Special Education and Inclusive Learning
Teaching Resources, Sensory Stories and SEND Information
Personalisation and Purpose I am a fan of personalised reward systems as a way to achieve a very specific goal. As a behaviour modification strategy I have struggled to find a suitable system. I have found star charts or token economy systems a good way for some children to focus on expected behaviour. They can… Continue reading Rewards and Natural Consequences
Teaching emotions and explaining feelings to children is essential. A child cannot self regulate without recognising and starting to understand how they feel. It is also important for children to start to understand how their actions affect others. There are many ways to approach this but one of my favourite ways is to incorporate storytelling.… Continue reading Teaching Emotions: 6 Picture Books
A guest post on great SEN apps. For many children access to school ended in March 2020 due to the coronavirus. Now that the spread is slowing down, however, they’re allowed to reopen fully. But a survey conducted by the National Foundation for Education Research found that 60% of school leaders feel ‘unprepared for some aspects of… Continue reading 5 Interactive Apps Geared Towards Special Needs Students
All children have a tendency to display oppositional behavior at times. After 13 years working with children with Autism, ADHD, ODD and other needs I have seen a range of reasons for opposition. With my own children I can identify factors that can lead to oppositional behaviour. This doesn’t make it easier to deal with,… Continue reading Control, Anxiety, and Oppositional Behaviour at Home and School.
The Value of Compassion This post is a reflection of the #SENexchange discussion on Quality of life and our favourite things. It took place during the Coronavirus crisis in April 2020. Our definitions of what education, life and security look like have been tested. Education was redefined overnight, the structures and routines we built over… Continue reading Quality of Life: Reducing Anxiety
Our Spitfire VE Day sensory story forms the third of a collection of sensory stories written to be delivered during the week of the VE day celebrations in May 2020. These have been written with a broader range of needs than some of our other stories. The vocabulary is a little more complex and the… Continue reading Spitfire: A VE Day Sensory Story
Independence at School and Home Is is essential we educate our children for the life they will lead as adults. For safety, wellbeing and the ability to control their direction in life. Independence will be a sliding scale for many children but we need to enhance this wherever possible. Independence skills is a key area… Continue reading SEND: Encouraging Independence
Waiting: Strategies for use at home & school Waiting can be a challenge for many children. As a teacher and a parent I have had to find ways to teach children to wait for a whole range of things. Throughout the day in the SEN classroom there are natural lulls in planned activity. This may… Continue reading How To Teach Children To Wait
Free, Simple Sensory Home Learning Activities There are many options for home learning packs and ideas for children who can access worksheets and online teaching resources. Sensory learners need sensory learning ideas. Preferably simple and free ones. This list of 150 (ish) ideas should give you some ideas to try at home, EYFS settings and… Continue reading 150 Sensory Learning Ideas
This post outlines the questions and suggested strategies from the #SENexchange discussion on Life Skills: Health and Hygiene routines. You can download a PDF of the collated discussion below. Please share if you think this will help someone. Life Skills- Health and Hygiene in SENDDownload What barriers do people with Sensory Processing differences face with… Continue reading Hygiene Routines and SEND
Using Snack time to enhance communication. Snack time can be a great opportunity to develop a number of key skills for our pupils. Given the regular nature of mealtimes in school settings and the inherent positive nature of mealtimes for most children, this activity is an outstanding context for social communication intervention (Gauverou 2017). Primarily… Continue reading Snack Time: Communication & Interaction
A Sensory Recipe/Poem for Pancake Day Just a little bit of fun for Pancake day. a sensory story/recipe for encouraging messy play or adding a little bit of literacy and fun into food tech lessons. As always written with SEND children in mind this is a simple recipe with poem/Sensory story to go with it.… Continue reading Pancake Day Sensory Story
School Anxiety, Signs, Causes, Support and Resources. The subject of school anxiety is often a source of frustration and conflict between schools and parents. This is unnecessary and unhelpful and does nothing to provide support to the child. Children are often labelled as being school refusers. Pressure from local authorities may be put onto parents… Continue reading School Anxiety: Signs causes & strategies
Blitz: A WW2 Sensory Story Adventure To celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day this sensory story focuses on the Blitz experience. By writing A WW2 sensory adventure we ensure that the needs of all learners are being catered for. Lots of thought went into this story and the multi-sensory experiences it… Continue reading Blitz: WW2 Sensory Adventure
AR Phonics and SEND Developed by two teachers, who kindly sent me a pack to use at school these cards are pretty good as simple flashcards for use in your phonics lessons. Clear, well made and easy to use. However it is the innovative use of AR (Augmented reality) that brings these cards to life.… Continue reading Talking Phonics Flashcards: Carters Yard
Monitoring wellbeing using a food and mood chart We developed this food and mood chart when working with a non-verbal young man who had multiple but unclear food intolerances. This led to a highly limited diet that felt unethical. It was also felt this led to behaviours i.e the child will take food from others,… Continue reading Wellbeing: Food and Mood Chart
AAC Games for Communication Our next review for a game suitable for AAC users is Shark Bite. I bought this reduced at a supermarket. Shark does does tick the boxes for being suitable for use in communication and interaction sessions. It has a surprise movement to make you jump. The game has multicoloured accessories and… Continue reading AAC Game: Shark Bite
I couldn't resist this for £7 at Wilko. A fun little AAC game especially for children that find anything to do with Poo hilarious. This requires 2 aaa batteries for the moo or fart noises. The premise of the game is that each player chooses a boot colour. You then spin the spinner to decide… Continue reading AAC Game: Gassy The Cow.
This winter themed Sensory Story has been written for our "Time" topic where we are exploring the seasons. Snow Bear provides plenty of opportunities for exploring the cold of the Arctic. I have included a subtle message about climate change which depending on the age group you use it with may be useful to tie… Continue reading Sensory Story: Snow Bear
The Birth of BackPocketTeacher Hands up, who returns from school with a bizarre range of things in their pockets? Stickers, symbols, bubbles, raisins, latex gloves…. they’ve all been found in my pockets and also been seen spinning around my washing machine! As a SEND teacher I learnt very early on that however amazing and detailed… Continue reading BackPocketTeacher: Bereavement and Grief in SEND
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