Out of the Ordinary

The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy

I’ve never been a huge fan of testing.  My husband, who is diabetic, has to do it all the time.  Several times a day he pricks holes in his fingers, checking his blood sugar levels.  It’s a way of life.  I’ve had my share of blood tests, but nothing in comparison to him.  There have been few times in my life when I have been ruled by the phlebotomist.

Those times have been most recently characterised by fear and uncertainty, I have to admit; fear of what the results might mean.  The tests never had any significance the first time round.  Back then, when I was expecting baby number one, I submitted my innocent arm without a second thought.  I had no idea what a ‘high risk’ verdict might be, or of how I would feel about the prospect.

After Sam was born, and Down Syndrome was diagnosed, the pair…

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Innovative Learning using Technology in a Sensory Way

SEN Classroom

Recently I was asked to run an INSET workshop on the use of technology to promote engagement and create opportunities for learners with complex learning difficulties and disabilities (CLDD). The focus of the presentation was to look how technology can enable students to have a positive impact on their learning, the reasons for using technology, tools that are available and assessment systems that could be used.

Big thanks to Ian Bean(@SENICT) and Anthony Rhys (@trinityfieldsit) as they have some great resources that are shared freely and have added links to their sites below – these were really appreciated by those who attended.  Also the link to the Youtube video in  the Prezi is from Anthony’s school Trinity Fields who are a real leader in using gesture based technology with their students and this impact has led them to be awarded the 3rd Millennium Award from Naace…

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The Tragic Story of Elliot Rodger by @jordyjax

The tragic story of Elliot Rodger

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Yesterday I was drawn to read the ‘manifesto’ of Elliot Rodger. At first glance this was no different to many other disturbed young serial spree killers in America with easy access to firearms who post self- justifications for their actions.
I started to read and immediately was hooked by an extraordinary, literate, claustrophobic but ultimately horrifying account of a young man’s journey to meltdown and random murder.
In a hundred and thirty seven pages he detailed his life and delusions from 0 to 23 years old right up until his planned killings.
You may wonder why I would persevere in such a venture but remember I teach in a primary PRU and am always interested in children who are on the fringes of society. This young man , so it subsequently appears, had Aspergers and was frequently referred to psychologists and psychiatrists throughout his life. I am not a medical professional nor a criminal expert so I am not going to attempt to analyse in depth why Elliot did what he did; however as a teacher with experience of negative behaviours there is much to interest and provide food for thought.
Elliot was obviously highly intelligent and came from an ostensibly privileged background. At one point he says his mother advised him to become a writer, and indeed he displays a talent for this, but not in the way she would have wished.
So what does his account tell us? We find he had an extreme hatred of some of his peers and blonde girls in particular; he was racist and towards the end of his story appeared to have a God complex which enabled him to contemplate the destruction of others in a peculiarly lucid way. He was goal oriented (towards killing) and was able to plan and act accordingly (buying and practising with guns). However it is in his descriptions of his earlier life that we can see the seeds of this hatred being sown.
At this point I wish to underline the fact that we only know Elliot’s side of his story but this is what I want to focus on.  It gives us an insight into his mental processes, however flawed, and why he felt he had no choice but to kill. He appears to have had a happy childhood up until his mother and father separated. There is a lot of talk about the arrangements for shared childcare, a new step mum who he didn’t get on with and a father who was always away working. His mother and father seem to move house often and he is very concerned with status – the right area, size of house, bedrooms etc. At first he doesn’t present as a self-obsessed loner addicted to computer games; he has friends albeit he frets about being with ‘cool’ kids. His problems seem to really start with puberty and his inability to attract a girlfriend; I would imagine his mental issues drive girls away despite him being a good looking boy.
He feels if he could only win the lottery and be really rich his problems with girls would dissipate. He interacts with other disaffected young men on the Internet and drives his remaining friends away by articulating his hatred and paranoia. By the end of his account he is fantasising about killing his step mum and young half brother who he feels will grow up to be more successful than him; he can’t however quite contemplate murdering his dad. His elaborations on this become more detailed and lurid. He knows he is twisted and plans to commit suicide after the murders on what he calls ‘The Day of Retribution’
So what can we learn from this (if anything)? Again this is only my view but here goes. Not all children who live unsubstantial lives have the potential to kill and it appears that socioeconomic background is not always a factor in predicting homicidal tendencies. Elliot came from a wealthy background but he was unsettled and insecure. His relationships were poorly formed unless he felt in control as he appears to have been with his mother. He loved his brother but this was eroded by jealousy. His father was largely absent and there was a growing resentment towards him. Money and status were key to Elliot and it was money that allowed him to carry out his preparations for murder largely unchecked. He could live alone, buy guns and act out violent fantasies on the Internet despite his mother having some concerns. He was able to conceal his true nature from the police and present as a nice young man. He was able to reject the medication he needed without ringing alarm bells.
Fortunately the Elliots of this world are still uncommon but the damage they do is phenomenal because it is on a grand scale. Elliot’s life epitomises the dangers of the modern world: family breakups, rootlessness, computer games, status, Internet porn and money without responsibility. This leads to a state of unconnectedness and a break from reality where the self is paramount. The tragedy here is that an immensely bright young man was tormented by mental issues to such an extent that he was driven to kill almost against his will and in the process destroyed many innocent lives.

Thoughts on a PRU by @jordyjax

Thoughts on a PRU

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There’s no inspiration for this other than  its title. I am thinking about why I work in a primary PRU. My background : I was teaching in a village primary on a little cobbled square but had returned after being seconded to a difficult urban environment. Whilst there , I taught and managed a range of SEN / BESD children and this married together my preferred two loves. I found it difficult to pick up my previous life and vowed to look for a new challenge.
It was my school adviser who presented to me the opportunity to work in my current environment; she informed me that there was an opportunity to be seconded to a primary  PRU as deputy head so off I went. At first I felt a bit out of my depth as the children were very challenging; it wasn’t about locked doors and padded time- out rooms as first feared but the reasons behind their exclusions quickly became apparent. Nevertheless I soon got to grips with the job and despite some initial setbacks started to enjoy myself.
So what is it like to work in a PRU? Well as you might imagine, particularly if you are familiar with Mr Drew, it is not easy. Children come to us for a variety of reasons, ranging from behavioural problems resulting in dual placements with mainstream schools to more severe issues that end with permanent exclusions. The common denominator is a sense of frustration and failure which manifests itself in swearing, destruction of property, fighting with peers and assaults on staff. There are no quick fixes and the key to success with our kids lies in the quality of the relationships we build  coupled with firm rules and boundaries.
When the children come to us they often experience relief that they are given a fresh start in small classes of no more than eight pupils. They are better able to cope in our setting supported by experienced staff who can provide for their individual needs. We have secure systems of rewards and consequences but outside of these we don’t carry over issues and problems; each day is a new day, we are in it for the long haul.
Parents and carers experience the relief of not being summoned to school on a daily basis but learn to work with us in managing their children’s behaviour. The children move on from us either to their own schools, new schools or to specialist provision.
My job, aside from my in- house deputy role supporting the head, is to act as SENCO and liaise with mainstream schools and other agencies. We have a strong early intervention team which works hard to prevent exclusion and the success rate is high. I am passionate about promoting children’s educational opportunities which often inform their life chances in the future.
It is easy to brand our kids as wasters, little thugs and trainee criminals but at the end of the day they are children and the labels are plain wrong. They don’t necessarily come from difficult backgrounds and often have medical issues such as ASD and ADHD to contend with; despite controversy, medication can have a transformational effect on behaviour and so can being placed in the right provision.
I am ashamed that in our society  outside constraints mean that mainstream schools are desperate to offload children with medical and mental health needs; sadly provision for these is limited and underfunded. I am extremely concerned that some children are labelled as problems without recourse to societal duty of care. I am appalled that very young children are being written off because they cannot access early years’ provision. And so it goes on …We do try to put as much help and support in place as we can for our pupils and schools but the sad fact is behavioural problems are becoming more widespread and demand for our services is on the rise.
All our children deserve our input and our love; individually they are fantastic and special and are responsive to the time and effort we put in. No child should be written off. Our children are on the fringes of society and we are their last chance saloon. I love my job and rejoice in our successes . I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

Singing with Signs

Class Teaching Tips

I can’t recommend supporting singing with signs – at the very least actions – when singing with young children, and those with emerging language skills, enough.  For a start it makes you, the leader, concentrate on what you are doing!  Connecting an action to a song can help little children to internalise the words and the melody, and the rhythms and rhymes of songs are an invaluable introduction to language.  Using signs makes you connect with the people you are talking to in a different way; the signs make you slow down to emphasise the words you are saying – and, hopefully, will remind you to enunciate as clearly as you can.  As a way of introducing signs to children with little or no spoken language, simple songs and nursery rhymes are, to my mind anyway, unsurpassed.

This is my version of Hickory Dickory Dock.  There are animals and counting…

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Singing with Young Children

Class Teaching Tips

I used to run a parent and toddler music group – it was one of those things that came about because I was at home with my babies, and I wasn’t prepared to pay someone else to do what I could do perfectly well myself!  I learned lots about how to make singing a really fun and valuable time for little ones, and this post is an attempt to share just one aspect of that.

When I am in school, I see lots of people making music with little ones, nursery rhymes and traditional songs are tailor made for adults to share with young children, but many people, for whatever reason, make this mistake.

I’m pretty sure that many people feel anxious or worried about the state of their singing voices, but I don’t think, when you are working with the very young, that this is the issue you should…

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The Progressive Traditionalism of Special Education

Sailing Close to the Wind

The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy

We started sailing by mistake, husband and I.  We’d been camping in Cornwall, watching people hopping in and out of boats and thought what a lovely way to spend a summer holiday. Before we knew what we were signed up on a Level 1 sailing course.  It soon morphed into Level 2, followed swiftly by our own dinghy.  Turns out that big boats aren’t as much fun (or as cheap) as the little ones.  It was a bit like the time when we thought it would be a nice idea to take the bikes on holiday and ended up cycling across the Scottish Highlands, and camping on the way.

We never got good enough to win anything (apart from some mugs and rather nasty hats as the award for travelling the furthest to an open meeting), but after a week’s holiday-with-tuition in Spain one Easter we weren’t too bad.  We were…

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Resources for CPD

How to use your TA

 

The use of Social Media in Education

Being Senco Part 4 The Local Offer from @SheliBB

In October 2013 the DFE published the new draft SEN code of practice, which will take effect from September 2014. I have heard that the final code will available ‘some time in June…’

Chapter 5 of the draft code is all about the ‘Local Offer’, and rather than paraphrase, I have lifted the rationale straight from the draft doc:

5.1 The local offer 

Local authorities must publish a local offer, setting out in one place information 
about provision they expect to be available for children and young people in their 
area who have SEN, including those who do not have EHC plans. 

The local offer has two key purposes: 

• To provide clear, comprehensive and accessible information about the provision available; and 
• To make provision more responsive to local needs and aspirations by directly involving children and young people with SEN, parents and carers, and service providers in its development and review. 

It is clear that the local offer should not ‘simply be a directory of existing services’ and that through the process of developing the local offer all parties will consider how to improve provision.

Further advice is given in the draft document:

The local offer should be: 

• Collaborative: local authorities must involve parents, children and young people in developing and reviewing the local offer. They must also cooperate with those providing services. 
• Accessible: the published local offer should be easy to understand, factual and jargon-free. It should be structured in a way that relates to young people’s and parents’ needs (for example by broad age group or type of special educational provision). It should be well signposted and publicised. 
• Comprehensive: parents and young people should know what support is available across education, health and social care from 0 to 25 and how to access it. The local offer must include eligibility criteria where relevant and make clear where to go for information, advice and support, as well as how to make complaints about provision or appeal against decisions. 
• Transparent: the local offer must be clear about how decisions are made and who is accountable and responsible for them. 


The Special Educational Needs (Local Offer) Regulations 2014 sets out a schedule for the publication of local offers although it is less clear how and when schools should do this and what co-operation with local authorities actually means. I await for someone more knowledgeable or more widely read to help me with that!

 In the meantime I have been looking at different primary school websites after googling ‘school local offer examples‘. I had looked at Marvels Lane Primary School’s local offer and a couple of others last half term after a cluster SENco meeting, but I liked the transparency of this one so thought it unnecessary to look any further; their Local Offer felt like a good starting point for me (thank you to the authors!) I am not sure at the moment whether our cluster will have a joint one, which will be tweaked for each school, or whether we will all write our own. It is a supportive, collaborative and co-operative cluster that I belong to, so before I do any more work I will ask the question. Once ours is written, it will of course be shared in the hope that it supports others to write their own.

Other useful links

The Key: Local offer: templates for schools

York School Local Offer template

Understanding good practice in the move over to the new arrangements for SEN