Adele Bates is a Behaviour & Education Specialist who empowers school leaders and teachers to support pupils with behavioural needs and SEMH to thrive with their education. She’s an International Keynote Speaker, a featured expert on teenagers and behaviour for BBC Radio 4, the author of "Miss, I Don't Give A Sh*t", Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools, from Sage & Corwin Press, and is a fully-funded International Researcher on Behaviour & Inclusion, as well as teaching for nearly 20 years. For her tips and resources check out her website above.
I wrote
"Miss, I Don’t Give a Sh*t" Engaging With Challenging Behaviour in Schools
Whichever way you look at it behaviour of our pupils, is linked to our behaviour - and everyone's behaviour is linked to the wellbeing of an individual and a community...and whilst as educators we know this in theory, the how-to often stumps us. This guide - with 26 expert contributors, covers the wellbeing topic from every angle. Whilst I have experience of what wellbeing looks like in education from some perspectives, what I enjoyed about this book is that it invites me (in small easy, accessible chunks) to get to know about other areas where my blindspots come in.
Despite many school leaders and teaching and non-teaching staff working hard to support children's and their own wellbeing, more needs to be done. This book provides you with the necessary tools and strategies to navigate your way through the changing educational landscape and shape the schools of the future. Written by a diverse range of experts in the field, it explores how all school staff can support their own, their colleagues' and their students' wellbeing, how leaders can lead well and be well, and the importance of relationships within the entire school community…
I began teaching when I was 13 years old. I ran a drama school for primary school-aged children (yep, type-A). From then on I was always teaching. As I continued, through my teens and into my twenties I thought it important to get some outside input and not just regurgitate my old teachers! Sue's books were one of the first I picked up.
With so few women's voices in places of influence when it comes to Behaviour in British Schools, it was a particularly poignant read for me. Its down-to-earth, on-the-ground perspective appealed hugely, as well as its practical help. As I mention in my book, it is still a resource I use to this day, and I have been honoured and thrilled to have Sue's support and endorsement for my own workaround behaviour.
Sue Cowley's bestselling behaviour guide. Essential reading for all teachers in all schools.
'Show the students the can of dog food, open it up and then eat from it. Offer it round the class to see if anyone else will have a taste...'*
This is just one of Sue Cowley's infamous ways of captivating your students, seizing control and getting that unruly class to behave! *(WARNING: Make sure you read the crucial preparation advice before putting this idea into practice!)
Now in its fifth edition, Getting the Buggers to Behave remains a firm favourite with trainees, newly qualified teachers and…
Most teachers get approximately half a day's training on behaviour in their ITT (and TAs get 0!). Luckily my half-day was with Paul Dix. Coming out of the lecture hall I remember thinking - this man speaks sense. This relates to the years of PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) and AP (Alternative Provision) experience I'd had up to that point. This book, an accumulation of years of experience, gives some practical nuggets to take away as well as some overall school-wide approaches.
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…
The first poem in this book, from the perspective of a SEND pupil, is so moving. The concept - and reality - that a pupil with SEND is 7 times more likely to be excluded from mainstream school (according to The Timpson Report 2019), is horrific. This book opened my eyes further as to what we're getting wrong, and the huge overlap between my work with behaviour and SEND.
In Don't Send Him in Tomorrow, Jarlath O'Brien shines a light on the marginalised, disenfranchised and forgotten children of today's schools. The percentage of children achieving the government's expected standard in benchmark tests is national news every year. The progress that children with learning difficulties and SEN make is never discussed, because it is not understood. That is a problem. The bone-crushing infrastructure which professionals have to negotiate is a problem. The fact that so many parents have to fight tooth and nail so that the needs of their children are met, something the rest of us would consider a…
So this might be my left field recommendation, and it's important; I begin the list with the individual - wellbeing. I end it with this groundbreaking text that helps me to feel connected to something bigger than me in my classroom with Sandra breaking Otis' pen - again...
Education is a social issue
Education is political
Education is powerful - and because of all of that, I need guidance with the daily battles I have (many in my own head) about behaviour, education, and the role I'm here to play within it. Emergent Strategy gives me guidance for this- it guides me to work with inevitable change- of our pupils, our education systems, and ourselves.
In the tradition of Octavia Butler, radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want.
Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This…
Do you want to be an inspiring teacher for everyone you teach, even the trickier cherubs in your class? Or maybe you just want to get through a lesson without a desk flying at you or a blazer being set alight?
In this down-to-earth book, Adele Bates shares practical approaches, strategies, and tips from the classroom on how to help pupils with behavioural needs thrive with their education. Packed full of real-life classroom scenarios, student voice and relevant theory, every chapter offers an Action Box helping you to implement these strategies - next lesson, next week, and long term.
I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward.
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…
Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation
Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.
First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…
