The SENDcast

Joining Dale today is Ginny Bootman. Ginny is currently a SENCO of 2 Primary schools, but has been a teacher for a very long time (in her own words), a senior manager and headteacher. She has also found time to write articles for TES and speak at a number of events.

There is often a huge divide between how a child with additional needs presents themselves at school compared to how they are at home. This discussion looks at this 'seesaw' situation. Too often there is a breakdown of communications between home and school as the child is presenting themselves so differently in these different environments.

Resources:

Alis Rowe - The girl with the curly hair - Aspergers and Me.

Emma Kendall - Helping you to identify and understand autism masking

Dr Andrew Curran - The Little Book of Big Stuff About the Brain

Website – www.ginnybootman.com

Twitter – @sencogirl

Did you know that our brain is actually a kind of prediction making machine? We essentially see the world by guessing it. What we're constantly trying to do is to stay one step ahead and the sensory information we're going to receive. We do this in order to conserve energy so this predictive processing takes less effort.

The moment where learning happens is when you come across a prediction error, when you're surprised by something you weren't expecting – this is uncertainty. We don't like it because we don't know what to do and over the past 18 months we have all lived through uncertainty with the pandemic and all the new challenges this has brought us.

In this week's episode we're discussing whether we need to support every pupil in every need differently, or are there approaches that support everyone? My guests this week are Clare Ward and Dr Jamie Galpin. Clare has worked in the world of SEN for the last 30 years in a variety of roles and Jamie also has a long career in SEN. They talk about a growing move towards transdiagnostic approaches to mental health and SEN and their development of a new model to support all children and young people.

The Anxiety Workbook for Supporting Teens Who Learn Differently – published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers 21st April 2021.

Neurodiversity is a term which describes conditions such as Dyslexia, Autism and ADHD as variations or differences of the human brain, not deficits or disorders.

Neurodiversity is a term that everybody in the school community should be aware of, not just the teachers but the students and the parents as well. There can be a lot of misunderstanding, because the wider community is unaware and this can cause issues, such as bullying.

Our guest this week is Fintan O'Regan. Fintan is one of the leading Behaviour and Learning specialists in the UK. He is currently an ADHD, Neurodiversity and Behaviour Consultant for number of schools and organisations and an associate lecturer for Leicester University, the National Association of Special Needs, The Helen Arkell Charity and the Institute of Education.

Listen to this podcast to find out how to open up conversations and create awareness of how and why students think and act differently. By creating an open minded, more tolerant and understanding school for neurodiversity, you will improve learning and socialisation.

Fintan is a regular here in our studios, he has recorded a number of episodes of the SENDcast, he is a regular speaker at our Virtual SEND Conferences and has recorded a training course for us around Exclusion. Find out more about the CPD certified sessions Fintan has hosted with us:

Virtual SEND Conference 5 - www.trainingforeducation.com/product/virtual-send-conference-5

Session - Neurodiversity 'traits' for children and adolescents with learning, behaviour and socialisation – challenges and opportunities

Managing Behaviour and Reducing the Risk of Exclusion Training Course - www.trainingforeducation.com/product/managing-behaviour-and-reducing-the-risk-of-exclusion

Is Persistent Disruptive Behaviour causing problems for staff and pupils at your school? Behaviour expert, Fintan has a proven strategy to manage PDB in the classroom. His online course explains this strategy and how to implement it at your school.

This course is CPD certified. It includes 4 videos specifically tailored for different groups at your school: - Senior Leadership Teams - Teachers and support staff - Parents and Carers - School Governors

Children always write stories and poems, but have you thought about songwriting? It can be a fantastic activity to enhance speech and language skills, communication and literacy. It makes a great alternative to creative writing as it's more inclusive and collaborative.

Singing songs and music in school engages children in a different way. It levels the playing field with children with different abilities and is a really accessible way to get into a topic.

Al Start is a singer-songwriter who specialises in music for children and schools through her company Go Kid Music. Al joins Dale Pickles to show us how you can write songs for your own topics and class to reinforce concepts, behaviours and learn basic skills.

In this week's podcast, Dale Pickles from B Squared is joined by Dr Trisha Waters. Trisha is an educational therapist who began her career supporting pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties, after that she led the MA in SEN & Inclusion at the University of Chichester and is now the director of the Centre for Therapeutic Storywriting.

Story Links is a parent partnership intervention to support vulnerable pupils at risk of exclusion. It uses therapeutic storywriting to address emotional and behaviour issues and, in particular, supports pupils with attachment difficulties and improves pupils' reading. It encourages parents' to think in story metaphor about their child's emotional concerns and to engage in regular sessions with their child.

The needs of pupils with attachment anxiety can be hard to address in the school environment. By engaging parents in this solution-focused intervention that uses stories co-created by pupil and parent, pupils feel more settled and develop their reading skills.

Resources:

storylinkstraining.co.uk (video on home page)

Therapeutic Storywriting: A Practical Guide to Developing Emotional Literacy in Primary Schools by Trisha Waters Research papers: https://www.therapeuticstorywriting.co.uk/research/research-story-links

Video: Introducing Therapeutic Storywriting Groups - https://therapeuticstorywritingtraining.co.uk (video on home page)

'Therapeutic Storywriting: A Practical Guide to Developing Emotional Literacy in Primary Schools' by Trisha Waters - https://www.therapeuticstorywriting.co.uk/book

Therapeutic Storywriting Research Papers - https://www.therapeuticstorywriting.co.uk/research/research-tsw-groups

Contact Trisha:

Website: www.therapeuticstorywriting.co.uk

Twitter: @TherapyStoryhttps://twitter.com/therapystory

Facebook: Centre for Therapeutic Storywriting

In this week's podcast, Dale Pickles from B Squared is joined by Tessa Morton, one of the founders of Act for Autism, to discuss an approach she uses to help you connect and communicate with your autistic students. Tessa is the passionate mum of an autistic boy, and before founding Act for Autism, she had spent over 15 years supporting autistic kids in her community through drama workshops. Tessa is a trained counsellor, and has been supporting parents of autistic kids, helping them to manage their emotions and anxieties.

Connecting and Communicating with Your Autistic Child

For more podcast episodes from the SENDcast click below… https://sendcast.wpengine.com/sendcast-episodes/

www.trainingforeducation.com

Contact Tessa Morton:

Website: Act for Autism

Twitter: https://twitter.com/actforautism1

Joining Dale today is Ginny Bootman. Ginny is currently a SENCO of 2 Primary schools, but has been a teacher for a very long time (in her own words), a senior manager and headteacher. She has also found time to write articles for TES and speak at a number of events.

It is so easy in our busy world of schools to forget to find time to have the important conversations with parents of children with additional needs. In this episode, Ginny and Dale talk through simple, effective strategies to use to improve communication between home and school, such as checking in with parents, or a quick email or phone call that can mean so much and take so little of our time.

Resources:

Brene Brown - Her work on empathy - https://twentyonetoys.com/blogs/teaching-empathy/brene-brown-empathy-vs-sympathy

Jamil Zaki - The War for kindness , building empathy in a fractured world - https://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Kindness-Building-Empathy-Fractured/dp/0451499247

Sir John Jones - The Magic Weaving Business

Peter Bazalgette - The Empathy Instinct

logos, ethos, pathos - The rhetorical triangle How these can be used to understand the view of the parent during meetings - https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/RhetoricalTriangle.htm

Website – www.ginnybootman.com

Twitter – @sencogirl

For more podcast episodes from the SENDcast click below… https://sendcast.wpengine.com/sendcast-episodes/

Welcome to the SENDcast.

The phrase 'Every teacher is teacher of SEND' is currently an ideal, not a reality. We created the SENDcast to try and help solve that problem, to help make schools more inclusive and to help teachers be teachers of SEND.

The SENDCast is also a great way to get the same information to parents and other people working with young people with SEND.

Dale's guest this week is Alison Knowles. Alison is an emotional therapist, she supports emotional resilience. In this episode Dale and Alison discuss grief.

Grief is so much more than losing a loved one. It's a traumatic emotion experienced at the loss of or perceived loss of something innately important to an individual.

https://www.facebook.com/OllieandhisSuperPowers

https://twitter.com/bemoreollie

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWDj-PRjboIg2cu-KZsEMVA

https://www.instagram.com/ollie_and_his_super_powers

https://www.ollieandhissuperpowers.com/

In this week's podcast, Dale discusses supporting pupils with dyslexia and other needs using the Science Literacy Toolkit with guest is Dr Susie Nyman. Susie teaches a range of students in a post-16 environment. She uses multi-sensory teaching strategies to cover complex topics, to help students learn.

Susie is the Curriculum Manager at The Sixth Form College, Farnborough. She is passionate about discovering how children learn and supporting them in ways which enable them to succeed. She has provided training to PGCE students at Kingston University, and in a number of local schools and colleges on teaching strategies. She also delivers talks on multi-sensory techniques around the world.

In this week's podcast, Dale Pickles from B Squared is joined by Al Start. Al is a singer-songwriter who specialises in music for children and schools through her company Go Kid Music. Al has worked with children through creative art organisations and local authority play services. Al has also toured the UK and East Coast USA performing her music.

There are different types of sign language, British sign language or BSL is the primary language used for deaf people, and less than 1 in 10 people in the UK know more than two words in British Sign Language. There is also Makaton tht uses symbols sign and speech to support communication. Sign language isn't always an alternative to speech, it can be used to support speech.

Why use signing in your school? How can you introduce it to all students? How can your staff learn? Why is it important?

Visual communication methods such as Makaton support spoken language and help everyone understand. Many schools do not use signing, some do but only in a class with a child with send, but there is evidence to show kinaesthetic learning is your secret weapon as well as being inclusive, fun, creative, supportive, respectful and beautiful!

https://www.singup.org/

Songbooks published by Collins Music:

"Sing! Play! Learn! with Go Kid Music" Topic songs for KS1 & KS2

Contact Al Start:

Website: Go Kid Music

Twitter: @gokidmusic

Facebook: facebook.com/gokidmusic