Special Education and Inclusive Learning
Teaching Resources, Sensory Stories and SEND Information
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
This was my first attempt at writing a sensory story. Heavily influenced by this book by the fantastically creative Joanna Grace
Here you will find all the Special Education books listed in the database but with clickable links. these are all recommended by SEN teachers and professionals.
Class changes in September are a huge source of anxiety for all involved. There is a range of activities you can undertake to make this transition easier. I have written a blog about supporting learners with day-to-day general transitions and this one on supporting Autistic children with class transitions.
Rethinking Assessment for PMLD learners. In 2015, Cherry Garden School decided their assessment and reporting procedures were no longer fit for purpose. Although we had just received our third consecutive Outstanding judgement from Ofsted, we were aware that our assessment 'data' wasn't always meaningful, and that many of our children didn't make typical linear progress.… Continue reading Assessment for PMLD
This guide will provide information about the meaning of over 100 widely used acronyms.
Every successful placement requires the best possible communication and working relationship between parents and carers and schools
Written for us by an Early Years leader, this post outlines a suggested phonics session, the activities and routine will be appropriate for all mainstream settings, and with a little imagination to any SEN setting. The phonics session mirrors what I taught to my class. Keeping the same routine really helped my autistic learners and is the key takeaway from this post.
Recognising your own emotions and identifying effective strategies for managing these is a key skill for any child.
Symbols can be used to support both receptive and expressive communication. They support word recognition in pre-readers and can be used in times of increased stress to communicate a need when word recall is impaired, for example showing an exit symbol for time out instead of having to ask or explain why.
World Book Day teaching activities As a parent, I am starting to dread the yearly costume hunt that World Book Day has become. This year (2020) in Siansbury the dressing up display was 10 meters followed by two small shelves of books. So here is an A-Z list of possible activities and ideas that you… Continue reading A-Z of world book day ideas – That aren’t dressing up!
You can call it challenging behaviour but these events really demonstrate is a highly anxious,frustrated or traumatic reaction to stress, Autistic children are not any more prone to behavioural incidents than other children so we need to look deeper if our interactions or environment is leading to issues.
f teaching is a vocation then working in the field of special needs is a calling.
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