools less through isolated incidents than through its persistent presence in daily classroom life. The self-assessment offered an accessible way to bring precisely these everyday experiences into team-level discussion.

At the request of individual schools, school-specific measures were also accompanied through research. Examples include extended learning settings as a supportive measure for students with challenging behaviour, time-in interventions by specialists during particularly difficult situations, and dedicated spaces for relaxation and self-regulation. Other schools developed shared pedagogical frameworks and revised their special education frameworks accordingly. Experience from this process shows that follow-up measures were most likely to be implemented when they could build on existing structures.

In summary, the Challenge project proved especially valuable as a tool for reflection and orientation, and in several cases also served as a starting point for broader school development.

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