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Presence Before Pedagogy: How Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) Transformed My View of School Culture
- The NVR Association
- Sep 9
- 10 min read
We all have a few teachers we remember for life. Not because of what they taught us, though sometimes that’s part of it, but because of how they made us feel. I remember Mr Swan vividly. We were on a primary school trip to a castle. At one point, he showed me how archers could shoot arrows through the narrow slits in the walls while staying protected from enemy fire. He answered my question carefully, speaking just to me, even in a class of fifty. I’ve never forgotten that moment. He made me feel seen.
The following year I had Mr K. All I remember is punishment. Wooden rulers, sometimes stacked three to four together, used regularly, methodically, painfully. The rules were simple: don’t step out of line. And if you did, you'd pay for it. I remember the fear in his classroom.
Mr Swan never seemed to need to shout. He never ruled through fear. But he had something else, something that stayed with me long after the castle trip ended. It wasn’t just authority; it was presence.
What Kind of Authority Do We Want?
Social psychologists French and Raven (1959) talked about different types of power or authority: the kind that comes from formal roles (legitimate), from expertise, from the ability to reward or punish, or from being respected and admired; they called this “referent authority.” Mr Swan had referent authority. Mr K didn’t. And sixty years later, I still think about what that means for schools today. In my view, the goal for every teacher should be to go beyond maintaining control through rules and punishments. It should be to cultivate presence - to be the kind of adult a child wants to listen to, not because they fear them, but because they trust them.
The System Is Still Stuck
We’ve come a long way since the days of corporal punishment - thankfully. But in many ways, we’ve just swapped the cane for detentions, exclusions, and extensively detailed behaviour policies that leave little room for nuance or humanity. So many schools today operate in a binary system: reward compliance, punish defiance. Behaviour policies are often bloated documents, filled with flowcharts and protocols. And at the heart of it all? A deep-seated fear of inconsistency.
In many schools teachers are required to follow procedures to the letter, not because it works for every child, but because deviation might look weak, or worse, unfair. But in doing so, we risk stripping teachers of the very thing that makes them effective: their professional judgment, their ability to connect, their sense of presence.
And it is the most vulnerable pupils who pay the price. Look at the data from England’s 2023/24 school year:
Table 1 Suspensions and permanent exclusion by characteristic for EHCPs, no identified SEN and SEN support in England 2023/24 (Department for Education, 2025)
Children with special needs are being suspended and expelled at rates that are up to five times higher than their peers with no special needs. The system is failing them, not because teachers don’t care, but because we’ve locked ourselves into a behaviourist model that doesn’t allow for complexity or care. (Meehan, 2024)
Finding a Different Way: Non-Violent Resistance (NVR)
NVR is a therapeutic approach designed to help people in positions of authority - parents, teachers, and caregivers - respond effectively to aggressive, controlling, or self-destructive behaviour in children and adolescents. Rooted in principles of self-control, and resistance without violence, NVR emphasizes de-escalation, restoring authority, and building support networks.
The core mindset of NVR involves shifting from reactive, emotion-driven responses to calm, firm, and consistent actions. Key principles include parental presence, de-escalation, transparency, and support-seeking. Rather than trying to control the child directly, caregivers resist harmful behaviours through non-violent protest and clear boundaries.
Tools of NVR include the announcement (a calm declaration of resistance to problematic behaviours), sit-ins (non-confrontational presence in the child’s space), reconciliation or relational gestures (acts of goodwill), and supporters (trusted adults involved in the process). NVR avoids punishment or coercion, instead focusing on building stronger relationships and promoting accountability. It empowers caregivers to take a firm, respectful stance that promotes change through connection, persistence, and emotional self-regulation, without resorting to aggression or withdrawal.
I first came across NVR while I was head of a pupil referral unit (PRU), a type of school, now often called alternative provision (AP), for pupils without a school placement for a range of reasons but in reality, for pupils who have been expelled from mainstream schools.
I had become aware that applying a reward/sanction-based approach to many of the pupils under my care would have little to no effect. I needed something else. Initially, before I had become familiar with NVR, I and my staff worked on developing authority based on relationships and trust. It was a risky approach given the challenging nature of the behaviours we encountered at the school. Nevertheless, it was effective. We learned, for example, to distinguish between aggressive behaviour and violent behaviour, the former, aggression, we saw as pupils letting off steam, and we had devised our own approach to this, refusing to engage with pupils whose emotions were running high other than to ensure their and others’ safety, but making sure we returned to address the issue at hand at a later stage, or as Haim Omer, the architect of NVR calls it, “striking while the iron is cold” (Omer, 2004). We had very little violence at the PRU and this is reflected in the very low number of occasions that physical restraint was called for.
Shortly before I retired, I was introduced to NVR (or New Authority as it is often referred to) and I realised that it provided the conceptual framework to allow me to develop my ideas. I now work as an NVR practitioner with families dealing with violence, aggression, defiance and coercive controlling behaviours from their children. NVR draws from the traditions of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. It’s about standing firm without aggression, setting boundaries without humiliation, and building authority through presence rather than dominance. (Omer, 2011) (PartnershipProjects, 2025)
What struck me most was that it wasn’t passive. It wasn’t permissive. It was active resistance. It required strength, but a different kind of strength, the kind that resists escalation, the kind that says, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. And we’re going to get through this - together.”
What NVR Looks Like in Practice
As the head of a PRU, I worked with some of the most challenging behaviours you can imagine. Young people who were used to conflict, whose default position was to fight or flee. One of the most powerful tools we used was the “sit-in.” After an incident, but never during the heat of the moment, we’d sit with the pupil for up to 30 minutes and ask two simple questions:
How are we going to make sure this doesn’t happen again?
What do you need to do to make amends?
We weren’t looking for quick fixes or forced apologies. Sometimes, all we got was silence. And that was ok. In fact, those silences were often the most powerful moments. They created space - for thought, for reflection, for a different kind of conversation.
Often, a student would storm out, frustrated because we disregarded the robotic apologies offered. And then, the next day, they’d come back - not always with answers, but with a willingness to try again. As referred to above, Haim Omer calls it “striking while the iron is cold.” And it works. The sit-in (or as it is often referred to now, the “sit-with”) supports young people in processing their actions in a safe, respectful manner.
De-escalation is a key component of NVR. This involves having the presence of mind and skillset to deactivate what could become difficult situations. I witnessed a beautiful example of this one day when I dropped in on an art class of year 11s - 16-year-olds. A pupil was becoming frustrated and angry with his work. He stood up and expressed this with a stream of threats and abuse, not necessarily to anyone in particular, finishing off with a threat to smash up the place. The art teacher who was stood nearby, simply said, “ok babe, just make sure you don’t hurt anybody else or yourself if you do” and then she walked away. This was the response of someone who had a sense of presence, credibility and authority in the eyes of this pupil. Needless to say, the pupil calmed down and after a while resumed his work. As he was leaving the lesson, she checked in with him. The pupil confirmed it was just the work, he was fine and he apologised. The incident was passed on for other staff to monitor him during the rest of the day.
Another example involved our chef. A pupil had a falling out with someone while having lunch at their table. The response was explosive, as we were accustomed to. She got up, screaming abuse and picked up a chair over her head. To approach her rapidly risked her throwing the chair in a crowded lunchroom. Our chef was the epitome of de-escalation and calmly observing the situation saw that her temper was abating, but she needed to save face and follow through with the threat to throw the chair. She clearly did not want to hurt anybody. From behind his counter, the chef indicated a space in his area where she could safely throw the chair. This she did. The chair bounced harmlessly into the space. Nobody got hurt.
On another occasion, I was called to a situation where a pupil with serious mental health concerns and prone to violent outbursts, had installed herself across the top of a staircase effectively blocking the stairs. Even were we to consider physically removing her, the risk of doing this in such a precarious position would be too high. As break time approached, it was evident we needed to have her out of there to allow for pupils to get to the playground. I was the last resort and I approached her and said, “Jen (not her real name), I need you to get up from there as it is not safe”. I will never forget her response to me. She looked up at me and calmly said, “Tony, you are a f***ing big, fat, stupid, Irish c**t.” I got down to her level and said to her, “Jen, I am not fat.” This had the desired effect as she responded by getting up storming off into the playground hurling a stream of abuse back at me.
Jen’s history of severe anxiety and unpredictable behaviour made physical interventions particularly risky. The staircase was a known hotspot for incidents due to its confined space and lack of alternative routes, adding another layer of complexity to what unfolded that day.
Why NVR Matters Now More Than Ever
Schools today are under enormous pressure. Behaviour, attendance, mental health -everything feels harder than it used to. And the temptation is to double down on control. But the truth is, fear doesn’t build trust. Sanctions don’t build relationships. And compliance doesn’t equal learning. NVR offers another way. One that says: presence matters more than punishment. Connection matters more than control. And the kind of authority that changes lives doesn’t come from rules; it comes from people.
A Culture of Calm, Not Control
NVR has this wonderful quality I’ve come to call “unbearable reasonableness.” It doesn’t give in. It doesn’t give up. But it also doesn’t lash out. It waits. It watches. It prevents adults becoming stuck in pointless power struggles. It responds - later, when everyone’s ready. It allows teachers to step back in the moment, without stepping away from the issue. It creates space for healing, rather than escalation. And most importantly, it reminds students: you are worth the effort. We’re not going anywhere. And it facilitates the development of all teachers and all school staff in the process of attaining “referent” authority.
Developing Referent Authority Among School Staff
The process of implementing Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) in schools nurtures the growth of every teacher and staff member as they work toward embodying “referent” authority. Through daily practice and reflection, staff are empowered to build credibility, foster calm environments, and lead with presence rather than force. This structured approach not only supports individual development but also strengthens the foundation for genuine authority built on respect and connection.
Bringing NVR into the Whole School
So how do we do this? How do we move from theory to practice?
Train the adults: Start with staff - give them the tools to self-regulate, to de-escalate, to lead without force.
Involve the young people: Peer mediation, honest conversations - all of it builds community.
Bring families on board: NVR works best when the messages at home and school align. That means information, support, and empathy for parents too.
Create space for reflection: Use restorative practices that ask questions, not demand compliance. And don’t be afraid of silence.
Final Thoughts: Presence Before Pedagogy
It’s easy to get caught up in policies, timetables, data. But at the heart of every school are relationships. And at the heart of every relationship is presence. Presence that says: I see you. I won’t humiliate you. I’ll stay connected, even when it’s hard. That’s the kind of authority our schools need. It’s in the name, New Authority, but it is authority based on a whole different set of principles.
Mr. Swan didn’t need punishment or fear. He had presence. NVR offers a way to build that kind of authority systematically across a whole school. Non-Violent Resistance isn’t easy. But in a time when behaviour is at the top of every school’s worry list, it might just be the most courageous, and most human, choice we can make.
Written by Dr Tony Meehan
Educator / Former Head Teacher
NVR Association (NVRA) Accredited Practitioner
Enjoyed this? If you would like to find out more, you can join Dr Tony Meehan on the first Thursday of the month at his FREE Special Interest Group for NVR in Schools.
Bibliography
Department for Education. (2025, July 10). Suspensions and permanent exclusions - by characteristic. Retrieved from GOV.uk: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/fast-track/5c1caae2-843d-414f-8bb7-08ddb31d8e6c
French, J., & Raven, B. (1959). The Bases of Social Power. In D. Cartwright (Ed), Studies in Social Power (pp. 150-167). Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor.
Meehan, A. (2024). An exploration of parents’ perception of Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) in the development of parent voice and authentic, productive and lasting partnerships. London: Middlesex University.
Omer, H. (2004). Nonviolent Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Omer, H. (2011). The New Authority: Family, School, and Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
PartnershipProjects. (2025, August 18). What is NVR? Retrieved from PartnershipProjects: https://www.partnershipprojectsuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/What-is-NVR-Parents.pdf