--- title: Adults who help and adults who don't — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Adults who help and adults who don't», a lesson of the everyday course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Mrs Okafor keeps a little notebook, and one day she noticed something in it: the same group of boys ended up fighting every Friday, --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/) / Adults who help and adults who don't # Adults who help and adults who don't Lesson 392 of the everyday course of Mova's primary school: 25 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/0/) — Mrs Okafor keeps a little notebook, and one day she noticed something in it: the same group of boys ended up fighting every Friday, just after swimming, when everyone was tired, hungry and wet-haired. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/1/) — She moved the snack to before the bus, put Jake at the front with her, and the Friday fights simply stopped. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/2/) — Noticing a pattern is one of the cleverest things a grown-up can do. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/3/) — Not every grown-up helps. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/4/) — The dinner lady always said «sort it out yourselves», so the shoving in the queue went on for weeks. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/5/) — Kieran's gran shrugged «boys will be boys» about the street fights, as if bruises were a kind of weather. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/6/) — One teacher told Maddie she «can't help it, she's a tomboy», as if liking football meant she was bound to fight. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/7/) — Those words did not stop anything; they just told the children nobody was coming. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/8/) — Other grown-ups acted. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/9/) — Sam's mum rang the school the same evening Sam told her, and thanked Sam for telling. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/10/) — Lily's dad went to the school about the ponytail tugging, calmly, with dates written down. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/11/) — Jake's uncle took him to boxing club, where the first rule on the wall said «no fighting outside the ring — ever», and anyone who broke it was out. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/12/) — Jake said the coach was scarier than any Station Road boy. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/13/) — Mr Pryce invited the parents of both streets into the school hall, with tea and biscuits, to talk about the fights, and the community police officer started playing football on the rec on Saturday mornings with kids from both streets — he was terrible in goal and everyone loved it. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/14/) — If the first grown-up you tell doesn't help, that is not the end: there is always another one who will. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/15/) — A grown-up who notices when and where fights happen can often stop them by changing that time or place. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/16/) — Tiredness and hunger make tempers shorter for children and adults. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/17/) — «Sort it out yourselves» leaves the stronger or rougher child to win. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/18/) — «Boys will be boys» is an excuse, not a reason; boys can learn not to fight just like anyone else. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/19/) — Liking football or rough games does not make a girl, or anyone, bound to fight. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/20/) — When a child tells a parent, the most helpful parent listens, thanks them and contacts the school. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/21/) — Writing down what happened and when helps adults take a problem seriously. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/22/) — Good sports clubs, like boxing or judo clubs, have strict rules against fighting outside the club. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/23/) — Community police officers help keep neighbourhoods safe and often get to know local children. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/392-adults-who-help-and-adults-who-dont/24/) — If one adult does not help, a child should tell another adult until someone does. - ← previous: [«Just hit him back» or «tell a teacher»? What the grown-ups say](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/391-just-hit-him-back-or-tell-a-teacher/) - next →: [Bystanders: the crowd, the phone and the ones who help](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/393-bystanders/) - ↑ back to [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/)