When the Adults Change, Everything Changes Quotes

“When learners are struggling they need support, not red lines and stern faces. They don’t need the dark suits of doom, but rather a learning coach, detached from any process, to support, mentor and guide. (A problem solver, not a process monkey, remember?) A skilled, empathetic specialist who can work with the learner to meet their immediate needs and stem the flow of poor conduct.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Today’s INSET promise is tomorrow’s forgotten maybe, unless you write it down, plan it, pledge it, do it.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“schools that take on too much too quickly make slow progress.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Resist the urge to adopt the platitudes – zero tolerance, non-negotiables, red lines. It might make you feel butch but it makes absolutely no difference to the children. They will make poor choices even if you call them ‘deadly evil behaviours’. Actually, that sounds quite attractive already.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“With new classes or in a new job don’t be tempted to make rule making a democratic process. There is real value in a collaborative agreement but only once trust has been established.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“If nobody can remember the rules, if everyone has to look them up, then nobody really knows them.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Teachers dream of consistency but are often faced with policies that seem deliberately designed to undermine it.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“How can we do things differently in the future?”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“What should we do to put things right?”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“How have they been affected?”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Who has been affected?”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“How did this make people feel?”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“What have you thought since?”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“What were you thinking at the time?”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Exclusion and withdrawal don’t teach the lessons we want them to learn. With the best intentions, we risk seeding our society with young people who still have no respect and no gratitude.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Punishment doesn’t teach better behaviour, restorative conversations do.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Even with boring old punishment, the natural creativity of schools cannot be suppressed. The names for isolation rooms bear this out beautifully. We casually refer to it as isolation, seclusion (like a secluded beach resort!), the hole, the growth mindset room, respite, the grade room, challenge!, the time-out room and, unbelievably, the inclusion room. I can think of nothing less inclusive than a cell. Heaping punishment on damaged children is not right.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“In the beginning, practise scripted intervention with your loveliest children – the ones who would very rarely need a scripted intervention. They may look at you strangely but it’s a great way to get used to the technique. Don’t try to use it immediately with the most challenging pupils.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Save your finest performance for when it has most impact: when children do the right thing. Then reward them with your enthusiasm, encouragement, humour, time and attention.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“It was the rule about … (lining up/staying on task/bringing military hardware into school) that you broke. You have chosen to … (move to the back/catch up with your work at lunchtime/ speak to the man from Scotland Yard). Do you remember last week when you … (arrived on time every day/got that positive note/received the Nobel Prize)? That is who I need to see today … Thank you for listening. (Then give the child some ‘take up’ time.)”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Reminding children of their good behaviour in the middle of dealing with their poor behaviour takes practice”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“You can land a sanction with a hard edge or you can land a sanction with an immediate reminder of the child’s previous good behaviour. Done well, with good timing and perfect tone, there is a little magic here.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“The 30 second intervention demands careful and often scripted language. The idea is simple but the performance takes practice.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Setting the class to work (TROGS) What you say as you set the students to work and the order you say it in is critical. Mention ‘get into groups’ or ‘choose a partner’ too early and there is a chance that nothing else you say subsequently will be listened to. Use the same pattern every time:”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Stopping yourself from telling the children how their negative behaviour makes you feel.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“As the saying goes: if you know how to do it then a worksheet is redundant; if you don’t know how to do it then a worksheet won’t help.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Token economies, where a credit or merit system is used to reward individuals, can never be consistent. It always rewards the highest achievers or the worst behaved”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“The advertising of poor behaviour doesn’t help, but routinely advertising the behaviour that you do want does.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“Children need to be taught and retaught expected behaviours. This is critical in a secondary school where children are moving between teachers. In a primary school, as children move between activities and environments, it is no less important. It might be comforting to think that we reach a certain age and suddenly know how to behave. The reality is that there is no such age.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour

“They don’t need their name on the board or a tick/cross/ cloud against their name. It reconfirms their poor self-image, re-stamps a label of low expectation and provides a perverse incentive to the more subversive mind. Some children’s names still appear on the board even when they have been rubbed off.”
― Paul Dix, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour