When the Adults Change, Everything Changes by Paul Dix

A survey for the ATL teachers’ union found that four out of ten teachers had experienced violence from pupils in the past 12 months. Of those, about half have been kicked or have had an object thrown at them.

The support available for teachers who are struggling with bad pupil behaviour is utterly woeful. They desperately need helpful support when it comes to managing difficult behaviours. This is not something which can be solved with checklists or the odd trivial lecture. They need effective strategies which address the real problems in some of our schools; not to be patronised, ignored and told that their only purpose is results.

The unrelenting drive for exam results has blunted pastoral care in many schools. We are moving towards a culture where our children are reduced to no more than ‘units of progress’, with many head teachers being forced to hide behaviour issues from inspectors, meaning that our classroom teachers are drowning. Anything that is not measurable in results is worthless.

Thankfully, the tide is turning on the behaviour debate. The ‘punishment brigade’ are losing the argument. In fact, the world is turning: children are less tolerant of ‘nasty adults’ and parents now demand more than just detention, meetings and exclusion. After all, how is pushing troubled children out of schools helping them to acquire a better education?

When it comes to behaviour management, getting the culture right is pivotal. With the right culture the strategies that are used become less important. The culture is set by the way that the adults behave.

So how do we change that? In his new book When the Adults Change, Everything Changes Paul Dix upends the debate on behaviour management in schools and offers effective tips and strategies that serve to end the search for change in children and turn the focus back on the adults.

In When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic Shifts in School Behaviour, Paul Dix upends the debate on behaviour management in schools and offers effective tips and strategies that serve to end the search for change in children and turn the focus back on the adults.

You can buy in the best behaviour tracking software, introduce 24/7 detentions or scream ‘NO EXCUSES’ as often as you want – but ultimately the solution lies with the behaviour of the adults. It is the only behaviour over which we have absolute control.

Drawing on anecdotal case studies, scripted interventions and approaches which have been tried and tested in a range of contexts, from the most challenging urban comprehensives to the most privileged international schools, behaviour training expert and Pivotal Education director Paul Dix advocates an inclusive approach that is practical, transformative and rippling with respect for staff and learners. An approach in which behavioural expectations and boundaries are exemplified by people, not by a thousand rules that nobody can recall.

When the Adults Change, Everything Changes illustrates how, with their traditional sanction- and exclusion-led methods, the ‘punishment brigade’ are losing the argument. It outlines how each school can build authentic practice on a stable platform, resulting in shifts in daily rules and routines, in how we deal with the angriest learners, in restorative practice and in how we appreciate positive behaviour.

Each chapter is themed and concludes with three helpful checklists – Testing, Watch out for and Nuggets – designed to help you form your own behaviour blueprint. Throughout the book both class teachers and school leaders will find indispensable advice about how to involve all staff in developing a whole school ethos built on kindness, empathy and understanding.

Suitable for all head teachers, school leaders, teachers, NQTs and classroom assistants – in any phase or context, including SEND and alternative provision settings – who are looking to upgrade their own classroom management or school behaviour plan.

Contents include:

1. Visible Consistency, Visible Kindness
2. The Counter-Intuitive Classroom
3. Deliberate Botheredness
4. Certainty in Adult Behaviour
5. Keystone Classroom Routines
6. Universal Microscripts: Flipping the Script
7. Punishment Addiction, Humiliation Hangover
8. Restore, Redraw, Repair
9. Some Children Follow Rules, Some Follow People
10. Your Behaviour Policy Sucks!
11. The 30 Day Magic

More at: www.crownhouse.co.uk/publications/when-the-adults-change-everything-changes

Please check the Special Needs and Inclusive Learning course at Pilgrims website.