This small-scale study reports the findings from an investigation into non-verbal communication. It primarily seeks to analyse whether 9 and 13 year-olds can encode and decode non-verbal communication in the context of classroom behaviour management. This research showed that, in contrast to previous published research, there were no distinct differences between the ages, genders, or task types. One key finding was the frequency with which pupils misinterpreted the facial expression of anger, irrespective of the familiarity of the face, although accuracy of emotional interpretation improved with time. From observations, female staff consistently used more complementary non-verbal communication than conflicting, compared with the male staff. (Contains 1 figure.)