Paul Dix - When The Adults Change, Everything Changes; Seismic Shifts In School Behaviour

Having worked with Pivotal Education for the last two years, I have seen the benefits that adopting Pauls consistent routines and kind approach to managing students more challenging behaviours can have not only for the atmosphere around school but also for the health and well-being of the staff. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone who feels caught up in the madness of endless internal behaviour referrals and detention-chasing. Ive been there its exhausting!

Through his writing, Paul brings a refreshing approach to the issues facing educators today with a mixture of hard-hitting questioning that will get you squirming about some of your own practice combined with fantastic, practical solutions that can be rolled out with ease for the benefit of all. Be prepared to face the odd expletive while the injections of humour will have you laughing out loud on the train!

Whatever your setting, and whatever stage of the journey to getting off the punishment road you are on, you will find this book really helpful in maintaining the drip, drip, drip of consistency and kindness. Ive been inspired to launch legendary line-ups in the staff briefing this morning and I may even get a goat!

DOROTHY TRUSSELL, DEPUTY HEAD TEACHER CULTURE, ETHOS AND SAFEGUARDING, FLIXTON GIRLS SCHOOL

Paul Dix gets it. Paul lays out in plain terms the lessons he has learnt from his school experiences as a child, from his early days as a teacher and from leading significant behaviour change in many schools. This book is packed with practical advice that you can start using tomorrow: however, Paul makes it very clear that you must commit to working on your own behaviour before things will truly change. Paul pulls no punches he will tell you why you are wasting your time with the punishment escalator and why you are becoming ever more frustrated by the childs seeming unwillingness to bend to your will.

Paul Dix gets it. After reading this book, you will too.

JARLATH OBRIEN, HEAD TEACHER, CARWARDEN HOUSE COMMUNITY SCHOOL

This book is a game changer. Your students need you to read When the Adults Change, Everything Changes.

Reading this book is like sitting down and having a coffee and a chat with Paul Dix while he lays out a road map showing you how to avoid pitfalls and transform lives. Rather than a list of quick behaviour tips, it offers a how-to mindset shift that sets staff (and students) up to win. If you came into teaching to make a difference, make this the next book you read.

Its typically generous of Paul to create such a gift of a resource for trainees, teachers and veterans alike a blueprint for building authentic relationships with students, even in seemingly impossible situations.

On a personal note, teachers like Paul (and like you if you choose to read this fantastic book) literally saved my life. Its not easy being a hero, but this book gives you all of the tools and wisdom you need to put your intentions into action.

JAZ AMPAW-FARR, SPEAKER, AUTHOR AND RESILIENCE NINJA

Far from being just another book on behaviour, this is a blueprint for how behaviour should be in schools: starting from the simple premise that when the adults change, everything changes. Much of what is in this book is not rocket science it is practical, day-to-day, common-sense advice written by an author who has more than earned his behaviour stripes in real schools, working in real classrooms with real children.

Pauls ideas wont appeal to everyone. Some adults will find holding the mirror up to themselves and looking at how they manage behaviour in school far too uncomfortable. However, for the more enlightened who realise that how we have managed behaviour in the past is simply not the way to manage behaviour in the future, this book will be a revolutionary read. It is a book that you will go back to repeatedly and each time you will find something new to think about; potentially this is the book that could bring about seismic changes in the behaviour in your school.

RUSSELL J. INGLEBY, HEAD TEACHER, HIGHTOWN JUNIOR, INFANT AND NURSERY SCHOOL

Paul has a non-judgemental approach and clearly wants to help solve some of the common behavioural issues found in schools today.

An easy and entertaining read, the book offers concrete strategies to help teachers implement the ideas recommended. For example, the repeated use of certain script phrases is one of Pauls highlights and is a strategy I have used very successfully with young children.

Paul has developed his philosophy from a wide range of mainstream primary, secondary and special schools based here and abroad.

LISA BLACKBOURN, YEAR GROUP LEADER AND ENGLISH COORDINATOR

When the Adults Change, Everything Changes is a fabulous, must-read book for all educators and people working with children and young adults.

The strategies should be adopted by all schools as a blueprint for behaviour. If it were, it would dramatically improve learning, make children feel safer and positively change lives. This book oozes common sense and made me significantly reflect on my own practice. I cant wait to share this book with my colleagues and prove, with this evidence, that when the adults change, everything changes!

ROB HACKING, ASSISTANT HEAD TEACHER, LEOPOLD PRIMARY SCHOOL

This book is a must-read for anyone who works with children or young people. Teachers, youth workers and support staff at the beginning of their careers will discover a wide range of useful strategies and explanations as they begin to tackle the sometimes mystifying behaviours exhibited by young people today. More seasoned leaders are guaranteed to find behaviour management gems that will both enhance and strengthen their toolkit. Pauls writing is incisive and challenging; it successfully conveys a clear sense of his extensive and dedicated experience of all sectors of education. I am particularly pleased to see his recognition of the wealth of valuable experience and excellent practice that can be found amongst staff who work within the alternative provision sector, who have long been undervalued. Each chapter of this book is themed and concludes with three helpful checklists Testing, Watch out for and Nuggets which the reader will return to again and again for reference.

SEAMUS OATES, CBE, CEO, TBAP MULTI-ACADEMY TRUST

In When the Adults Change, Everything Changes, Paul Dix shows us how, if we really want to change behaviour in schools, we need to think about our own behaviour and how this impacts on the behaviour of the children in turn. Picking apart soundbites about no excuses, and showing what they really mean for the most vulnerable children, Paul outlines his vision of how the schools of the future could work. This book does not put the blame for poor behaviour on teachers; rather it empowers teachers to make better choices and shows them how to support their students to manage their behaviour for themselves.

SUE COWLEY, TEACHER AND EDUCATION AUTHOR

World-class expertise is hard won over the space of many years of devoted study and practice, and it is characterised by seeing the gaps in things, inhabiting them and getting to know every angle, every nuance of the bits of your subject that no one else has seen fit to investigate. Paul Dix is a world-class expert in behaviour management: his knowledge and experience seeps into the cracks of the formerly unknown. He is also possessed of a burning desire: to alter teacher behaviour so that our young people are taught in environments that nurture their burgeoning humanity with consistency, respect and empathy. As a practitioner from the sharp end, and a former naughty boy himself, he is alive to students hurt, to the pain they sometimes bring to the school gates and to how our students lives sometimes set them up with challenges that are too hard to bear; and he is acute at the ways in which an interested practitioner might manage the behaviours that result from such lives.