The Body Politic

The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy

If it weren’t for the pressure I feel under to be thin, I could almost believe that my body was my own.  I sit, every morning, eyeing my breakfast and telling myself I ought to eat less, be less; every morsel that passes my lips laced with an added helping of guilt.

I never used to worry about being thin.  I never even used to think about it.  All those women, publicly plastered over the pages of magazines, paraded on the telly and in films, naked in newspapers; they had nothing to do with me.  I was young, and strong(ish).  My body was a sign of my power.  It was mine, and I wasn’t reducing it for anyone.

I remember the moment when I understood that it didn’t really belong to me at all.  I was sitting in a blandly lightish-beige office, chatting to a doctor, an obstetrician.  She was…

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NQT Support 2

Mainstream to a PRU and back...

Last year I delivered some behaviour training and I did the same this year. This post summarises some of their questions.

On Thursday 22nd September, I delivered some training to a group of NQTs as part of our Academy Trust training programme. The session was great, very informal in terms of delivery style but well structured. At the beginning of the session, some of them put up post-its with particular questions that they would like answering. Rather than paying them 10 minutes lip service at the end, I said that I would respond to them as a whole by email so that they could be used as a starting point for further discussion if necessary.

This blog post is simply the questions that were on the post-its and the answers that I gave in the email. It seemed a shame to waste them!

A child who interrupts to correct/tell you how…

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Inclusive CPD?

lenabellina

On Monday I delivered CPD on making our classrooms more inclusive.

I shared quotes from the technical guidance on 2010 equalities act that says when it is not ok to exclude and why we need to make reasonable adaptations to our systems.

I shared extracts from the Scottish Standards for teacher registration that use the words ‘care for’ and ‘wellbeing’ and reference responsibilities of all.

I suggested 8 myths that we need to debunk:
* Things have never been this bad.
* This is not the right school for him.
* We can’t do anything until she gets a mental health diagnosis.
* If X gets away with this, the other pupils will think they can too.
* I am not a social worker and this is not my job.
* There is no hope for that child.
* There is a quick fix.
* (Mrs Carter is a soft…

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Exclusions – The facts!

Mainstream to a PRU and back...

Exclusions are the most serious consequence that a school can issue to a child in this country. This blog post aims to highlight some of the key points when considering exclusions as well as looking at the balance of when and when not to exclude as well as the implications for excluding children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). As well as this, I will offer my own thoughts and experience on exclusions. If you want to read further on exclusions, I would suggest reading DfE: Exclusion from maintained schools, Academies and pupil referral units in England.

The power to exclude

Schools can choose to exclude children on the grounds of disciplinary only. They cannot exclude for any reason and infact, they must protect children and make sure that all children are treated fairly and not excluded on the grounds of things such as disability or race. Only the…

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Quotes on inclusion: #SpEdSC

Special Education and Inclusive Learning

 As part of the special education slow chat we asked contributors to share their favourite quotes on Inclusion.

https://twitter.com/JMSurian/status/651938278409506816

@jw_teach Here's one for pot Joe: The only person's behaviour you can control is your own. Other people's – incl CYP -we seek to influence

— Steve Russell #Ubuntu (@beyondbehaviour) October 7, 2015

#SpEdSCpic.twitter.com/iOPttLLQkn

— Andrew Cowley (@andrew_cowley23) October 7, 2015

It was one of the best responses so far, here are the contributions from:

@Fromstruggle @beyondbehaviour @kellyscc @Rrclark10 @MissT_Edu
  
  
  

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FASD Awareness is Needed in Classrooms Every Day

FASD: Learning with Hope

By @FASD_Dad

This morning was good. Our son woke happier than he has for several days. He ate some breakfast and watched some Tom and Jerry. When the time came he was happy to get dressed. And after ten more minutes of videos – when he searched for and found clips from Titanic which his English class is studying – he put his shoes on, picked up and his bag and hurried out the door. School mornings are rarely this easy for him or us.

Since today is Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Awareness Day, it’s worth reflecting on the week we’ve had as school started again. Our son’s full Foetal Alcohol Syndrome has made it a very difficult few days, and it all happened because of a detention that should never have been and a teacher who hasn’t read, or at least hasn’t understood, information about FASD and our son…

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Writing for Bloomsbury Education

cherrylkd

I like writing, I’ve always liked writing. I’m not claiming it is something I excel at but I enjoy it and people read my blog so that’s a good basis for continuing with it.

When I was 8 years old I wrote a children’s story for my primary school and I was very pleased to win a prize for it. There hadn’t been a prize on offer for the best story in school, they created one for me because they were impressed with  the content of my story. At the time, it meant absolutely nothing to me. I had won a prize, so what? I had only done what the teacher had told me to do and I had done it to the best of my ability. That’s what you do when you’re 8 years old. Maybe that unexpected prize was what started my love affair with writing.

When I was…

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What’s in your schema for SEN? By Jarlath O’Brien

NET BLOG

I’m currently enjoying ‘Mindware’ by the American psychologist Richard Nisbett and it’s making me think very hard about thinking, inference and reasoning amongst other things.

Early on in the book there’s an arresting section on the schema concept. Nisbett describes the term schema as referring ‘to cognitive frameworks, templates or rule systems that we apply to the world to make sense of it’. We have them for all sorts of things: “basketball” (indoors, five-a-side, holding the ball in your hands) and “football” (outdoors, eleven-a-side, kicking the ball with your foot), for example, or “packed lunch” (sandwiches, fruit, crisps) and “school dinners” (hot meal, meat, vegetables).

Object schemas are used routinely in many special schools to help students with significant learning difficulties understand and prepare for what is coming next. A pair of goggles might signify that swimming is coming up, or a piece of Numicon will be used…

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