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REVIEWS
Reviews
AFTER THE ADULTS CHANGE – ACHIEVABLE BEHAVIOUR NIRVANA iven the government’s new drive on behaviour, this book could not have been released at a more critical time. If you have read Paul’s previous book, ‘When the Adults Change’, you will be accustomed to his easy writing style and his way of interweaving the practice with real examples. He is reassuring in his manner and allows you to have the ‘oh no, that was me!’ revelations without preaching. Paul is a behaviour expert and, at the same time, very humble, sharing his own past failings alongside his strategies, which make his advice even more relatable; he has walked the walk. He challenges the reader to reflect upon the reasons for current practice,
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examine how inclusive your values really are and how much ‘relational currency’ has been built into the systems used within your setting. One of the most important elements of this book is to challenge the use of the language of shame and blame within behaviour policies used in classrooms and reports. If staff view behaviour as communication, and as behaviour that challenges as an unmet need or describes a child as unregulated, then we begin to address the cause not the symptom. As an advocate for ‘ban the booths’, his reasoning is sound and his relaying of true stories truly heartbreaking. The inspirational stories from headteachers that have used the strategies and witnessed the positive effect within their
Author: Paul Dix Publisher: Independent Thinking Press ISBN: 978-178135377-6 Price: £16.99 Reviewed by: Zoe Mather, Education Officer, nasen
school, and the knock-on effect in the community, are a delight to read. I would recommend this book for every senior leadership team and governing body that are reviewing their behaviour policies in light of the government announcement to ensure they are being inclusive. I would also recommend this book to every trainee teacher as a guide to how to reach those pupils that seem, for all the world, unreachable.
RESTORATIVE PRACTICE: BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS AND CREATING STRONGER COMMUNITIES
Author: Mark Finnis Publisher: Independent Thinking Press ISBN: 978-178135338-7 Price: £9.99 Reviewed by: Dr Dominic Griffiths, Manchester Metropolitan University
Mark Finnis’s book, Restorative Practice, is all about showing how relationships lie at the heart of an effective and happy school. This may seem a self-evident truth, but the challenge lies in finding ways to bring this about. Mark believes that developing social capital sits at the heart of this process. This social capital is built incrementally, fostering a culture in which small daily acts of positive connection are performed: greeting a child by their name, asking someone how their football team got on or celebrating an individual’s success, however small. This is not an entirely ‘bottom-up’ approach, though. School communities need to develop agreed sets of principles that will inform their policies and practices, forged by all stakeholders. This is a culture of mutual respect, built through opportunities
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to connect, through listening and solutionorientated approaches informing individual encounters, group meetings and school-wide activities. In developing this culture, Mark draws upon a range of psychological and philosophical sources. One key source is the African notion of ‘Ubuntu’: where mutually beneficial outcomes should lie at the heart of all relationships. Mark Finnis supports a restorative justice approach within this broader philosophy of restorative practice. This approach to repairing damaged relationships focuses upon, instead of mere ‘crime and punishment’, three questions: ‘what happened’; ‘who has been affected by this?’ and ‘what needs to happen now?’. This very accessible and very humorous book is fundamentally both serious and optimistic. Essential reading for all headteachers.
