EP 44 Understanding and Improving Student Behavior: A Talk with Adele Bates

Dr OIivia KesselHost00:06

Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. In this episode we will be joined by Adele Bates, a behavior and educational specialist teacher and author of Miss I Don't Give a SH-T, which focuses on engaging with challenging behaviors in school. Adele's no-nonsense approach is filled with humor and very valuable tips. It's definitely worth a listen. So welcome, adele, to the Send Parenting Podcast. It is such a pleasure to have you on the show today.

Adele BatesGuest01:14

Thank, you very much for having me.

Dr OIivia KesselHost01:17

You are welcome and you are an expert in education and behavior and we are so excited to hear your wealth of knowledge on this subject, because behavior policies in schools are a huge, you know, important part of a kid's life in school and I don't think and I certainly am guilty of this myself that I even understand really what is a school behavior policy. How does punishment relate in school? I'm very not knowledgeable about it, as I'm sure a lot of my listeners are, and you know I found it really interesting when, you know, I was reading something you'd written about how our education system is really modeled from the criminal justice system. So I would just love to ask you to elaborate a little bit on this and then we can unpick some more. You know how we can empower ourselves as parents.

Adele BatesGuest02:08

Absolutely so. Gosh, where do we begin with all that? So a quick introduction to where I sit and what I do. I think we'll frame this discussion so, as you said, I'm a behavior and education specialist, I'm a speaker and I'm the author of Miss.

02:26

I Don't Give a Shit. Engaging with Challenging Behavior in Schools and, I think, particularly relevant for you, your listeners who are here. Some of the work I do is working with parents and carers and helping them understand what is this education system that we're in, because there's so many misconceptions and a lot of people the last time they went to school was when they were at school and things have changed. And sometimes I think the point you've brought up for us to start looking at around the behavior policy is kind of what is that behavior policy? How can it be serving my child? Who has additional needs, who has special needs, who has social, emotional, mental health issues? Who is a kid in care, whatever it is? How is that behavior policy supporting my child and what rights does it give me? What leverage does it give me with the school and how can it help me and my child as well? So, to answer your question, firstly and this is, this is tricksy. I would say most teachers and schools are kind of making. We're kind of making up the behavior policy as we go along and we're basing it on the one that was there in place before Now.

03:46

The trouble is that, as you alluded to, our education system in Britain was built in the Victorian times and, much like our railway system and our plumbing system, it kind of needs a rejig and it needs to kind of start accounting for the fact that we are not producing young people to work in factories. On the whole, that was the kind of initial intention of the British education system. That's not where we're at anymore. Those jobs hardly exist. I know there are some, but very, very few, and so we've got this education system that I'm sure this comes up in your podcast all the time that is created to make everybody the same, going through the same system in the same way, and if you don't fit with it, you're not going to do well at school. It's a sausage factory basically.

04:38

Exactly, exactly.

04:39

And yet that's not the world we live in anymore, because we don't need young people to remember 737 facts about the kings and queens of England, because we can get that with a touch of a button. And what we do need, however, is we need young people who are going to be solving some of the global crises that we've got climate change, wars, how do we feed everybody on the planet? Those are the kind of problems that we've got to solve now that we need people to be thinking and innovating, and we need those children who think in a different way, who dare to do it differently, who dare to play and think outside the box. And yet we come back to the behavior policies and they very rarely represent this. So what I see with behavior policies in a lot of schools, unfortunately, is that they are a dusty document that sits on a shelf, whether that's a real shelf or a virtual shelf nowadays and, yes, they're supposed to be updated and they are, but often what happens when they're done badly?

05:44

They're written by the senior leaders of the school, maybe the governors, and nobody's asked the kids. Nobody's asked the teaching assistant, who is working on minimum wage, who is working with the young people whose behavior is perhaps the most distressing, for most of the time, nobody's asked that. Teaching assistant, what's your opinion of this behavior policy? Is it workable, is it helpful? Does it support your practice with this young person? And so that's what I help schools to do when it comes to helping them behave.

06:13

For policies, I pull it from just being a dusty document that needs to tick a box for offstead into something that becomes completely interactive and useful, and some of the schools that are really innovating in this practice are moving away from behavior policy and moving towards relationship policy or positive relationships or positive relationship and behavior policy or some kind of version that says this is a document that is about how we work together in this community, how we support each other, how, when we don't agree, how do we resolve that in a way that's useful for as many people as possible in our community, rather than this kid has not done that and therefore this is the punishment which it tends to be is the kind of traditional way of approaching a behavior policy.

Dr OIivia KesselHost07:03

And it is interesting because I didn't even understand that a behavior policy could you get a certain amount of leeway and then it ends up. You could end up in isolation, you could end up in detention and actually that there might not necessarily be any interaction with a parent at some points on that journey where you think there would be interaction with the parents.

Adele BatesGuest07:24

Yes. Now, this particularly scares me. So I work. I've been teaching for over 20 years now and I've worked in alternative provisions, pupil referral units, special schools with young people with social, emotional, mental health issues, no end of children excluded from our schools, lots of children in care. The idea that we it is legal for a school to put a child in isolation without acknowledging carers or parents absolutely terrifies me, because the kids I work with some of them have suffered the kind of abuse or neglect that is difficult to talk about, and putting them in a room on their own, or even in a room with just one adult, could be hugely, hugely triggering. It could completely retraumatize the child. And guess what? Then their sons don't get learnt because putting children into that space sends them into either a fight flight response or they'll close down. Now, that's not to say that downtime spaces and or chill out zones or whatever it's called in the school, the nurture unit, that's different.

Dr OIivia KesselHost08:38

Yeah.

Adele BatesGuest08:38

That is about regulation. That is about co -regulation. That's about giving children the tools to be able to regulate their own behaviour with our support. That's very different to go in that room. Here's a worksheet.

Dr OIivia KesselHost08:52

And how do? And so schools kind of have that autonomy to decide whether they're going to create a nice safe space to D Regulate or to regulate and calm down versus a place that's maybe going to trigger or cause stress and trauma after being in there. Is that all decided upon on a school by school basis or local authority basis?

Adele BatesGuest09:14

Yeah, it's generally school by school. As I understand, different local authorities do have different approaches and also, if you're working with an Academy trust, obviously they're outside of local authority stipulations, so they function more like a business. So you've got some academies are doing fantastic work around this kind of thing and some who are really not and they're not necessarily being held accountable in quite the same way. And I think also it's worth saying some of these decisions are not made consciously. Some of these decisions are made due to lack of funding and due to lack of knowledge. So, for example, I've worked in schools that have said to me we've got a nurture unit and I think, okay, great, that sounds great. I arrive in said nurture unit. It's only nurture by name and sometimes that is genuinely because the school are trying. But I mean we have lots of high absences with staff.

10:17

At the moment we have funding cuts from the government all the time and so the nurture unit has become the spare classroom, usually a lot smaller than the others. It's nobody's particularly so. There's nothing in there. That's kind of. You know I'm just thinking like from a visual, environmental point of view, there's nothing kind of comforting or welcoming or safe in there. It's literally just an empty classroom and I worked in one of these my school in myself, few, quite few years ago and I was doing some supply teaching and the school was lucky because it was me and I have experience of working with extreme behavior. But essentially I was on a supply teaching books and the supply agency called me up and said can you come in? There's a nurture unit. They need someone to cover. For two weeks. I arrived to a completely empty room in which they just sent all the kids who'd fallen out of the teachers, put them all in the same room with the supply teacher and I was given nothing.

Dr OIivia KesselHost11:12

I was given no equipment.

Adele BatesGuest11:13

No, they were. They were supposed to do that, you know, finish off the work that they would should have done in lesson. Now, because I experienced this is my area. I actually set up this knitting space. We had classical music on. It became out this, this gorgeous kind of thing, and then they could, and it's it's one of my most proud moments.

11:32

I had one such young person. It was secondary, he was, I think, 1415 foot taller than me, as they are at that stage, and he came in, he threw the desk. He said, oh, fucking, never fucking supply teacher through the chair and within 45 minutes I had him sit down, calm with me knitting and telling me what had gone on to that day and why he was so distressed. Wow, at that moment and this is the bit of the story that breaks my heart the senior leader walked in, a man who walked in and said I'm just going to make up a kid's name.

12:10

Obviously, if conflict Chelsea and I'm Martin what you're knitting for, that's a good thing, and I did all of the work that I've done, and so obviously I was infuriated. But the point is coming back to. It is that that space was called a nurture space. I then added in activities approaches to nurturing, which was then undermined by the senior leader. And that was because he was not trained in that and he didn't realize that I was. Because I was just this random supply teacher from a random agency and then it conspired that the reason I was there for two weeks was because the lady didn't before me had walked out.

Dr OIivia KesselHost12:51

Not surprising actually.

Adele BatesGuest12:53

Yeah, exactly Exactly, and so none of that's in there. But hey, I mean I didn't okay, I didn't particularly check, but I have seen lots of schools have sat there and gone. We're going to have a nurture space. It's going to have nothing on the walls apart from, like maybe, the old display, where it's going to have no pens. It's going to have broken computer, like they don't sit there and decide that.

13:19

No, they don't plan to have a kind of on rolling changeover of supply teachers who could be anybody, but that's what happens. That is what happens, and I think I talk about this a lot with senior leaders. We've got to think of our young people with behaviour needs. Who can be the most emotionally draining for staff? Who is spending the most time with them every day? And in most schools it's the least qualified, least supported, least paid members of staff. And then we wonder why it kind of goes wrong. Schools often say to me oh, you know, dinner times are really hard, break times are really hard for behavior. And you go. Well, okay, where are you, where are you? Experienced staff, or they're having their break. It's like well, can we start staggering the break times? Can we, you know, switch it around so that you're not suddenly leaving all the children with all their wonderful, beautiful ways of being, with staff who don't know them as well? Who's with staff who aren't trained, who aren't supported to do the jobs that they're being asked to do?

Dr OIivia KesselHost14:27

And I imagine there's a layer, even with experienced staff, in terms of how to shift that mold from. You will all sit down and comply and all of you will have good behavior to which you know. All right, I've got a classroom with send children 30%. I've got children where English is not their first language. I've got children that have experienced trauma or in care. So you're gonna have you know behaviors going all over the place. And is it something that they're taught in school when they learned how to become a teacher, or was it no? You're gonna get them all to sit down with their bumps on the seat and they're all gonna behave like you know. Good, little Victorian children.

Adele BatesGuest15:02

I mean we've moved slightly from that. I believe in most initial teacher training, so it's ITT, initial teacher training, but there are a lot of versions of it now. So there's the PGCE, the postgraduate certificate, and that's the version if you want to go via a university and that's a year long and you do university study on pedagogy and approaches to education and you'll do work placements. Then there's teacher hubs, teaching school hubs that can support kind of on-the-job training, and then there are some other things. There's like quite a few different agencies now that are training teachers. So we're all getting something slightly different, I think. In general, though, we have definitely moved away from talk and chalk as they used to be called.

Dr OIivia KesselHost15:53

Yeah, no, I've heard a lot that a lot of teachers aren't empowered with send knowledge, so I was wondering if that was the same with behavior.

Adele BatesGuest16:01

Yeah, so I think that I mean, I definitely got a lot of send training in my PGCE and that is a compulsory part of teacher trainings. I understand it's also one of the teaching standards. So to be a teacher, you have to pass all the teaching standards and one of them is about differentiating and adapting for different needs, Like it definitely is in there. And, as you will know, send is a huge, huge, huge area and if you are teaching someone how to be a teacher in a year, along with having to teach them things like sorry, I'm just getting my little puppy rescue dog who wants some attention, so if we can cope with her and just Absolutely In here, while we talk come and be on this podcast.

16:45

Yes, there's a huge power in therapy dogs.

Dr OIivia KesselHost16:49

Well, that's what we're hoping.

Adele BatesGuest16:50

one day she is a rescue puppy herself, so she's got her own little issues. But, yes, so we're going to be talking about the training and the training, so we do get. Yes, we do get sense training.

Dr OIivia KesselHost17:02

You get that training, yes, but it is a wide topic and it is interesting what you say about having the least experienced people deal with the most difficult or challenging cases, so to speak. It would be like in the medical world having a junior doctor treat the most severe trauma case versus a consultant. It wouldn't make any sense.

Adele BatesGuest17:26

Yeah, and in terms of behavior because this is obviously something I've looked at even more, as I understand it seems to be, the average is about half a day's training in behavior, and that's, let's say, that was back when you did your ITT. Now we've got teachers in the profession luckily still we're holding onto them who've maybe been teaching 10, 15, 20 years Now. Behavior post-pandemic, pre-pandemic is different. Behavior with children, who now have vast technology, is different, and this is really where I sit in. One of my main functions is to provide more training and what is brilliant, I have to say, is that I really advocate for SEMH.

18:14

So social, emotional, mental health needs, or behavior needs, I really advocate, as that has been under the umbrella of SEND and it's. I think it just helps teachers, and sometimes carers and parents as well, to just really see that when a young person has behavior needs, that is a barrier to learning, that is a learning need. So, for example, if I have a kid in my class who is dyslexic, I might be given strategies to help them access a text. If I have a kid who has got social, emotional, mental health needs, then it might be that the strategy for them is that they need to sit by the window to feel calmer. Now, the way that I train and teach staff is that you are basically adapting and differentiating and scaffolding in exactly the same way for SEMH as you do for SEND and of course, then there's a crossover as well. I mean it's a ridiculously huge crossover. If a kid has an SEND, they are 10 times more likely to be excluded from mainstream scouts 10 times more likely.

19:20

Wow, that's just shocking. Yeah, and it's similar issues around looked after children are much more likely to be excluded, as are Black Caribbean boys and Gypsy, roma traveler community pupils, which just shows this is all in that. You can have a look. It's the TEMPSOM report 2019, if you like a report, it's got all your staffs in, but it really shows that we have a bias system. Sorry, I'm just looking at what my dog's chewing. She's chewing her own bed. I said to Olivia before we recorded I used to be a behavior education specialist, then I got a rescue puppy. I'm like, oh, putting it all to test.

Dr OIivia KesselHost20:04

So this is not the computer wires under your desk, then you're fine. That's exactly what I was checking.

Adele BatesGuest20:09

Yeah, no, she's good, she's on it. So what those statistics show us is that we are not, if there's that huge a difference between kids with SEND being excluded. It shows us the Venn diagram of SEND and behavior needs is really crossed over. Yeah, and we're not accounting for it in Askels, because they are the ones who are more likely to be excluded. And so, from my point of view, knowing that there's a huge, brilliant opportunity here to go okay, so this part of the education system is not being accessible to young people with behavior needs. So what do we do about it? What bridges do we build or what do we remove or how do we play with this? And I mean your audience aren't necessarily teachers. I won't go into the absolute practicals, what you can do, what you can do.

Dr OIivia KesselHost21:04

So some are there. So you know, I think it's interesting.

Adele BatesGuest21:07

I think of the. Let's just start with that framework. I think that seeing a behavior need as a barrier to learning can really help flip the approach. Because if we see it as a barrier to learning, then as an educator, it's my job to remove that. That's literally my job. It's to teach. My job is to teach right. Sometimes it crosses over into all the rest of it, policing social work.

21:31

Being a parent and I'm just talking about the 33 kids in front of me, not like any of my own, but my job essentially is to educate these children. If they can't access my curriculum, I need to make that happen. And so there we start going into a brilliant investigation into okay, so this kid needs more stimulation, they need harder questions, for example, whereas this kid just can't sit still when we study Macbeth. Why is that? Why can that kid not sit still when we study Macbeth? Oh, hang on a minute. Now that kid's just walked out of the classroom during Macbeth. What is it about Macbeth? That is meaning that that kid can't stay in my classroom and get that education. And then we go into okay, what is it? And we find out. And then, when we find out so this obviously was an example that I had and I actually discovered that this young person, unfortunately, was self-harming and it was the blood. It was the blood in Macbeth. Out damn spot. If you don't know it, I do.

22:34

Yeah, the most English teachers start off by doing Macbeth, by putting a nice gory picture on the PowerPoint hoping to like, capture the young people with, like murder, betrayal, blood oh yeah, it's Shakespeare, like that's supposed to be the way we'll approach it. But me, finding out that that was the problem, that that was the trigger, enabled me to shift and adapt for that pupil. So it's quite interesting that moment that they will. They stormed out and they went to the pastoral people and the pastoral people who are not teachers they got me and they were like, oh my God, is it all right if, if they just don't do Macbeth?

23:13

I was like, right, we're in year 10. Macbeth is about 20% of the English exam and we're studying it for two years. So we've got to do Macbeth, like there was no way around it, and I think it's really important to keep that in mind. You know I'm not. I do teach in special schools as well, but this was a mainstream school where there's 33 kids in my class. I can't adapt. I can't teach a different Shakespeare play to every kid to account for their behavior needs.

Dr OIivia KesselHost23:42

But also there was something behind that behavior that needed to be unpicked. It wasn't really Macbeth, was it? It was, it had a deeper meaning, which is usually what behavior is? It's a there's what's the cause?

Adele BatesGuest23:54

Yeah, what is the behavior communicating? And so once I was able to find that out and spend some, just a little bit of time with the young person, we basically came to a deal and I was realistic with them. And you can do this, whether it's the older ones or the younger ones, you do it in age appropriate language. But I said to them look, macbeth is on the syllabus, we're studying it, we're studying it, we're studying it. But what can we do together to enable you to access this, to able to enable you to be in my classroom as much as you possibly can? And they said well, if I know beforehand that you're going to put a picture with blood on it, then I can prepare myself, or maybe I can be by the door and just like nip out at certain times. So basically, all I did for those two years is that I would let that child know early on in the day. By the way, this is the seat you know we're doing Act 2, scene 3, it's just a scene where they, they monologue you'll be fine, or this is actually the murder scene. So, and over two years, very mind we had English five times a week. They only missed two lessons. They only missed two lessons because I found out what was this behaviour communicating to me. How do I, as the educator, need to differentiate in the same way as I would for any learning need in my classroom. How can I adapt my environment, my approach to the work, my relationship with this young person to enable them to access the curriculum?

25:25

And it was a huge success and because we built up that trust as well. Then, when it did get to the two lessons that they felt were too much, I trusted them enough to know they weren't just trying to Skype, you know. And we built that up because we had a few lessons where they were like, oh, I'm not sure about this and I'd be like, well, how about if I do it like this? Or how about if, at this point, you do that? You know, we'd negotiated enough, we built up a relationship. So when they said, actually, miss, I'm not sure I can do this next lesson, then it was like, ok, I respect that. And then you build something there because, because I was then trusting them to work elsewhere for that lesson, they then felt heard, they felt like their experience of the learning mattered and therefore they were happy enough to come back the next lesson when it wasn't so triggering.

Dr OIivia KesselHost26:14

It's hearing their voice and then taking it on board. That you know. So you're working together. You know which is amazing and you sound like an amazing teacher actually, and you know what would you say to teachers who say, well, how can I do that with 30 kids in my class? But it sounds like you were able to do it in in a not too time consuming way.

Adele BatesGuest26:36

So I have lots of tips on my website for how to do this, because it is one of the biggest questions that teachers ask. That's all well and good when you're in special or alternative and you've got two in a class. How about when I've got those 33? And I'm also the geography teacher who teaches every single year seven class in the school, or something like that? So one of the biggest approaches that I will just pull out now is the check-in, the power of the check-in. So if I am regularly on a very, very low level way just checking in with my kids all the time, then the second that something changes, I'm ready for it. So I'm not waiting for extreme behavior. I'm trying to always do a litmus test of OK where are?

27:20

we Kind of where are we hanging out, you know? And the easiest way to do this I have found is with the register. I do not need to hear yes, miss, times 33. In fact, that's quite boring. So what I do is I ask my kids to give me one word for how they're feeling that day, and you can do this if you're in primary or infants. It could be like what animal are you, what weather are you, what color are you, something like that.

27:48

If it's teenagers, they don't really go for that. You just have to say how you're doing in a very nonchalant way, and it can start particularly with the old ones. We're just like board, board, board, all right, all right, ok, yeah. But as you go along, as you do this, week after week, they start to realize that they can share a little bit. I mean especially teenagers. We're talking vulnerability, we're talking hormones, we're talking all the things. So it takes a little while to build that trust.

28:17

But then they start to realize that actually, oh, I'm blagging my head in today, actually, miss and hang on. There's a kid who's been OK for three weeks and suddenly they're blagging their head in. Well, hang on, I've now already got a clue that something might be cracking off and if I can account for that at the start of my lesson and then work with that, I'm much more likely to prevent that stress and behavior later on. So it might be. I do the register. I notice that one or two have given me a slightly different negative answer than usual. So once I've set the class off with the work, those are the two kids that I go to first.

Dr OIivia KesselHost28:57

So it's triaging from a position of trust to them, which is absolutely fantastic, and it's actually good advice even for parents to do that with their own children, you know, especially if you have more than one checking in and having that, although my daughter would only say, good, good, I'm like, do you have any other words?

Adele BatesGuest29:13

I think another way to get around that I mean a tip for that is Sometimes we need to be able to provide the language, because otherwise what else will they say they want? She's like I don't know your child, but for example your child could be like oh, my mom's asking me that, no, you're questioning.

29:29

I'll just say good, because then I know she leaves me alone because if I say anything else she'll ask me too many questions. So I'll just say good. That can be sometimes what happens. So often modelling ourselves can be really, really useful. So I've gone into classes, particularly ones that I know, and I might say look, I didn't eat my lunch. We've had a staff meeting. I'm just gonna warn you, I'm on edge. And then they've got a choice what they do with an on edge teacher. But the point is I am modelling the check-in for myself.

Dr OIivia KesselHost30:04

Yeah, and you're being vulnerable in front of them too, which is great, exactly exactly.

Adele BatesGuest30:08

There was a wonderful lesson once I was doing some work in a school with a class that I hadn't worked with yet and unfortunately my uncle passed away the night before and I thought I'd be okay. But also, I mean, I was there kind of supporting behaviour and training, but as far as the kids was concerned, I was a supply or random teacher, you know. They didn't really know how it was and I thought, well, the last thing I want to do is end up crying in the class and then thinking that they've broken the supply teacher.

30:37

So I just and it was interesting because I've been warned about them in vertical commerce oh, the neuroscience about that's a different topic, you'll have to look at my blog for that, but I've been warned about this this class and I went in and I said look, I know you don't know me, but I do need to tell you. I've had some sad news. I've had a bereavement in my family. My uncle passed away and I said I think I'm gonna be okay teaching you and I really want to be here, like I've chosen to be here. I said but if you see me being sad, that's why and that class were fabulous for a whole two hours.

Dr OIivia KesselHost31:14

Wow, yeah.

Adele BatesGuest31:15

And not just fabulous, but a few of them came up to me at the end and said we're really sorry, miss, we hope you're okay, and that kind of thing, and I think the power of that is huge because it also shows that I trust them, even though we didn't know them. You know I'm not encouraging teaching staff to share inappropriately, of course, but there is something about you know what I'm not having a great day and so therefore, when the kid isn't, they're more likely to be, able to share it too.

Dr OIivia KesselHost31:46

Yeah, and modeling that behavior from someone is so important. Now you've written a great book as well that I want to mention. You know, before we end this podcast, which is Miss, I Don't Give A Shit, which is a real punchy title. I love it.

Adele BatesGuest32:04

I got it through the publishers and then I had to wait two months because my publisher has a sister company in the US and I didn't know this. But apparently people in America can be more conservative in education than in Britain and I had two months to get the okay to have that title in the US as well. Apparently there's a certain state who is less keen on selling it.

Dr OIivia KesselHost32:27

I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to which state that might be, and it's really a book looking at engaging in challenging behavior in school, so kind of what what we've talked about today. I haven't had the opportunity to read it yet because I was able to get you on my show before I had a chance to read the book. So it's on my to-do list, so I'm gonna rely on you now to tell us a little bit about the book. Tell me as well, please.

Adele BatesGuest32:53

Yes, of course. So I think is this an opportunity to bring? I just realized I have this analogy that I used.

33:00

That's a like a doctor analogy, so I think, I should share it with you and then you can be like, oh, that's totally inaccurate, what are you talking about? Okay, so the book? In a nutshell, it's a how-to for mainstream teaching staff of how to work with young people who are presenting behavior that is challenging for them. It has in it lots of anecdotes from my teaching days and my pupils. We have hashtag insult of the week in there, which are the fun things that people say to us sometimes.

33:34

Each chapter has an interview with an expert in the in the topic of the chapter and then, most importantly for me, at the end of every chapter is sorry, my dog's now doing swimming. Oh, hello is an action box that looks at what can the reader do to help next lesson, next week and long term, because I recognize with sporting behavior that teachers need a. Oh my goodness, I've got three F2 after break. It's been wet play. What do I do with them? They're on the roof like. I need a quick solution there and I need to be able to look at how that behavior policy is going to be supporting three F2 in six months time when they're doing you know, and and so it gives that two-sided thing.

Dr OIivia KesselHost34:32

Sorry my ignorance here. Adele, three F2, you've lost me.

Adele BatesGuest34:36

Oh, that's just like a class name. Oh, okay, that would be you three with Mr Francis and two, because there's two year, three classes.

Dr OIivia KesselHost34:48

Okay, there we go, light bulb moment.

Adele BatesGuest34:51

Each school has their funny little acronyms, but it's usually something like that. I remember when I was at school we had Mrs White and Mrs White piano because we had two Mrs White's. So that meant that Mrs White's class was 2W and the other one was 2WP for Mrs White piano. Yeah, that's all it was. So I think that the final thing that the book does is it's a real rallying call. I mean, this is a how-to and it's me saying let's look at this education system. It's clearly not working. At the time of writing, 30 children per day were being excluded in Britain. That's gone up since. Lockdowns per day.

Dr OIivia KesselHost35:36

That's staggering.

Adele BatesGuest35:37

And so I mean, if we were all buying a product that had that try or failure, we would think, okay, maybe there's something wrong with the product, Maybe we need a redesign.

Dr OIivia KesselHost35:46

We need a recall, yeah, exactly.

Adele BatesGuest35:48

So it's also a rallying call from me to ask individual teachers and parents and carers lots of parents and carers have read the book as well to go okay, what can we each do? And I think this is the other thing. It's very easy to feel very disempowered by the fact that the system is bias, that the system is broken in lots of ways, how it seems set up to be against our young people with different needs. And yet I am always inviting the reader to go. And what can we do in our situation, in our little corner with our kids or our class? And I think one of the ways and I'm going to bring in my other language now is that traditionally and I'm seeing this still a lot in schools we have this idea like, let's say, me and you, we go to the doctor, right, and we both have a headache. Now I have a headache because, let's say, mine is a premenstrual headache and I always get it before I bleed, and maybe your headache is because you've been parting loads and you're having a great time.

Dr OIivia KesselHost36:50

But you're having a headache.

Adele BatesGuest36:53

So we both go to the doctor and the doctor would give us presumably and this is the bit where you can tell me if I've been wrong all these years showing this analogy but like some kind of pill, and it would work for both of us. Temporarily it would take away that pain, it would take away the symptom. But because the reason I'm having headaches is different to the reason you're having headaches, that pill is only ever going to take us so far. And actually the fact that I am having headaches premenstrually well, hang on, what does that tell me? What else is there in my menstrual system that is telling me that something might be off or that something might need looking at? And for you, great that you're having a good time. But how often are you having a good time and is that affecting your overall health and lifestyle? And I see it very much the same with behavior.

37:43

Often, or traditionally, a school will say, okay, we've got this behavior policy. If a kid does x, y, ns, there do they get a detention or lines, and then eventually it's a suspension and there's this kind of it's like the pill, it's like as if that's going to work. And yes, it could work for some kids temporarily. Really well, and if I let's say, if there's a kid, that's like late three times in a week so they get a detention. I can give them a detention, but if I don't know why they're being late, we're literally just putting a plaster on. We're not getting to the root of the problem, and I think this is what I encourage schools to do is to go. Okay, you can have a shiny behavior policy and that might be useful.

38:30

I'm not saying that we shouldn't have punishment or consequences. I'm not saying we banish it all, but what I'm saying is we need an end. We need to say well, hang on, this kid's been late three times. Why is that? Maybe we find out that kid is responsible for taking their younger sibling to school and I'm giving them a detention for that. Now, that's very different to the kid who's late because they're playing computer games a bit too much and they miss the boss. But then again, if they're playing computer games all the time, you know, let's look at that issue and if we actually know, if we dare to I often talk about how the kids that we meet in schools it's like the tip of the iceberg. If we actually go underneath into the sea and find out what that behavior is communicating to us, then we get to create interventions that are suitable for the issues that are arising, rather than a blanket response, that pill that might work temporarily but doesn't work for everyone.

Dr OIivia KesselHost39:28

And that's when you see the magic happen. And your analogy is right on the money, and that's what you know. It's what you see in medicine too. It doesn't work just to give someone a pill First of all. They won't take the pill, even if the pill does work and they take it if you don't look at everything else. And if you, if that person doesn't become an activated patient and doesn't take care of their health, look after their sleep, their nutrition, that pill is only going to work for so long or might not work at all.

39:54

So you have to look at why does that? You know, and a good doctor should do that. But that's changed over time as well, you know. And there's, you know, there's also the. You know the patient just wants to have that pill because they want to have that instant fix, just like, you know, you want to have that instant fix. It takes a little bit more effort, but the results are so much more dramatic if you look underneath the iceberg and actually get to that root cause and then you fix it, you don't need the pills anymore. Yeah.

Adele BatesGuest40:22

I'm just thinking as well from your, from your listener. You know your listeners point of view. I think when I am training staff, a lot of staff do wish they did know more about behavior and how to support it, and so I really discourage anyone listening to go into their school and go. You shouldn't be giving my kid a detention. You should be doing all this because it might not, that teacher may not have been trained. I think a much more useful conversation is okay, you've given my kid a detention and do you know why they behave like that?

Dr OIivia KesselHost40:53

Yeah, and start that open discussion and start.

Adele BatesGuest40:56

And that is the biggest tip that I give to parents and carers is 99% of teachers are absolutely working their socks off. We are an underfunded industry. The jobs that we're expected to do is increasing and increasing. I kind of jokingly said earlier we were expected to be police people, police officers and social workers. It's not really a joke. Some of the stuff that I've had to deal with I have not been trained to do, but the reason I'm doing that is because the services are no longer there.

41:31

So if you want to support your kid to do better at school, my top tip is keep that communication open. Find the advocate for your kid. There'll be somebody who believes in your kid. Use them as the person to communicate with. If you go in saying you're not doing this, you're not doing that, you're not doing this, you're going to put increased pressure on the school and they're less likely to be able to work positively with you.

41:56

And I think also I have to speak as well for those children whose parents or carers won't be listening to this podcast, who don't have parents and carers who, for whatever reason, are unable to successfully look after their children, and I think I do see this a lot that unfortunately, the parent or carer who shouts the loudest can maybe make more things work. That's not necessarily the child who needs it the most, and so some of the training I do it is about supporting, for example, ptas, parent-teachers associations, things like that, helping parents and carers think about how can all of those parents and carers support all of the children rather than each of their own going and help mic it to help us have that level of inclusion and awareness of community, because there will be some kids in that school who won't have advocates for them.

Dr OIivia KesselHost42:51

And following through the cracks, and I mean I also think that as end of year of school and presents for teachers or Christmas gifts, your book could be a very good idea. Yes, because it's constructive and it sounds like, if it's anything like you've been on this podcast, you've got a funny kind of irreverent kind of style to you that I think most people would enjoy reading and would get something from. So I want to say a big thank you for coming on the show today and your guest appearance from your dog. What's your dog's name, by the way?

Adele BatesGuest43:30

She is called Sumodka Bodka for short. She's Bulgarian, and that is her first appearance, so yeah, so there we go.

Dr OIivia KesselHost43:40

Thank you so much, adele. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Thank you so much, bye-bye. Thank you for listening Send Parenting Tribe. Please leave a review on your preferred podcast platform, as this will help make it visible to more listeners. Also, please visit wwwsendparentingcom for links to Adele's book. Wishing you and your family a calm week ahead. Bye.