Jim Roberson

Original Source

“Your education is your number one key to unlocking a whole world of opportunities.”

Chances are you won’t have met a Jim Roberson before. And once you have, it’s something we guarantee will leave its mark, as it has for thousands of young people and their teachers.

For Jim, drawing on his experience as a professional sportsman and coach and his many years’ experience working both in school and outside with some of the country’s most vulnerable and demanding young people, it’s not what others do for you, it’s what you do for yourself.

Jim, the self-styled Discipline Coach and author of the book of the same name and currently an Assistant head on the south coast, is a powerhouse of ideas and insights designed to help young people help themselves. The lessons Jim shares are lessons hard earned, growing up in New York’s Bronx, being the only Black kid in a high-flying White school where he had a sports scholarship to play his beloved America Football, something he did at professional level until injury took its toll.

Delivered in his incredible, inimitable style Jim has no trouble totally enrapturing audiences ranging from school leaders and teachers to children and young people for whom time is running out to make something from themselves and their school lives.

A qualified and experienced teacher based in the UK for many years, he has also created and run a whole series of programmes outside of schools, working with local police, community workers, local business and sports clubs, all designed to help children and young people grasp the opportunities they have and understand that whatever has happened in the past there is always another way.

For Jim, the message for young people is incredibly simple. Education is the answer. Now, what’s your problem? And when it comes to working with teachers, he is equally pragmatic about what he expects from them when it comes to supporting children presenting even the most challenging behaviours.

The lessons he shares are lessons from his own time at the sharp end in schools, showing that discipline (by which he means discipline of self rather than discipline of others – this is no ‘zero tolerance’ fop to current trends on behaviour) is the single most critical life skill to develop.

For a charismatic and memorable speaker sharing genuine experiences and practical ideas when it comes to bringing the best out of all children, especially those most at risk of dropping out of the system, then Jim is who you need. He is quite simply, and according to the most frequent description given to him by young people he works with, ‘a legend’.  

Jim Roberson In His Own Words

“DISCIPLINE IS NOT WHAT YOU DO TO YOURSELF, BUT FOR YOURSELF” – THE DISCIPLINE COACH

• Jim has been with Independent Thinking for over 20 years
• You’ll find him in our Teaching and Learning topic area
• You can watch Jim in conversation with Dave Keeling and Ian Gilbert in 2020 here
• You might also want to consider Floyd Woodrow or Phil Beadle
• Ask us about Jim’s prices and current availability and for details on how to save money when you book, click here