Introduction: The Challenge of Attachment Aware Schools

This introductory chapter outlines the origins of attachment theory and its practical implementation in schools. It describes the development of the Bath Spa University (BSU) attachment aware schools (AAS) project, from its antecedents in emotion coaching (EC) (Parker, 2012) and work with children in care (Parker & Gorman, 2013), to the development of the Attachment Research Community (2020). It points up the way in which AAS has identified clear tensions, polarities and philosophical inconsistencies within the English education system: between traditional and progressive, didactic and child-centred approaches; separation of the learning and the feeling child, the clinically unwell and the wilfully unruly, the competent and the vulnerable; and behaviour management systems based on sanctions and rewards, against those based on relationships and self-awareness (see Parker & Levinson, 2018).