Children’s Mental Health: Infographic

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Children’s Mental Health Infographic Anyone who works with young people in the UK today will recognise the challenges faced supporting our students in terms of mental health and wellbeing. There are a myriad of challenges that face them growing up with the impact of Lockdowns and cost of living. Schools are often the front line, … Read more

Autism: Environmental Barriers to Transition

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Getting Stuck: How the School Environment can Prevent Pupils Transition Autism can create barriers to inclusive education, we as teachers can also unwittingly create barriers to including pupils and making their education as effective as possible. We must take a moment to consider our actions and decisions in terms of how they may create issues … Read more

The Wellbeing Curriculum: Online Safety & Pupil Wellbeing

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Ideas and Values for Developing a Wellbeing Focussed Curriculum. Links to the original Wellbeing Curriculum posts: Part 1 Part 2: Teaching the wellbeing curriculum It is our job as teachers to remove barriers to learning, in online safety it is often the curriculum that forms a barrier to meaningful learning. The fact that online safety … Read more

The Essentials of SEND Education

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Three essential components to SEND education. Special education is a fantastic career option. I am always urging NQTs to consider SEND education as an option for their careers. It is different from mainstream education in a number of key ways. However, that intrinsic desire to provide the best outcomes for the children you teach is … Read more

Teaching the Teacher: What my Students have taught me.

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Teaching The Teacher Teaching and learning is the root of education. The two words go very well together. However, we often employ the phrase to suggest that we as teachers are doing the teaching and that it is only the students who are doing the learning. I dread to suggest it but I can imagine … Read more

15 Key Skills For SEN Teachers

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Key Skills for Effective Special Education Teaching Teaching students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) requires a robust set of competencies. While these skills benefit all teachers, they are especially critical for those in specialised settings. Here is an expanded version of the article with a passionate tone about supporting students in special education: Special Education … Read more

Online Safety: Why We Need to Stop Saying “In Real Life’

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In Real Life: Devaluing Online Identity. This idea formed part of my presentation for the Wellbeing curriculum at the BETT show. I am going to say that the phrase “In Real Life”. Often used to distinguish between online activity and activity in our tangible immediate physical surroundings. Should be retired. The audio version below. Please … Read more

7 Times New Girl Summed up being a Teacher

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What Teachers Can Learn from New Girl’s Jessica Day Just a quick lighthearted blog post with lessons teachers can learn from the TV show New Girl: The quirky TV show New Girl stars a plucky, optimistic teacher named Jessica Day, played by Zooey Deschanel. While the sitcom often veers into zany antics, teachers can actually … Read more

How Can Music Help Teacher Concentration and Reduce Stress?

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Working should be fun. (I have decided to start all the remaining blogs of #29daysofwriting with a controversial statement.). Music is great for your well being, memories, focus, physiological benefits. So as part of your #teacher5aday include some tunes to reduce teacher stress levels! Using Music to Improve Focus and De-Stress as a Teacher Teaching … Read more

15 Top Tips for Delivering Engaging Behaviour Management Training for Teachers

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Effective Behaviour Training I am a principal instructor for a behaviour support training network. This gives me the opportunity to visit and train in a lot of special schools. The best part of our network is that it is not a hierarchy. It is truly a collaborative team approach to delivering behaviour training. There are … Read more

Toxic Leadership: 5 Types of Manager to Avoid.

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Avoiding the Toxic Leadership Characters If you have ever been a teacher you may well be able to relate to these characters who display toxic leadership traits. The bosses everyone dreads having. Those that make you wish David Brent could take over. Forbes goes into more detail about toxic leaders here. If you can think … Read more

A Discussion on Inclusion (SEND)

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Why Discuss Inclusion? This article is an account of a professional discussion on inclusion between teachers, SLT, parents and carers. It is essential that inclusion is a subject that we discuss regularly. Inclusive education is an issue has an impact on every school and every classroom. It is an area close to many people’s hearts … Read more

13 Signs you are not a Digital Native.

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Digital Natives is a phrase coined by Marc Prensky in his 2001 paper Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. He suggests that there has been a huge shift in the way young people today learn, identify themselves etc. This is due to a huge event (or Singularity). The widespread dissemination of digital technology. As Today’s students have … Read more

Digital Inclusion: The unseen barrier

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Digital Inclusion. Digital inclusion refers to ensuring all people can participate and connect in today’s digital society. This includes: Access to technology and connectivity:Having access to digital devices like computers and smartphones, as well as reliable internet connections through broadband, WiFi and mobile networks. Infrastructure and connectivity are fundamental prerequisites for digital inclusion. Digital skills:Having … Read more

Teach Like a Pirate #Tlap: The SEN Classroom

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Implementing The Teach Like a Pirate Philosophy In Your Classroom One of my first discoveries of an education book that I could get behind and implement was Dave Burgess’s book Teach Like A Pirate, or #tlap as it’s known. Now I am a fan of pirates and need little encouragement to embrace Pirate culture. Now … Read more

Friendship and Autism: A Case Study.

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Autism and the barriers to friendship This is a situation that occurred a while ago and now both students are a couple of years into their new placements I feel it can be written and anonymity maintained. The names are made up, ‘Jack’ is what one of my current students calls me despite my trying … Read more

Top 5 Children’s Books ages 0-5

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For the first ever guest blog I would Like to thank Andrea and Ellie from the fantastic Children’s Bookshop “A bundle of Books” in Herne Bay Who have compiled this list of their top 5 books for children aged 0-5. Follow their twitter here