Hi, my name is Jordan. I am a special education teacher from the UK. I share my passion for
everything communication, sensory regulation and fun lesson ideas for my classroom of disabled
pupils aged 4 to 11. Each week I am joined by experts in the field answering your questions
and sharing our knowledge and experience working alongside our beautiful young people. Let's get started.
Hi everybody. Now is the time to talk all things transition and classroom setup,
timetables, curriculum, planning, resources, where children sit and how I organise it.
Let's get on to talking about classroom setups. So as my children are a range of ages and a range of
abilities, learning styles, sizes, disabilities, a huge range. Age 4 to 11, I've got children with
PMOD, so profound multiple disabilities. Some use chairs, some have cognitive learning disabilities,
some have autism, some have Down syndrome, and some have a mixture of a few different things.
So when I'm thinking about my classroom, I need to make sure firstly that is everyone safe. That's
my first thing. So more vulnerable children away from children that like to grab wires or jump on
them. For example, I think that's the basic needs. If you get education and learning styles for a
second, first thing has to be safety, doesn't it? And I've got the luxury of having a few
different rooms as part of my classroom. So I can do that quite easily by rotating and separating
them into those rooms. But if you don't have that, and I have had classrooms with
classrooms with, you know, much smaller classrooms, just one room, I like to use dividers and furniture
to separate the space, to make it much clearer where children should be at any one time and
then rotate around that. It makes it safer in a way to avoid any unnecessary incidents, I suppose.
I also just think it's more aesthetically pleasing as well, rather than pushing all the furniture
around to the edges and having a big space in the middle. I kind of push it all in the inside and
make little group areas. I do have a sensory corner with calming lights. So I actually have
a sensory room. We're very lucky in my classroom. My classroom tour is actually on my grid on TikTok
and Instagram. Right at the top is pinned. So if now or at the end of this, you want to check out
my classroom, then head on over and it's pinned to the top of my grid. But yes, I do have a sensory
room with lights on. But even when I did have just one single classroom, I always had a sensory
corner or at least a sensory dark den. I mean, one of my classrooms was so small, I couldn't even,
you know, get a corner out of my classroom. So I had a, well, at one point I had one of those
like dark tents, you know, it's like a cube and that worked really, really well until a child came
in that liked to lay on the cube and broke it. So then we used a more like a metal kind of framed
thing and then put fleece blankets over and lights inside and kind of made up our own one
that they couldn't then lay on and break. But yeah, a sensory corner is fantastic. Just make
sure that it's not overstimulating. Sometimes sensory rooms, I walk into them and their lights
are on, the music's on, there's textures out, there's a whole range of toys all on view all at
once, which looks beautiful, most people. However, when if you're using that room to calm, having it
actually quite under stimulating could be quite good. So having a white noise on and one light
or having just two toys out to choose from rather than the whole arrangement is a really good
practice. So yeah, don't think you have to have it all whizzy and amazing and expensive actually.
Sometimes it's just a few soft cushions, a fleece blanket to snuggle in and some Bluetooth speaker
playing could be can be perfectly fine. It depends on what your children find regulating. As well as
a sensory corner, we also have a sensory diet area and this I find actually just as useful
if you haven't already heard me talk about it. I use the three-step approach when regulating my
children in a sensory way. So rather than just having a sensory calm down corner or just having
movement breaks, I use a three-step approach. So the first step is getting your heart rate pumping.
So that could be outside, that could be at playtime, that could be just jumping up and down,
that could be doing dancing in front of the whiteboard. We have a sensory diet area with
exercise balls and peanut balls and rocker chairs and what else got of exercising and mat, gym mats.
So we can do jumping and running, get our heartbeat racing. Then number two is organizing. So we're
organizing our bodies. It could be balancing, it could be fine motor activity, it could be sorting
and organizing by color or in alphabetical order or doing puzzles. Something that's you're still
moving, you're still active but it's not as heightening as step one. It's more calming
because you're organizing, you've got to think a little bit harder about negotiating your body.
That's the organizing step two. And then step three is grounding. Now that's where your sensory
corner might come in, that's where weighted blankets might be useful. You might do some breathing
techniques, you might do squeezes or a foot massage or head squeezes because it's really lovely.
Lots of my children like head squeezes. Just laying in a dark room with lights on and that's your
grounding. So yeah those three step approach is really useful. So for us having a sensory room
for the grounding and a sensory diet area for the first two has been amazing because they're both
out of the classroom so any child that isn't ready to learn and needs those things can do it and then
they come back into the classroom to learn. I know that is a huge luxury, I have not had that before.
I've been in this classroom and before we had to very much do our sensory diet stuff outside
and then grounding in a quiet room or a cupboard or you know go for a walk maybe that might be quite
grounding for them. I once had a child carry Argos books upstairs to another teacher as a job when
he needed grounding. I've had children with rucksacks with water bottles inside for a bit of
grounding. Whatever works for your children really and whatever they enjoy and are motivated by.
Yeah that was a long answer to a very simple question and hopefully that was helpful. How did
you become an SEN teacher? So I trained in 2009 so about 15 years ago and back then there wasn't
teacher apprenticeships or SEN teacher degrees otherwise I would have gone that route. So I had
to just get a standard degree which was not very standard at all actually it was an acting degree
and then I spent one year transferring that into teacher training. While I was doing my degree
because it was no it's full-time I didn't do full-time hours I was a supply teaching assistant
at my local special education school and that's where I got all of my experience from. I worked
there for a couple of years whilst I was doing my degree and then I did my teacher training year
and then that same school offered me a teaching job once I'd finished my degree. So I worked there
for 10 years so that's how I became an SEN teacher but I believe now there are SEN teacher degrees
out there which is fab which is fantastic because I walked into the first day of my SEN
teaching career and I hadn't got a clue. My teaching year spoke about phonics and spoke about how to
teach maths and how to I don't know do all these things but nothing to do with the class that I
had my first year so my TA's very much dragged me through my first year so I'm very pleased to see
that there are now degrees that specialize in that subject so that you can yeah get a head start
really where compared to compared to what I did. Will this be appropriate for mainstream teachers?
Yes this chat is appropriate for mainstream teachers hopefully. I think autism practice is
good and supports all children actually and mainstream teachers are SEN teachers now. I mean
it's just the fact in the UK that I don't think there's one class in the UK that doesn't have
SEN in it. I would be very surprised if that is the case. So all teachers are SEN teachers
even if you don't feel like a specialist you are an SEN teacher even if you are teaching mainstream.
I think this could be really handy and hopefully there are bits that you can either use for your
whole class because autism practice is a good practice for all children or you can use it for
specific children in your class and maybe you can maybe you're an LSA or a teacher assistant you can
bring this forward to your class or a teacher and you can set it up for particular students in your
class. We're setting up a new class. What would your first few days look like? Students are already
in the school but are first time together as a class. Yeah I've got this in the DMs quite a lot.
We've got four new students starting this year. Normally our students stay in our class for seven
years but we've got four brand new ones this year. First of all we're doing a phase transition
so not all children will be in on the same days as we start because we want them to get to know us
and us to know them but we don't want their first few days to be anxiety provoking or stressful
or stressful we want to avoid that as much as possible because we want their first few days to
be building trust with us and having lots of fun because kids that are having fun learn better.
So we want them to know the systems and yeah be having fun getting to know us trusting us
us getting to know them and what motivates them and then we can go we can hit the ground running
on week two once everybody's in full time. So that's the first thing have a look at
starting time starting days do you want them to be doing full days do you want them to be doing
part time just so that you can prepare resources and things like that. Before they come we will
also have asked parents what they love what they are motivated by what their favorite things are
and make sure that we have resources or visuals or stuff on the whiteboard that is loved by them
and that will be motivating to them so they want to join the areas and and so that we have something
to offer them that that is of interest and then it feel lost or unsure basically. So that's before
they've even set through the door is a lot of work that's gone through just to get to day one and
then the first few days we try to get into them into transitioning areas quite quickly depending
on ability I suppose is fair to say so most of our class we're trying to transition into areas
quite quickly however what they're doing in the area we know or think they'll probably enjoy so
it's really motivating fun tasks that aren't very heavy on demand to them at all quite um maybe lower
than their ability and really fun and motivating and meet their sensory needs but what we are
teaching them is the systems how to match a symbol how to check their schedule how to leave an area
how to go to an area where to sit how to negotiate working in a small group so if they were having to
do that and actually learn at the academic level I just think that would be really unfair on their
first few days they've already taken in so many much different information so don't try and worry
about pushing them too hard or adding unnecessary demands or triggering them in any way just try
and keep it really fun and motivating if they want to leave that's fine show them we use a countdown
count them down and then they can go and and meet their needs and and whatever as well and then
around that we do a load of intensive interaction and what morning routine do you do and how do you
promote independence so when they first come in we don't have anything we have stuff on offer but
we don't have to do anything so they can kind of choose how they want to transition into class and
regulate themselves so some for some that will be going outside and using our physical equipment
for some that's playing in the mud for some that's using a bike swings trampoline going on a walk that
kind of thing what other children like to go to a quiet area and read or do puzzles or just be in
the quiet space they can do that other children like to get straight on with their work so they've
got some little work tasks table tasks to do all set up for them other children like to wander and
pace and kind of ground themselves in the class and get used to you know shake home off and take
the car off and and get into class others go straight into snack time so we have about half an
hour to 45 minutes really of that children just regulating themselves transitioning into the class
grounding themselves and they'll show you if you leave them you know they will show you how they
want to regulate themselves and then it's your job just to facilitate that and make that as safe as
possible and then we gather all together for a small group hello time so we're going to be
so I play the ukulele play the hello song to each child and they tap a tambourine to say hello or
they use their aac or a symbol to say hello and we do that pass the trampoline pass the tambourine
around the classroom they'd love passing a trampoline around the classroom pass the tambourine
around the classroom each say hello and sing the hello song and then we do go straight into our
sensory diet exercises and then into lessons and it's a really lovely start that is very
unstructured at first but then as they're grounded and transitioned and into the class mode it's then
into the structure and routine that they they feel secure in and know very well and how it helps with
independence well obviously first of all they're showing us what they want to do they have free
access to that it's not scheduled and they can just choose what they want so that's you know them
showing us what they would like and then they check their own schedule if they can they check
their own schedule and match it to the whatever area we want to go to and settle down if they
can't access schedules and match like some of yours might not be able to and some of mine can't
then we show them the object of reference or a symbol of where they're going and we support them
to get there how long do your intended lessons last for great question um we're currently doing
activities weekly which to me feels very rushed and is heavy on resources and planning way too
much printing and laminating yes this is why i created my curriculum so i only plan once every
six weeks or for some lessons once every 12 weeks a whole term and we just repeat the same activities
on that day every week for six weeks or 12 weeks so english and maths is changed every 12 weeks
and science is changed every 12 weeks but something like psh e or re or p e um will won't change for
the whole term we'll just repeat and just add on learning as at their pace because it's really hard
to know if they're just going to get it straight away if they're going to be bored by it if they're
going to be motivated by it and how soon to move them forward so we make it completely bespoke
and we start off where we think they're at or just below where we think they're at and week by week
we kind of add to it move on if they enjoy it we carry on if we adapt it you know broadening their
skills because it's not all about learning something and then moving on to the next thing always and
having it quite linear sometimes it's about breadth of knowledge for example say one of your targets
or learning objectives is for them to build block of four bricks you know build a tower with four
bricks so week one they could build a tower with four bricks well that's great but can you do it
in a different area of the classroom can you do it with different bricks can you do it small bricks
no spiky bricks big bricks outside you know outside can you there's a breadth of knowledge there it's
not just about right they did that once or a few times for the week let's move on it's about the
breadth of knowledge um so yeah that's what we would work on over those six weeks is trying to
um really embed those skills how long do your intended lessons last for for some children 30
seconds for other children on other days it could be up to 45 minutes traditionally we leave about an
hour to 45 minutes to an hour for the lesson but within that they are going to a number of different
areas and doing a number of different activities so for example english is an hour long but within
that we go to the group area for a sensory story we go to the computer area for teaching macathon
science and doing some songs we go to the workstation do some independent work we go to the
teaching table to do some one-to-one intervention work we go to the group area to do some small
group work and some turn taking and in between maybe all of those or some of those they will
also have the opportunity to do their sensory diet stuff so that's why it takes an hour it's almost
like six separate tiny little five minute lessons within that hour but it's all english and some of
our children literally spend 20 seconds in an area do one thing done that's that section done
because that in the moment they were in or for this child in particular that is what they need
to do that is where they're at and that is perfectly fine then they go and regulate themselves and they
go back to another area and then do another 20 seconds and then back again what's other
children are quite happy to sit in the group area they love it it's how they learn best and they
would be there for 20 minutes listening to a story and engaging and taking turns and then check their
own schedule and then go and do something else so and we have all of that in in my classroom
planning weekly is incredibly heavy on resources and planning and i don't feel like children
benefit from the time you spend you doing those resources and planning i feel like if you're
spending longer on making resources buying resources let's remember and planning than they are doing
the activity you need to repeat that activity you need to create it over and over again until it is
well worth your time and resources planning for it because i can spend two weeks in the summer
holidays creating resources i can spend 101 pounds like i did the other day on resources because i
know they're going to be used for the whole 12 weeks and it makes for such um way more fun
curriculum way better resources and embeds learning way better so that's my little tidbit
and if you'd like to see my curriculum it's 10 pounds we're setting up an se and classroom
in september on a very limited budget what would you prioritize great question there are loads of
things you can do for free first of all i've got loads of tires from a car garage they love giving
them away because they have to pay to get rid of them and you can stack them you can push them
over you can roll them they're really heavy they are a great resource and that's tires i would be
i would want you to have an exercise board or a peanut ball you know one of those like
block things that pregnant women have they are fantastic you can bounce on them roll over them
roll b roll on top of them you know that can be a three-step approach just with an exercise ball
and lots of children benefit from that i suppose the thing is is that you want lots of children
to benefit from the things that you're buying a weighted blanket just a weighted blanket that is
suitable for the size of all of your children um for safety reasons weighted blankets have to be 10
percent of your body weight so try and get one that's 10 percent of the smallest person's body
weight and then it would suit everybody vibrating massages are great but you can also get an
electric toothbrush that's great you know just that kind of vibration is really important a
really good laminator is really important for resources and priorities yeah i guess the
priorities are sensory regulation i think over because unless your child children are regulated
they're not going to learn anything so if you've got a limited budget then i would
prioritize sensory regulation and communication i suppose which is why i've said exercise stuff and
an laminator communication and sensory stuff any exciting lesson activity ideas for pml d my
usuals involve attention autism sensory stories and tac pac that's my usual too i do do some
massage stories i've created some kind of tac pac style massage stories myself using music from
spotify trying to link them to our topic they're rather lovely um you can find those on my google
drive the curiosity approach is really nice as well that's by the same people as attention autism
and um there's lots of parts to it but one of the sections i love in it is you have lots of lovely
pretty pots and lots of lovely interesting little bits inside and and they seem to really like that
um and then generally like their usual physio is a lesson and their communication targets are a
lesson um so just to in order to prioritize those and then obviously hygiene needs and and um
and intensive interaction intensive interaction i would add to that because that's free no
resource which requires just an adult so yeah add intensive interaction to that a bit of
that a bit of curiosity approach and then and then their physio stuff i would say but it sounds like
everything i would do any ideas for a small sem classroom in a mainstream school yes obviously
the fact that it's in a mainstream school my school my classroom is in a mainstream school as
well remember and so that doesn't really make too much of a difference it's just about the needs of
your children um a small sem classroom i would try and break it up into sections as much as you can
even if it's just two sections it makes such a difference to the anxiety of your children and
um not taking in everything especially if they've got autism because for autistic children they take
in everything all at once and they will see it all so if you're sectioning it off into really quite
calm and plain like if it's uh separator boards or furniture and it's all quite plain and everything's
closed off with either curtains or lidded or whatever opaque boxes then that will be much more
calming and you'll find um they're regulated and more grounded than not than otherwise rather make
it like a a free flow early years classroom when everything's out like that can be really anxiety
provoking for lots of autistic children my nephew has said my son no longer needs the sensory room
however he likes to make noise but to control the noise yeah okay he also does not like messy play
play dough shaving foam or creative play um it's a shame that he can't no he can no longer use the
sensory room i wonder if he could get just as much out from sitting outside if they've got a swing
or for something often nature is its own sensory room you've got the dappled light in the trees
you've got the wind you've got the birds it's actually an incredible sensory space so maybe
you could suggest i mean nurseries usually have an indoor outdoor kind of situation so
hopefully he's getting lots of outdoor time and that might also help his um his opposition to
sound and dirt and certain noises because he might get used to those kind of things i don't like
hearing that children can't use sensory rooms if they need it have you created your own alternative
curriculum how do you manage to equate that with the national curriculum yeah so what i did
is i took the national curriculum and i took the equals curriculum which is a curriculum created
for sen and i looked at i wanted to make sure that we had full coverage of all the subjects
all the learning all the learning objectives so i spread that over four years because my children
are with me for seven years and made sure that every year we were covering all the basics in
math all the basics in science all the basics in english every year and then across all four
subjects we made sure we're covering everything in re and and other subjects like that psat and
that kind of thing so yes it is based on the national curriculum there's also bits from the
early years curriculum in there and equals curriculum it's suitable from developmental age
zero to six no matter what age your children actually are if they're working between
newborn and six years old then it will be suitable for them incredibly sensory it works very well for
autistic children who that like to have a completion of an activity or a task
and it works very well for children that like to have physical activities rather than on paper
yeah you can either use it in the order that i suggest or there's an edit editable button on
there so you can edit it however you like suitable for your children in your class my short term
planning is slowly being added to it as well i will be adding more and more to it it's £10
it is a huge document i should be selling it for a lot more but i don't want to because
i want it to be accessible for everybody i was going to do it anyway i've done it anyway for
my class so why be greedy basically is my mind i feel like £10 is really fair i feel like lots
of people can buy that without having to beg permission from their school that's what i wanted
to avoid you doing you know if a teaching assistant sees it i don't want them to have to beg their
teacher or beg their head teacher for the budget for it because i just don't want these children
to miss out so yeah £10 i figured you can probably just get it yourself and then use it and print from
it and and use that to adapt your curriculum so yeah that's my sensory curriculum i'm incredibly
proud of it it's a very thorough document and yeah i found it really useful personally
hi jordan do you ever find it difficult to teach in a sensory way but only because it's what i've
always done i've always taught sen and even as a teaching assistant i was only ever an sen
teaching assistant so i don't struggle to teach in a sensory way however what i do do because i've
also just started this year doing some phonics tutoring for mainstream key stage two naturally
i find opportunities to build sensory stuff into that as well even though they're mainstream key
stage two kids i could see some sensory needs in there i could see some boredom or they were sitting
too long or they were struggling to concentrate or their eyes were getting tired and naturally
we got up we started moving we started doing things a slightly different way i gave them fidgets
or that kind of thing i think it's just good practice i think teaching in a sensory way is
just simply good practice for all we all have sensory regulation needs we all like i'm crossing
my legs right now i'm rocking i'm fidgeting i'm moving my hands i'm you know i'm sitting on the
floor i'm sitting on the carpet um we are all meeting our needs all the time the difference with
children sometimes in special education classes is they sometimes struggle on how they reading
that what their body actually needs and meeting their needs in a safe way so that's that's why
we would do that and or maybe they can't access writing tools and paper because of their physical
needs or their cognitive ability so they're still learning the sensitive way sensory way but we're
all very sense sensory beings so yeah it's a good practice to think about all learning and teaching
in in a sensory way even when i'm teaching and training my team of adults i think all
they've been sitting a long time or or we don't just want to be watching the whiteboard the whole
time i'm going to get them up moving and doing something physical you know it's just good
teaching practice i have so many questions what if they're finished have you guide you've guided them
to use the areas so not all children need guiding to the areas they each have their own visual
schedule um which could have objects of reference or symbols or photos on it sometimes they need
guiding to go and check their schedule and then guiding to go and match but eventually once they
get it the children i just say check your schedule and then they know to go and find a schedule
take them top finger and go and match the area and then find their chair we practice it every
lesson every time and also because the lessons are so motivating so linked to their needs so sensory
they love it that they want to join the area i always say that if they're like oh my child
doesn't want to go to the area they're avoiding the area i'm like it's because your lessons are
boring just make it so fun add some light add some sounds add some color add some drama be entertaining
make it like an attention autism session and then they'll want to join it um and even if you don't
have any budget i just don't feel like that's an excuse i feel like just a bit of creative thinking
you can make anything really fun and because you're only planning once every six weeks or
once every 12 weeks you can afford to make it really really fun put loads of time and effort
and resources and budget into these single lessons because you know you're going to repeat them
and you're meeting your kids perfectly where they're at also if you're doing a three-step diet
approach before and after every lesson then they're going to be regulated and they're going to be
focused and ready to learn and so they are going to do that what if they're finished so if they've
finished their lesson after 30 seconds then they go off and go and meet their needs even if you've
got two or three children under you um like like you're the adult and you've got two children say
and one of them's finished and one of them hasn't great the other one could just go and meet their
needs you know go and use a bike going on the swing go and stim in the corner like however it
meets their needs there's still adults around supervising them it's perfectly fine then you
can focus one to one on this child usually in that situation we try and time it so that one
of them's doing the independent work while one of them's doing the intervention with a teacher and
then we switch so at least there's not too much waiting around but yeah the kids get used to it
they're really adaptable and as long as they're being safe and they're supervised there's no
reason why they can't be meeting their needs it's about um embedding independence into our
classroom we don't like belcoring adults to children all times that's not realistic that's
not real life um i trust my children to make good choices and safe choices and we're there just in
case they don't i suppose how do you plan the student support in the classroom with your
assistant do you base the support ratio on the student's behavior or or skills it's more about
pairing students together that tolerate each other and work well together if i'm honest
um and the kind of similar size similar learning style so i list my adults and i'm in rotation as
well so i list me and my adults and then i think and then i think about what children i can pair
together what children can't be paired with anyone because of their needs their medical needs
for example and so they're the one-to-one children and then what children can i pair together that
will be safe if the adult isn't watching them all of the time you know what what children need
can cope with some not supervision at some points in the day or what children do i trust to make
safer choices if they are in a small group rather than be one-to-one and then after that i pay yeah
learning style so what children need lots of sensory diet breaks they can do that together
or what children are using an aac and learning at a similar kind of level on that let's put those
two together because then they're they're doing a similar thing what children have similar ieps to
each other great that makes the ta job much easier because they can work on the same skill with both
children but we're all in the room all together they don't have to be stuck to that adult we can
have a couple of adults outside and then one inside and and they're all watched they're all
safe it's all fine and we're all still focused and and learning and don't think just because it's not
a typical lesson that a child isn't learning sometimes my best learning moments happen in
free time when the children are choosing what they want to do what can i do as do home as a parent
for homework i don't send homework home but what i do hope that they um are just preparing their
children for the school day i suppose i think the parents it works very different and i don't
ever put any pressure on parents to use our communication methods use our behavior strategies
use our schedules timetables whatever because homework is really differently and it should be
respite from the stresses of the outside world it's okay that the children are decompressing from
school just like we do from work home life looks very different from my work life if it looked the
same then i would feel completely burnt out and exhausted um so i would hope that home is a safe
environment that their needs are met they feel heard and understood and loved and cared for
and if that looks like meeting their basic needs um then that's great as a parent your job um is
to do that there's also things that you can teach them that we don't have the opportunity to
for example uh maybe cleaning their teeth going to the hairdressers um knowing if it's a weekend day
or a week or a weekday preparing for holidays um social gatherings going to the park going swimming
going out in public in on public days you know weekend busy days and maybe cooking
being safe in the bath yeah all of those things we can't teach our children our students so that's
down to you guys and i would i think that is the homework that i would want to see is is them
learning those home skills seeing what a family dynamic looks like sharing with their siblings
tolerating sharing a parent with their siblings you know all of those things i think are amazing
learning experiences that a child is getting at home i wouldn't then expect anything from school
to be on at home yeah that's just that's my little opinion i'll stop my ted talk cut on homework now
we're starting nurture group september in mainstream how would you introduce these
um i'm not part of a nurture group actually i wonder if this is i guess they're part of a
mainstream school and then when they are then they need it they go to the nurture group maybe
so it's like inclusion um like self-contained kind of thing or is it for social skills then
i would do something like lego therapy or parachute games where it's really like or
attention autism where it's really supportive um supporting the group work well together but
in a really structured way or is it nurture group where they kind of can decompress and
regulate themselves and calming and it's probably more more like a sensory room so i'd have a think
about what your focus is for this nurture group and and think about activities around that that
would support you to reach that goal hi jordan where do you get your toys from typically i go
through amazon and or just it's so easy isn't it i hate that i do but i just do it's here in a
couple of days i don't have the patience to wait i also love facebook marketplace if i see something
on instagram or tiktok or amazon that i love before buying it on amazon i always look on vintage
or i look on facebook marketplace to see if i can get it cheaper because they are so much better
deals and we know it's never it's not going to last ages with the kids like as often so i get
less upset about it when it typically gets broken if i bought it from facebook marketplace or vintage
so that's really good and then boot sales boot sales are amazing the prices that people sell
amazing toys and books and for is crazy to me so yeah i love a boot sale but yeah if not amazon
and my amazon storefront has everything that i have ever bought and ever want to buy on it there's
hundreds of resources on there for classrooms and uh parents as well how many times during the week
do you do a sensory story we have english twice a week at the moment so we do it as part of our
english lesson twice a week and then we also do a different sensory story for drama so they do
yeah sensory stories three times a week in total but i don't think it would hurt if you did it
every day i used to do phonics as a sensory story every day we used to do jolly phonics in my last
school and i had a sensory story for each sound and i did the same story for that sound every
day of the week and i changed the different sound i'm just creating a core word curriculum at the
moment so we're doing learning a different core word every week for the whole for every week of
the school year and their sensory stories linked to the core words that have the core word coming up
again and again throughout the story and i would want to read that every day and so it just depends
on what you want to do really but i think sensory stories are really fab and really great and it's
a really accessible and structured way of offering your children sensory and structure and being in
a group area and folks you want to lead adult in a very safe and accessible and easily resourced way
because once you've created your sensory story you can just keep it in the bag and hang it up
and it's always ready then and often it's just made of stuff that's what you've already got in
your classroom okay there's lots of teachers asking about um uh teaching in a pmld setting
so i'll talk more on that i don't talk enough about that lots of you are starting new roles in
in pmld and i'm very proud of what we do in our in our room um yeah but typically at first off
it looks like basic care needs maybe feeding maybe peg feeding toileting making sure they're in and
out of the chairs and it's physio it's the most next best most important thing so like sometimes
the school day just looks like meeting basic care needs and physio and then that's perfectly fine
and then obviously added into that we also do tac pac intensive interaction sensory massage
stories sensory stories sometimes some mark making or some like sensory room like kind of play
there's a songs called tuned into learning that's really lovely and we've got a cd of it so it's
probably really old but tuned into learning i think it's on youtube as well but search
tuned into learning that's really lovely we're just about to start uh tassels which is um signing
so it's tactile signing which is great for pmld uh learners uh yeah there's loads of beautiful
things there's one of my ex colleagues is on instagram called and she's sensory shakeup and
she's got loads of ideas on her so some beautiful pmld stuff and i've seen some other people in the
comments talking about offering their plans as well so that's awesome thank you so much for
helping each other we've got such a lovely community i'm so proud so proud of our very
generous community with your workstations do you repeat activities or have the same three all week
i don't have the same three all week because i want it to be really motivating and interesting
to the children so i typically choose for those that don't know workstations is their independent
tasks so they go to a separate table and they have three or four or five a task that i know
they can do independently so typically they are i pitch them below what they're working out on their
teaching tables on the intervention tables because i don't want them to be learning
new skills here the skill they are learning is being independent and completing a task
independently so just make sure for the workstations that they are tasks that you know they can do
independently like absolutely to build confidence self-esteem those kind of things i do change these
workstation tasks every day they repeat them throughout the day so they might do it they
might do them two or three times in the day but then then we switch them up because otherwise
they're just going to be they're not going to be um they're just going to become mind numbing and
it's been like you know work in a factory or prison like we don't want to replicate prison in schools
we want to be very far away from that so actually we want them to be motivating want them to be
um fun for them if you're children are particularly into color sorting or organizing or puzzles then
make it that and then they're really motivated to do those independent tasks and they feel really
great about they've done it by themselves with no adult help it's um it should be really rewarding
and fulfilling for the children um and yeah i change it up every day my child is starting in a
SEND school this year my son's current school has been in a battle and i'd love to know how you
communicate with home and what it's like to know from parents and caregivers yeah it's really
communication is really really important for a SEND class it's really important for any
class it's really important for a non-speaking SEND class because the child can't talk about
their day not that lots of children do talk about their day but they absolutely can't they don't
even have the option to if they wanted to so it's really really important and also lots of our
children go to and from school in a taxi so we don't even see the parents at the gate it's really
important to um to have a good communication with parents this could look like emails or phone calls
from myself uh to and from but typically it looks like a home school book we have a handwritten book
that is sent to and from home and school every single day and it says the basic things in there
like how much snack they eat um when they've been to the toilet how general mood and any
triggers anything they found difficult anything they found um they really enjoyed that day and
anything like super amazing that we want to share with them and then like we need more wipes we need
more pads we need more whatever can you bring sun cream in whatever so that's a really useful
thing and then they say you know they didn't sleep well last night or i think they're getting a cold
or can you check this for me you know it's really important to have that like daily record really
and then yeah anything else that we want to do it's phone calls and and emails or or they can
come in does your sensory curriculum cover relationship education not exclusively it doesn't
have that as a separate topic however under pshe it's covered and under um we have certain topics
like the first one in year eight is all about me the topic and we also have another one called
communities and cultures so rshe will be covered within that oh at some point within the four years
but yeah pshe covers it um but just not discreetly uh i would say do you visit schools for cpd
training sessions i would love for you to come to my school i do offer it um if you search training
then on my website then it will come up and you can read more about it and most of it's virtual
because i'm in cornwall and i don't live very near anybody off sometimes in the holidays i
travel around and can visit he was working to teaching two days a week this year next year i'm
teaching four days a week because i have a key stage one key stage two and key stage three classes
to teach um next year so i will be even less able to train people face to face but if you would like
virtual training then search training on my website if you would like to use my training
powerpoints to educate yourself and share with your team they are available on my website i've
got one for five pounds on intensive interaction which i'm very proud of and i've also got one all
about sensory regulation and creating a sensory profile for all the children in your class or
children in your care at home or yourself uh let's face it we uh it's good to have a profile around
your own since we need sometimes as well and that is 10 pounds on my website so you can do your own
training and um train your team using those powerpoints as well i'm fine with you doing that
that's absolutely great or you can search uh training on my website and it'll come up and
you can see everything i can share with you guys i hope you this has made you feel a little bit more
prepared and what you need to do over if you get anything from this live i think it's don't feel
like you need to do all the resources all the planning every week repeating is absolutely fine
if that's your takeaway from this live then that's great i'll see you next week bye