Frequently Asked Questions

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You can find all you need to know about low level disruption here including links to government reports.

The RTL strategy aims to reverse a very simple yet very far reaching process which, though very evident in classrooms, is also ongoing throughout life beginning at around the age of six. It is caused by a natural meeting of our co-operative instincts and our competitive conscious mind resulting in (1) internal criticism (or conflict) between the two and eventually (2) inconsistency (leading to related ideas such as unfairness), as we struggle to decide which of the two paths to follow. It is a continuous cycle with the second part of the cycle naturally feeding back into the first. In classroom behaviour management 92% of this cycle can be completely reversed. In reversing it, humanity can begin to access its full potential.

Though it is possible to reverse and stop low level disruption in classrooms with Part 1 alone, the key to sustaining and achieving optimal reversal is through; 

• understanding the causes of low level disruption throughout society and throughout human history which is covered in RTL Part 2; 
• the provision of a curriculum that better reflects humanity's full potential through lessons created in RTL Part 3. 

Part 1 creates the time - over nine thousand hours per year in an average sized secondary school - for teaching Parts 2 and 3 which combine to form a full co-operative curriculum, all whilst ensuring current levels of commitment to the standard, competitive, examination curriculum can continue to develop - and benefit considerably - alongside.

Only if we are prepared to accept as palatable 'adults being adults' and the world they/we create by being so. RTL views current human potential as being less than fifty percent achieved, and that current thinking cannot improve on this figure whilst it continues to promote the ignoring of the symptoms and effects of low level disruption in children and adults.

Costs are currently calculated per teacher. You can find out the cost for your school using our calculator under 'cost of RTL training per school' at the foot of the calculator.

Our 92% figure describes the amount of time spent managing low level disruption events using RTL versus using existing strategies. RTL management consumes around 1 minute of lesson time compared to existing strategies which consume around 12 minutes, the latter being described in Ofsted's 'Below the Radar' report (2014).

This figure arises as a result of managing internal low level disruption that does not manifest audibly or visibly but prevents us from concentrating. 

By demonstrating (rather than merely hoping to achieve) a fairer, much less conflicted system of behaviour management, students are able to engage in their work without internal disruption holding them back (e.g. feeling less anxiety as to whether, or how, another student will prevent them from learning.)

Two simple examples of this might be as follows:

• students who normally fail to complete work actually completing work and accessing higher attainment levels as a result
• students held back by differentiated tasks that also do not allow them to access higher levels.

In any event, increased time in the classroom and a greater ability to concentrate in the individual - in both students and teachers - are primarily responsible. 

This improvement is likely to increase further with a more engaging curriculum, available the more a school engages with the RTL strategy (e.g. through writing advanced curriculum materials for Part 3)

An average sized secondary school using existing classroom management strategies will spend three times more per week every week than the entire lifetime cost of the Return to Learning strategy (see calculator). It is of course for schools to decide whether RTL is affordable or not.

The 'secret' is in recognising that low level disruption is not a hindrance but the beginning of the most profound form of human communication ever expressed - and part of a much bigger picture that is currently not able to be seen using existing thinking. One example is to see criticism as a new way of looking at existing surroundings.

Though existing strategies view low level disruption as a separate, unfortunate entity that is entirely unrelated to everything else (e.g. 'kids being kids'), the reality is that low level disruption is defined by 'everything else'.

The term low level disruption applies not only to school behaviour management systems but to every human system created, having being derived from a decision-making system in permanent conflict. Though it is most obvious in classrooms, it exists throughout global society at every level. At its most profound level it applies to the methods we use to evaluate ourselves.

Primarily our name refers to the near immediate return to learning that is achieved after challenging and stopping low level disruption in the classroom strategy (RTL Part 1), instead of seeking to blame, punish, or discuss low level disruption, all of which fail to demonstrate a solution to the real problem.

Return to Learning also refers to what humanity needs to do as a whole if it is to have any kind of sustainable future.