When the Adults Change, Everything Changes

Seismic Shifts in School Behaviour

Paul Dix

• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781781352892
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

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.

When the Adults Change Everything Changes was a silver winner 2017 Foreword INDIES Awards in the Education category.

Named one of Book Authority's best education reform books of all time.

Named one of Book Authority's best education books of all time.

Click here to read the review on Humanising Language Teaching.

Click here to read the review on Schools Week.

Click here to read the review on 'Saved You a Spot' blog.

Click here to learn more about When the adults change, everything changes.

Chapter 1

VISIBLE CONSISTENCY, VISIBLE KINDNESS

Let’s stop waiting for the magic behaviour solution. It isn’t coming. The answer lies in the ability of adults to deliver behaviour policy and practice that is simple, highly effective and utterly consistent. The consistency that is required to create rapid seismic improvements in behaviour is one that is worth fighting for. It is the kind of consistency that great parents have. You get the same response from each, the same boundaries, the same mantras. You could not put a cigarette paper between their rehearsed responses. Their consistency is palpable, planned, safe.

In teaching there is a rampant desire for consistency. Teachers and support professionals repeatedly clamour for it, leaders get cross about it and learners need it to feel safe. Yet for most staff teams it is a desperate plea from the principal at the beginning of the year to check for planners, a big push on punctuality or a one day purge on jewellery/hats/thought crimes. It is a series of grand gestures that are ultimately futile. Phrases like ‘zero tolerance’ are bandied about, huge rises in confrontations are immediately ignited and within a few days most have decided that it is all too much hassle.

The consistency that is needed to bring an organisation from chaos to calm is the same as is required to go from good to great. This is not a restrictive consistency that limits flair and patronises poor communities, but a solid base on which to build authentic, exciting behaviour practice. It is a consistency routed in kindness, not in the machismo of zero tolerance.

As teachers we are grown from different seeds. Our philosophies have been nurtured in different directions. In a staff meeting 150 teachers might resolve to be consistent: ‘Yes! We must all be more consistent!’ Everyone then leaves with their own idea of what that consistency means.

Overworked teachers look at initiatives, quite rightly, through a very sharp lens. The key question is, ‘Are we still going to be doing this in six months’ time?’ If the answer is no, then they nod in the right places, fill in the right paperwork and carry on as usual. If the answer is yes, then they will shift, adapt and, with support, buy into the changes with heart and soul.

THIS IS HOW WE DO IT HERE

The best schools have a sign above the door regardless of what context they are working in, which says, ‘This is how we do it here.’ When you walk through the doors of that school, the expectations of behaviour are different from those outside. The behaviours that you use in the community or the behaviours that you use with your parents might well work out there, but when you walk through that door, that is how they do it there. The best schools have absolute consistency. I don’t care whether the system they use is behaviourist or whether the system they use is extremely old-fashioned, the critical difference is that people sign up to it and teachers act with one voice and one message: ‘This is how we do it here.’

You can find those beacons of hope in the communities in most poverty, and you also find that the best independent schools do exactly the same thing, such as, ‘This is the Harrow way,’ or whatever it might be. It is, ‘When you walk through the door, this is how we do it here.’ The best teachers have the same sign above their door. What works is consistency, not trying to tackle all behaviour at once but deciding which behaviours are to be taught. It is not relying on the parents to teach it, but saying, ‘You need these behaviours to be a successful learner in this school. We are not going to hide them. We are going to teach you them. We will teach the staff how to do it.’ I see that evidence every day in schools that are moving forward in the hardest circumstances. It is not necessarily an issue of resources. It is an issue of commitment and focus for the school and of absolute consistency.

PAUL DIX, HOUSE OF COMMONS EDUCATION SELECT COMMITTEE, BEHAVIOUR AND DISCIPLINE IN SCHOOLS, 17 NOVEMBER 20101

In schools where behaviour is breaking down you can find consistency, but it is a perverse consistency. In some teacher lounges there is a siege mentality. Battered by the relentless barrage of poor behaviour they naturally hunker down and protect one another. In these places cheap instant coffee meets universal despair.

On the first day of my first full time post as a qualified teacher, the deputy head teacher sat down next to me in the staffroom. His opening gambit was an interesting one: ‘Paul, I can see that you are very enthusiastic, it is lovely to see. But a word to the wise – don’t bother!’ I was completely taken aback and asked him to explain. ‘You see Paul, I’ve been here 30 years and it’s the same problem: it is those kids, living with those families on that estate. You’ll never change that.’ Fortunately I have a habit of ignoring such advice and a determination to prove it wrong.

If you don’t shape a visible positive consistency between the adults, then you open the door to them breeding their own negative consistency. There are horrific models of practice where the consistency is not kind but bullying. It is often a highly aggressive system with tally charts in the staffroom of ‘how many children I have made cry’, lashings of punishment and adult hostility that is just plain abusive. This is consistency for control and force. The frustration is that it is not only cruel, it is completely unnecessary.

It is not just the frailty of human beings that corrupts the consistency, but also the chaos of initiatives and constant curriculum change that works against it. In schools, initiative overload is more than groovy management speak, it is a way of life. A great idea is quashed by a thousand apparently better ones, a shift in practice is subsumed by inspection priorities and there is a lot of, ‘Oh well, that’s good enough.’ Nothing is constant and few things are refined until they are truly excellent.

The foundation of every school must be excellent behaviour. We should be keeping the focus on a visible culture of impeccable conduct, and making the consistency palpable, audible and highly visible. Every single day. Small, persistent and visible shifts in adult behaviour have an incredible effect on children’s behaviour. The message is: don’t be distracted by temporary distractions; get behaviour right first. Innovative teaching and learning cannot be built on inconsistent behaviour practice.

Shaping, refining and adapting the consistency is the challenge. Moving away from a thousand good and worthy ideas in a dusty policy document and refining it down to simple consistencies that are workable. Slimming down the rules to three is an important step. Simplification of policy is essential in building consistency. When you get to Chapter 10 and realise that your behaviour policy sucks your first act should be to delete the chaos of rules and allow yourself just three. Three rules are easily remembered by all so that everyone uses them all the time. The rules begin to fall from the mouths of all adults and consistency tightens. At the same time you will want to strip back the sea of punishments and remove the bureaucratic chaos that sucks teaching time away. The best schools have a behaviour plan that is based on tight agreements, simply framed and relentlessly pursued.

MEETING AND GREETING

Let’s start with the simplest consistency: how learners enter a classroom. A quick straw poll among your colleagues will reveal that even this most basic routine is inconsistent. Some will prefer their classes to line up outside, others want them straight in, some want equipment out, others want it stored away, some want learners standing behind chairs, others want them to get to work immediately. At the first hurdle there is contradiction and confusion.

It is easy to make something confusing out of something that should be straightforward. In a school where learners move from class to class, the demand for the child to recall the individual preferences of each adult without fail should be completely unnecessary. In settings where punishment is king, the anxiety of forgetting and being punished can easily shift the focus away from the learning.

The simplest things work best. At the start of the day or at the start of the lesson, stand at the door and shake hands with your learners – like you might do if someone knocked at your front door at home. I am sure you wouldn’t sit on the sofa and scream, ‘Let yourself in.’ You would engage in a well-mannered social routine. Moreover, you would make your guest feel welcome with a small kindness or generous word.

Imagine for a moment that this consistency alone was followed to the letter by every adult for the next school year. Every morning there are senior leaders on the gate, team leaders strategically placed around the site and teachers at every door, with every adult shaking hands, welcoming and demonstrating a visible enthusiasm. As you stand at the door of your room with a learning support assistant you look down the corridor and see every member of staff doing the same. Imagine that there had never been a day when anyone lost their focus, not a routine out of place or a door that is unwelcoming. What would the effect be on the learners, the environment, the behaviour in corridors? What would the ripples be out into the community? Would parents start talking about the meet and greet? Would other schools/local officials/MPs come and see your consistency in perfect form? Would the learners be more punctual to lessons, the adults feel more supported and smaller people feel safer?

FANTASTIC WALKING

In the UK most primary schools are architecturally challenged. Many are built from a 1970s blueprint that had clearly bypassed the aesthetics department on its way to the architect. Walking up to one school in the north of England reminded me of a thousand other schools, but inside it was anything but ordinary. Touring around the school with the excellent head teacher, I noticed a 6-year-old walking towards us in the corridor. He was walking very tall, head up, chin up, chest out with a purposeful stride and his hands clasped tightly behind his back. It immediately struck me as odd but I thought it best not to mention it. Probably just a slightly eccentric 6-year-old playing a game.

As we turned another corner we came across a class of 9-year-olds snaking through the school on their way to a PE lesson. Every child held the same posture: hands behind their back, chest out, walking tall and proud. Realising that this was an organised routine I asked the head teacher what it was about. ‘Oh, that is fantastic walking,’ she proclaimed proudly. ‘Fantastic walking?’ I replied. ‘Is this one of those cult schools I hear so much about?’ ‘No, no, no,’ she explained. ‘It is what we do – it is how we walk around our school. When I took over as head there was a lot of pushing and shoving, boisterous behaviour, particularly in the corridors. Small children were collateral damage in times of mass movement and everyone was going into lessons a bit frazzled.’ (At that moment three members of staff came out of the teacher lounge, modelling perfect fantastic walking!)

She knew that something had to be done, so she taught everyone fantastic walking – with love, humour and a sense of pride in ‘our school’. The children took to it immediately, and the staff too. Even parents crossing the line between the street and the school yard struck the pose. When staff went to visit other schools that didn’t have fantastic walking they felt that something was missing. On returning, they would always comment on how inconsistent other schools felt. Their relief in being back in fantastic walking land was obvious.

In this school the visible consistency made everyone feel safe. It is done with kindness and consent. The adult model was constant, consistent, predictable. This doesn’t mean that fantastic walking is right for your school or class, but the question is clear: what are the visible consistencies in your setting? What could they be? Are they embedded with love or punishment?

Of course, you could choose to apply the same principle of consistency to a more aggressive and punitive system. You might distribute lunchtime detentions for children who are seen running or pushing in the corridor. You could plaster yo...