Empowering Special Needs Students for Lifelong Learning
f teaching is a vocation then working in the field of special needs is a calling.
special needs
Top Tips for an ECT Working With SEN Pupils
It is that time of year when trainee teachers are finishing their placements and looking for a school to begin their teaching career in. I hope some of you consider moving into the SEN sector. It is a great opportunity to build so many essential skills. It is also a great way to get to know the child behind the label, behind the stereotypes and textbook generalisations.
Why is Inclusive Education Essential?
Inclusive education is at the heart of education thinking in the UK but seems constantly challenged by policies such as Zero Tolerance behaviour and spending cuts that remove the support so important for our children to thrive in school.
Making your classroom Inclusive for all learners: Approach
Creating An Accessible Classroom Making sure your classroom is accessible to all learners is a crucial step in creating an inclusive learning environment. In part one of our posts, we explored the importance of setting up the right physical environment for all learners. From flexible seating options to visual aids and organization methods, there are … Read more
Autism and Sibling Relationships in Neurodiverse families
The interactions, bonds and relationships of a family unit are so diverse that what may help one family will insult another.
13 Questions to ask to ensure you are an inclusive school.
This is blog post is primarily school-based and SEND focused, but can any education or care setting that strives to be truly inclusive should be able to use this as an environmental and relational approach based checklist or simple inclusion audit tool. Before you start looking at strategies or labeling a child’s actions as challenging … Read more
Essential Star Wars Toys for PECs and Communication Sessions
Seeing as my most popular post is Star Wars quotes I thought why not tap into the force and write a post on Using star wars toys, games and lightsabers in the classroom. All these have links to the products but my favourite way to gather resources is to ask fellow Jedi teachers/friends to remember my little rebel alliance when having a pre-Christmas clear out.
Inclusive Teacher: My Little Worry Book
I needed something quick and simple to support a young student through a difficult time. She was very reliant on staff to support her with very little idea ways she could help herself without getting overwhelmed. Her actions suggested she needed some prompts to think of ways to ask for help.
People Who Help Us: Printable Teaching Resources.
Free Printable SEN teaching resources focusing on firefighters and people who help us.
Remembrance Day: Free SEN resources
These are the resources I have made to use with my class to support learning about Remembrance Day this November. Poppy themed with a UK focus all use similar images and symbols . I hope they are of some use with your children.
Essential Education Books for Inclusive Teachers: Behaviour.
These books are only those I have read and can recommend. They all follow an inclusive and positive support ethos. They all also focus on the only part of behaviour support we can control – ourselves. If your school has a zero tolerance behaviour policy read these and make it your mission to get that rewritten.I will get around to doing a second post but I need to get reading first!
Research, Relationships and Reality.
This post will outline the role relationships play in behaviour support, I will also outline some of the research led practices I have used. Before I start I do want to say that I have read studies I do not agree with. I also know that a huge number of studies conducted ON Autistic children/adults focus on strategies intended to normalise social behaviours which is a huge ethical issue. Fortunately I have had the opportunity to listen to and discuss elements of my practice with actually Autistic academics and practitioners. This has greatly shaped my approach and ethos towards behaviour support, I will also admit this has slanted my view of a lot of studies that remove the human element from behaviour and reduce the children to purely objects to study. To this end I fully expect some of the approaches in the post and the presentation to be a bit controversial and I am 100% sure that at least some of them will contravene your school (or center’s) behaviour policy.
Supporting Transitions and Changes for Autistic Students in School
A Guide to supporting transitions and changes with Autistic students within school.
Transition is a challenge that our students face on a daily basis. These transitions take place on a range of scales. From the micro transition of switching thoughts between tasks to major physical transitions between environments. The number of individual transitions an individual will undertake throughout the day is huge. Each one may well be a source of stress and anxiety for each student. The level of this anxiety and how it is communicated to us will vary dramatically. As with all the actions of our students this stress may not be easy for us to interpret. The quotes are from Autistic people I asked but are anonymised. I know I do not include enough Autistic voice, I will strive to expand this in future posts (I would welcome your comments.)
What I learned from “The Reason I Jump.” Book
Written by the then 13 year old Naoki Higashida an Autistic young man from Japan The reason I jump is a fascinating insight into his views on how Autism has shaped his perspective of life. The book answers a series of questions put to Noaki which he answers using an alphabet grid devised by his mother.
Autism: Hot Weather and Behaviour
A Case Study on Autism and Heat Sensitivity How would hot weather influence behaviour? This seemed apt to post now as the country simmers slowly beneath the summer sun. This post is based on observations and frequency data over a shorter period of hot weather. Whilst analysing the behavioural incident data records a spike in … Read more
Internal Antecedents: Behaviour “Out of the Blue”
Internal Antecedents: Does Behaviour Really Come “Out of the Blue?” Often overlooked, internal antecedents are an important element in behaviour support. This article is based on my experiences working with Autistic children who also communicate in ways we find challenging. We do our best to find patterns, clues and reasons for episodes of challenging behaviour. … Read more
10 Prevention Strategies for Challenging Behaviour autism
These are 10 simple ways to prevent challenging behaviour escalation by making small changes to your interactions. In our PBS training, these are called active interventions. In reality, there are thousands of these, the better you know the child the more adept you will become at identifying the most effective strategies in your teacher’s toolkit … Read more
10 Tips To Deescalate a Child’s Behaviour
Every day teachers, parents and carers are faced with potentially challenging situations. Many of these are defused through skillful behaviour support. These successful resolutions will have certain common characteristics. There are some essential conditions that must exist to deescalate an incident of challenging behaviour.
Lego Teaching Activities and Resources
Lego Resources in Class This post was originally written to celebrate the second birthday of Inclusiveteach.com with a post about Lego! Lego toys are still popular and with the increasing use of Lego therapy even more widely used in education than when I wrote this blog Lego Resources in the Classroom Playing with blocks and … Read more
Using Visual Supports In The Classroom
Visual Supports in The Classroom For Autistic Children. Visual supports for Autistic children are vital those with receptive or expressive language delays are often able to process visual information more effectively. Update May 2023 – Check out our new post on using the PicturePath app to create timelines and visual supports for Autistic learners. As … Read more
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