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.
Hello everybody and welcome to another live. Today I'm going to be joined by Simon,
Inclusion teacher who's an SEN teacher, a supply teacher. So I'm going to pop him on now.
Okay, I was just explaining that you are a SEN supply teacher, is that right?
That's right. I mean, I did start by doing mainstream. I still do a lot of mainstream,
but I do delve into SEND and sort of intervention type roles, which is being really rewarding.
And how have you always been in a supply sense of things?
I mean, I started off as a Key Stage 1 teacher 25 years ago. I've had a couple of periods of supply,
but my main passion for SEND came when I was working in early years. I was early
year space leader at my previous school. And it was then I realized that the more you get it right
for those children, our very younger children, the more it then sort of creates that knock on effect
as they sort of go further up through the school. Yeah, almost like meeting it early. Those little
niggly issues that could be passed off as, oh, they're just not, they're not ready yet, or oh,
they'll get there, could easily be kind of pushed aside, couldn't they? But actually, they become
quite big, exclusive problems, don't they, further on, and they only become further away from their
peers or on it and have the impact on the wider school. Is that what you witness?
Yeah, I think the children that we work with, our very youngest children,
it gives a real sense of satisfaction that you're starting almost their SEND pathway
if it hasn't been started already. And, you know, being involved with the, you know, the outside
agencies, doing all the paperwork towards the EHCP, it's, you realize how much goes into it for these
children. And when, you know, when the EHCP, when I first EHCP went through that I was a part of,
I was really satisfied. But on the other hand, I wasn't quite so satisfied with how much money
came in to support that particular child. Yeah, the work in comparison to the budget doesn't
really add up, does it? Yeah, the amount that you get, and actually what you want to do with the
money, it's not equal there at all. And I think there's a lot to be done in terms of ensuring that
these children are either SEND, diagnosed SEND children with any particular neuro-type,
or children who I think are emerging neurodivergent. There's a big sort of part of me
that wants these children to succeed, because I myself, I'm not formally diagnosed, but I'm on
the pathway to be seen. And I really want those children who do identify as neurodivergent or
fully neurodivergent, I want them to have the same sort of, the sort of better opportunities that
I didn't have. Yeah, so with or without diagnosis, we're talking about what are you actually seeing
in the classroom and what needs do they have right now, you know, regardless of the why almost, but
what are you actually seeing? And maybe whether it's autism or anxiety because of an experience,
maybe a similar method of offering visual insufficiency regulation breaks, all of those
things, whether it's autism or not, will support that child. I'm a big believer in that those
inclusive neuroaffirming strategies, we sometimes think that they're just for those particular
children, but actually they benefit everybody. The best example I can think of is, you know,
we probably think of this as given sometimes, but the visual timetable, you know, that's key for all
children. You know, there's children who check that first thing in the morning, they need to know
what's going on. I think those strategies that we put in place are really, really, really beneficial
for all children. Yeah, what I suppose if there's teachers watching this now and thinking, okay,
yes, I have a visual timetable, what else can I do? What else would be worth my time doing for all
of the children in my class? Do you have kind of like a top few things that you would recommend
that everyone does? I think this, you could almost split it into sort of organisational things
and then things that, you know, facilitate inclusion or access to the curriculum.
And I also think there's another strand there, it's things that we can do to ensure that our
neurodivergent learners, that their wellbeing is paramount. And I think we've spoken before about
play, I think play is one of my biggest things that I have, you know, we have at our disposal
to help these children and play for me is, you know, when I was doing my teacher training,
we were all taught that, you know, play goes through that sort of, it's almost like a checklist,
so the children play by themselves, they then play alongside, etc. But actually, I don't agree
with that at all. I think that if children are neurodivergent, then they have types of play
that maybe we may not have thought of. So I draw from Kerry Murphy, I think I'm a huge fan of Kerry
Murphy and her research into different types of neurodivergent plays, such as, you know, you may
have a child who may, we may see it as a repetitive behaviour, such as, you know, going,
obviously wants to go on a slide, so going down the slide, or then going up the steps again,
and they might say again, and again, and again, as they're doing it. But that, for me, those sort
of types of play that may be, I want to say a bit out of the box, but it's not out of the box,
because it's what the children are doing. And I think that those sort of play types of play that
maybe we don't consider enough of, we need to do those, because it's almost that the children
who are neurodivergent, they almost have a slight, dare I say a slight advantage here, because
they have, can present with sort of special interests or fixed interests. And I think you've
got a golden opportunity there to take that motivating and interest, and then feeding it
into the curriculum, which I know is a big challenge that if you're talking to say plants,
and you've got someone who's interested, say in, let's say fish, for example, or let's say plants,
or whatever it is, the challenge is trying to feed that interest into what you've got to teach.
And I think that's something that I think needs a lot of consideration.
Yeah, maybe not even just in the early years. I feel like early years in nursery are better at
that as far as mainstream goes. And the other years, I feel like it gets a little bit discrete
after that. I don't know if you agree with me. I'm attached to a mainstream school too,
which is my reference for that. But yeah, it is, you're right, it's their styles of play as well.
So it might be their special interest in a certain topic, whether it's dinosaurs or cars or pets or,
you know, whatever, and Lego, Minecraft, whatever it is. But yeah, you're absolutely right, it could
be a type of play as well. So for example, your slide one is perfect. If they are interested in
that kind of repetitive behavior, it's about also not just assuming it's just the slide, but also
looking deeper into that. Is it the feeling of the slide on their body? Is it the imbalance? Is it
the feeling of climbing? Is it the vestibular balance side of things? Is it watching things
slide down? There could be lots of different things happening there that is actually feeding
that enjoyment of it. And then we can kind of try and broaden that, can't we? So what other
things can we do to get that same vestibular feeling or that same climbing feeling or that same
dropping feeling and kind of trying to extend it that way? And that is one of my favorite parts of
my job. And it's such a luxury that SEN teachers have that we have the scope and the time and the
trust, honestly, from the SRT team of just saying, go with it, just go with it, just experiment
with stuff and just see what sticks, you know. And I really love and sometimes what you think,
oh, they'll definitely gonna like this. And then it's absolutely no, it's obviously not meeting
whatever that their need is. And other times you kind of hit the nail on the head and you
really capture their interest. It's really rewarding part of the job, isn't it?
Yeah, I think one of the sort of shifts I've had is, you know, when you look at behavior,
and I think the play that we've spoken about links with behavior, I think it's really important
to talk about links with behavior. I think the biggest shift for me is I used to see behavior as
you know, something that you have to manage something you have to put, you know, put
all the consequences in place for. And I think, you know, you obviously do need boundaries, you need
some form of consequence in place. But when I shifted my thinking to seeing behavior
as that communication, communicating the feelings and needs, but coupled with that,
you know, your example of the particular and prospective input of the slide. Once I started
thinking about sort of sensory considerations, you know, that was a real eye opener for me,
because even in, you know, mainstream classes now, I can see the, you know, the sensory need of
children is you can see if you're teaching whole class on the carpet, you can see children who
are craving movement. And I think, you know, with movement, that's the pinnacle of what we
offer children. If there's anything, if it looks like things are a bit wobbly, or things are a bit,
something's needed, then moving is the key to any sort of movement, whether it's, you know,
fidget, I call them sensory tools, instead of just to take the novelty away from calling it a toy,
and, you know, taking them outside, dancing, moving, those sort of things, that sort of shift
to thinking about if a child showing that distress behavior, why is it that they're showing that
distress behavior? Is it, I automatically think now, right, I look around the room and say, right,
is it too bright? Are they near someone? Is it too loud for them? Do they just need to go for a walk?
Do they just need to come and sit with me for a little bit? And you referred visuals earlier,
and you know, the amount of visuals I turn out now, I just think of something, you know,
little things that I think, okay, that's a visual, I might use it, I might not, but I think the
freedom that we have in terms of being in the roles that we are, I think is quite something that
you've got as a supply teacher, you have time now, just to think about things, you know, I thought
about something on the way home for tomorrow, for example, but I had the time there to do it,
and I realized, you know, not everyone has that luxury. Absolutely. So about supply then, are you,
because the one thing that I love most about my job is that I get to work with my children for
seven years, and you get, I get to know them really intensely in the families. And I feel like
the downside to being a supply teacher is, do you actually feel like you get to build those
really strong connections? Do you have enough time with these children and families to feel like you
get to know them? Or are you just seeing problem? Oh, no, I wish I had time to fix that. Oh, okay.
And then another class. Oh, I can see that I could do something there, but actually, I'm not going
to go out and see it through. And I feel like I would personally find that really frustrating,
because I can never actually, you know, fully get my hands into, you know, helping them. But I don't
know, how do you kind of feel about that? And how does it work for you? I mean, I'm lucky at the
moment that I'm doing the long term. But the long term position isn't as a class teacher is as a
intervention teacher. So I work primarily with early years children. I look at things like speech
and language, emerging autism, any sort of neurotype or anything that may need dressing,
I have my own space that I set up for the children. So I'm very lucky that when it's longer term,
that connection, those relationships are really, really key, and they can be fully developed.
However, when I do day to day supply, it's so much more, it could potentially be much more
trickier, because sometimes you only have those children for a day. But I know, I've trusted myself
now in thinking, why take really take so much stuff with me, I take a whole big bag of, I walk
in my big sainsbury's bag full of stuff that I need. And not all not always, I need them for
that particular day. But I think this will need the sort of security. I have stuff there just in case
one of my big winners from actually one of your things that you use, Jordan is your, your countdown.
So I, it didn't make sense to me until after you sort of explained it so clearly that,
you know, counting down the timer, going like from 10 to zero, you're not in control,
you're not in control of when it's going to happen. You've got to go according to the timer.
Yeah, the sound is in control of when that thing's going to finish. Yeah, exactly.
And interestingly, you know, today, I did work with a with a one particular class today, and I,
I have, I don't know why I've got it on on the countdown strip. I've got like three yellow ducks
on there at the moment. I don't know why it's on there, but that's what it is. And I explained
what it was and how it works. And I literally took them off as and when they were needed.
And I explained that when the three ducks come off, we get to finish, then we're moving on,
then we're stopping what we're doing. And we're moving on to the next. And you can probably see
visibly seen that room that, you know, there's probably children in there who were anxious,
possibly what their normal routine is. But that countdown strip is an absolute winner for me.
And it doesn't always work straight away. Sometimes for my learners are
their diagnosed SLD or PMLD. And it sometimes can take a really long few months of repetitive
using that until they realize when I take the third one off this finishes and they can either
be reassured by that or frustrated by that, whatever it is, you know, they are obviously
understanding it, you usually get to know that they're understanding it when they start refusing
to take that third one off. Because then you know, oh, you do know that this is going to an end,
you know, but sometimes that can take a few months of practice. But yeah, once they do understand it,
and some children do get it straight away, it really does depend. It's interesting,
I have lots of comments on videos where I talk about the countdown saying, oh, that would make
my anxiety go up, not knowing the exact time that's going to finish that would that would
raise my anxiety. And it's really interesting, isn't it that we as people that understand time
and what what two minutes feels like what one minute feels like would find will find that not
having a set time really anxiety breaking. But lots of these children guess time, they don't know
what two minutes feels like they don't know what five minutes feel like the sand timer is just as
unpredictable as the countdown. But the difference is the sand timer stops when actually I haven't
quite finished my puzzle yet. All right, this song isn't quite finished yet. And for somebody with
autism, that not feeling like something's not complete or not completely finished is so
dysregulating. It's actually the worst of the worst. I would always rather take a little bit
longer and be a little bit late for lunch or a little bit late for whatever it is we're doing
next if it means we get to complete the puzzle because then they're not dysregulated, they're
regulated and we can move on. Yeah, the idea of using timers actually gives me anxiety now because
I just think oh no, the only time I think I would use them and I actually recommended them yesterday
for the first time in a really long time. And this is why I recommended sand timers. The question was
a child is wanting a toy that another child is playing with. How do I get them to wait for their
turn? I said, Okay, well, you could have two exactly the same sound timers and give one to one child
one to the other and say when the sound time runs out, your turn is finished and your turn is starting.
I think because again, it's the exact time actually is helpful. But apart from that, I think I would
always want to be more in control and work alongside and collaborate with the child as to when
that finish time needs to be you can kind of feel it in the room, which is why yeah, like you're
saying I really do like the counters. I didn't create a counter on by the way, it's a teach method.
So I can't take credit. But I do I do really like it. And it does it does really support lots of
learners, especially those with autism. Yeah, another point sounds like I'm your salesperson.
Another thing that you know, I took and it worked was your your green and red ovals for my turn
and waiting. No, that was genius. When I saw that, I thought that's not I didn't mean to
thought that's not going to quite work. But then I did it. And then I put like particularly with
some groups that I take, I actually have my picture on my turn. When I'm playing with a
particular group of children. But you know, it's so simple and so effective in the way that it,
you know, it's color coded, it's visual. And you know, at some points, you know, you've got four
children and an adult, each with these circles, these ovals, sorry. And you know, someone's having
a turn with something, they, they move the toy on. And almost this ovals in the middle, if we're in
a circle, they move around as well. And that's quite something. Yeah, and it seems so simple,
doesn't it? Like, why? Why does that little bit of colored card make the difference between
them understanding that their turn is coming up and not? I mean, I suppose, I suppose we're
talking about autism a lot, but autistic learners in particular are so visual first. And as
neurotypicals, it's usually auditory first. That's why we give instructions. That's why we use names
first. That's why we're so chatty. But actually, for those autistic learners, it's all about visual.
So that's why they like a calm environment and cluttered free. And that's why these visuals are
so supportive, because they go visual first, it makes our language and what we're saying just make
way more sense. So yeah, having even just the most simple tasks like wait and my turn, having it down
as a visual does make a big bit of difference. And usually I use widget symbols, but particularly
for the wait and my turn, I found yeah, just a green or red colored card with the text on on it
is even more bold and obvious and even more simple to understand. And even my earliest of stage
learners, it's helping them to wait and, and to teach it, you don't start by waiting 20 minutes
for your turn, you very much wait seconds, and then with it off and they can have it and then you kind
of build up from there just like everything you kind of, we call it backwards chaining. I don't
know if you use that term as well. You kind of start with the end result and then work backwards,
a bit like learning to tie your shoelaces is a really good example. You do all the tying for
them and they just pull the two bows apart to tighten it. And then you go backwards. So then
they might, you might loop it through, but they do the last little pull through and then they pull it
apart. And by the end, you know, by the in a few months when you've been doing doing this, you
backwards chain, backwards chain, backwards chain, they're doing the whole thing by themselves. And,
and I like to do that with everything. Yeah, even the most basic tasks like waiting for your turn.
Yeah. Somebody's asked if there's got a few questions, Simon, if that's okay.
Yeah, go for it. Someone said, Hi, help. How do you make individual timetables work? I have 13
children. I'm finding it really overwhelming. Have you had any experience of individual timetables
and how to navigate that? So I'm trying to assume that, you know, the 13 children, I don't know if
they're part of the mainstream class or whether it's a specialist. I'm assuming it's probably,
well, let's assume that it's specialist provision and all 13 children need something a little bit
different because that's quite common, isn't it? Yeah, you know, I've been in settings before where,
you know, you've had a whole class of visual timetable, but that's not enough. I mean, I do
carry around, here's another plug for one of your things, it's a little miniature timetable that you
carry around your neck. So I don't know if you can see it, but this is my sort of adapted version
of yours. And I have finished on the back of, I have finished on the back of it, stick them when
they're finished with, but you know, that's not even enough for some children. It's almost now
and next, it's good. Now next and then is also good. But I think in one of your videos, I think
you had something in between now and next to motivate, I can't remember if that's correct.
Yeah, so some of my class, some of my children are absolutely fine with just seeing what's next,
and that's all they want to know. But I have a few particular learners that really need to see
home time on their timetable. It's really important to them to know that the school day is finishing,
and if it's not on there, they get really stressed. Because I think they assume then they won't go
home. And then what happens then they'll never see their mum again, you know, let's not assume
that they understand how time works again. And it's really important to them they see swimming on
their home on their those key pillars of the data make Friday a Friday or make Monday and Monday,
they need to see those all on there. So for all of my children that are able to access an individual
timetable, which is about half of my room, I have a mini visual timetable just like our main class
one with removable symbols on them. It's a visual so it goes from top to bottom. What is next is at
the top and then going down and some of them go all the way down to home time. One of my children
is about two meters long, because he needs to see every single step of his day from the moment he
comes in to the moment he goes home. And we need to add a few little bit extras in there just to get
him through to three o'clock. And it's so if that's a good way of individualizing the way it is
overwhelming is because our whole system is embedded in everything we do. So in an English
lesson, for example, we won't have English on the timetable, but we will have where we're going to
English. I feel like that's kind of crucial for visual timetables. Sometimes it's the main class
timetable in a mainstream room. Your children are perfectly fine with knowing what subject is next,
and then next and then next and then next, because actually you only have one classroom.
And unless you're going to the hall or playtime, and then you'd have those symbols, but they kind
of understand that if it's a lesson subject, we're in the classroom. And then if it's the
hall P, we're in the hall. And if it's playtime or outside, they understand that concept whereas in
a special education room, often you'll have a sensory diet area, you will have a sensory room,
you'll have tables, carpets, computer areas, you know, you will have all sorts of different areas
in your room. So just calling it English doesn't actually mean anything to the children because
English can look very much like science, can look very much like geography in a sensory classroom,
because it's all kind of physical resources and things, doesn't actually mean anything. So for
our main class timetable, I might have English, maths, science, but for the individual ones,
it's all about location. So it would say something like snack table, computer area, group area,
sensory diet area, playground, for example, might be English. And that's all the different places
they need to go in the order they need to go to them to complete, you know, that round of lessons.
And it makes so much more sense to the children. It doesn't become overwhelming, because it's either
done right at the beginning of the day, we do it up until lunchtime or do up until break time. And
then we add more. For some children, we do it as we go. The important thing is that when they take
the symbol off of their timetable, what do they then do with that symbol? Because in the old days,
we used to have a little box, I don't know if you remember this, Simon, a box or a bucket underneath
each individual timetable, and they'd have a look at what the symbol was, and they'd put it in their
bucket to say, you know, that one has finished. Actually, that is kind of a wasted opportunity,
I feel, which is what we do in our classroom, is we take it off, and then we use that symbol as a
reminder of where we are going. It's our transitional tool. And we walk with our symbol to where we are
going to where it says on the symbol. So for example, it does say snack table on there,
we will walk it from our table, from our timetable to the snack table, and then there will be a
matching board on the snack table that we can match it to. And then when we've finished our snack table,
the adult gives them a check schedule symbol to help them transition to their schedule. So it's
kind of a little bit like a rotation, you go to the area, to the timetable, to the area, to the
timetable. You've always got a symbol to help you transition to do that. Again, that is also a teach
method, I cannot take credit for that. But it works really well. It keeps it very organized,
all of the symbols should either be on their timetable or on the matching board. It means
that they don't get as lost even sometimes they get chewed in between. But that's another thing.
So I feel like individual timetables that that would become less overwhelming because
everybody's doing the same thing and everything is quite structured in in that way.
One sort of additional thing I sometimes put in place is, if you're talking about like a subject,
if you've got subjects like English, Math, Science, whatever on the visual timetable, as you said,
some children don't understand the whole thing. So sometimes with a subject, you need to break it
down into the bits of the subject. So that, you know, if it's English, for example, you know,
like today I had to break it down into, you know, one part we were doing like word work. So I had to
do a whiteboard and literally write, sort of draw a picture of word work on it. Then I had to draw
a picture of like the shared, we're doing shared writing. And then I had to do a picture of what's
coming next. But some of that I even had to break that down even further, because sometimes for all
children, sometimes if we take a step back and, you know, think about what we're asking children,
you know, some of that overwhelm can be caused by, you know, the amount of stuff, I'm going to call
it stuff, that they have to, you know, process in order to learn to achieve what we're asking them
to do. And I think it's, it's quite something if, you know, you're personalising all these timetables,
these visual timetables for children. And I think my solution would be exactly you, what you said,
that these 13 children are all going to need some kind of their own personalised timetable,
they're all going to need different things, you know. It's interesting that you said about,
you know, the timetable going from, you know, vertical, I always do them horizontal,
and I don't know why I do them horizontal. But for me, I've always done…
It's not just going left to right, it's like reading a book, I can't imagine it makes too
much difference left to right, as long as it's consistent, so they understand it's either left
to right or up, up and down. I'd like to make some research on it, but I haven't read any research
that it makes a difference. Well, you know, there's a comment,
there's a comment I can see on the screen about, you know, something about what happens next and
sort of those sort of behaviours that may come out or may be exhibited when, you know, transitions
happen. And I think that, you know, transitions, that can be a bit of a sticky moment for a lot
of children in terms of, you know, if they don't know what's coming next, then it could potentially
cause stress, anxiety, it could cause, you know, all that sort of behaviour that you'll see is the
iceberg. I was thinking about the iceberg, you'll see those behaviours, but it's thinking about and
knowing what may cause those behaviours. So, if a child's, you know, hitting out, you know,
those sort of behaviours that are happening at a particular time, it's taking a step back,
like, why are these… why do you think these things are happening? And what can we do to
help the child? You know, these children aren't… children aren't showing these behaviours on purpose,
not showing them to upset people. They cannot regulate, they cannot… they don't always have
the strategies available to them, because when they're in the moment of crisis, they can't access
the memory part of the brain to remember what to do when these things happen. And because the
prefrontal cortex has taken over… so not the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala has gone, the alarm
has gone, as it were, the prefrontal cortex can't make a decision. So, we've got to think about what to do
to help them. And you know that it's that age-old thing that the regulation has to come before the
learning to a child, and actually we've anchored ourselves in that sometimes. If we're not regulated
and children are not regulated, then you're not going to get learning. And I think sometimes,
I'm going to say it, that sometimes we think about how that looks to others, so it may look like to
our… no, our senior leaders, as it were, if the child hasn't done something or how the child
hasn't completed the task. Well, I don't think there's anything in saying that, you know, if a
child wasn't regulated, if something had affected that child, we could say so. We should say,
this is what happened and this is what we did to help that child. I think that's what we should be
saying. Yeah, and it's what kind of learning are we prioritising? Yes, there's academic learning,
but there's also emotional learning as well, isn't there? And just because you're not writing
things down on paper or just because you're not, you know, completing the upset work task doesn't
mean that learning isn't taking place. I feel like learning about your own regulation and emotions
and seeing that being modelled to you, seeing those emotions being named to you, learning what
resources help you to feel calm, building that relationship with the adult and building trust
the adult is also learning and that needs to be valued, doesn't it? If you look at, you know,
the early years, you know, if you take what's called the primaries of early years, it's more
social development, personal, social, emotional development, physical development and communication
areas, I don't see why they get stopped at the end of reception. They should be in everyone's
form for months as these children move through school because these areas are biologically
driven. If these areas are not there, if they're not nurtured and developed, then things like
literacy, numeracy, science, all the academic subjects, they can't flourish until these three
particular areas and that the child's going to be ever-changing. They're going to be ever-changing
in terms of, you know, a child may have echolalia, for example, and then it might change into
something else, may change into sort of non-verbal communication. It's hard because, you know,
it's having that sort of secure knowledge of child development and how that works because that's
another key change for me. I didn't know that about child development on my teacher training.
No, I wonder why we don't because we have to know what the next stage is, don't we,
in the previous stage to know where we're heading? I agree. I think, you know, you look at, you know,
babies, for example, you know, babies, they have tummy time and then, you know, as they get up to
walk, the development that's happening is in their neck because they're having to lift their head up
off the floor in to be able to walk and then the development from that comes through the shoulder,
shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand, that for writing and I think, you know, we push children
to write too quickly sometimes. We need to be doing all that gross motor provision. We need to give
them fine motor development. We need to give them opportunities to go outside and run. We need to
give them opportunities to develop that sort of bilateral coordination and by that I mean
where we're doing things like taking cloths and we're dropping them over, we're moving our
hands back and forth to activate both sides of our brain. If we add music to that, that's even
better because we've got one side of our brain that's musically driven and one that's more
language driven. So I think, you know, those three areas, those three sort of early years areas
shouldn't actually just be early years areas at all. It should be actually the areas that we develop
on. I think there's a big argument that when we think about writing, for example, like we always
think that, you know, children have to sort of develop a tripod. Well, actually they don't. You
know, a child can write by holding it in a, I still call it a fish grip, but it's actually called
a pro-damp grip. Is it? I always call it a palm grip. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, if you
see children holding the implement, the mark-making implement in a particular way, that gives us the
clue to what's needed in terms of their development. You know, I'd say holding it in a fish grip or
a fist grip or something like that. And we know that if they're not putting enough pressure on it,
they're going to need things like, you know, like Play-Doh, they need to have a slide where they can
activate both, you know, sets of hands. And it's those little things that I didn't know, I didn't
know that at teacher training. I've probably only learned one within the past few years or so, but
it's that sort of, it's almost that evidence-based, you know, people are very big on their evidence
bases. And I think child development and physical development, all those other things I've just
spoken about, that's really, really key to be able to justify to your, to people what you're doing,
not that you should have to justify to what you're doing. You do, don't you? You do, it's true. I
always also go back to the pyramid of learning. I don't know if you've seen that. At the base,
it was developed by an occupational therapist, actually, not a teacher, but it perfectly aligns
with what you're saying. At the base is basic needs, you know, sensory regulation, and it goes
through as you work up the pyramid, everything that a child needs to learn to get to the top of the
pyramid, which is academic learning. And I show teachers this and say, well, one of the questions,
for example, on this chat is, why is my child throwing? Well, it could be throwing, but it
could be throwing. Well, it could be they're just at, you know, this stage, and they need to develop
their fine motor skills, gross motor skills, listening skills, attentive behavior skills,
before they can sit and focus in your, in your lesson. It might be that, as well as what happens
when they throw, you know, what's the motivation behind that? What's the why? What sensory needs is
it meeting and all of those things? It could be where they're developmentally at, at the stage of
learning. They're just not at that learning stage yet. And another thing to add to that is,
you know, I, you know, I was speaking to someone the other day about schemas and schematic behavior.
I haven't spoken about that probably since, you know, I first worked in early years, about 20
years ago. And it reminded me when you're talking about when someone was asked about the throwing
bit, throwing behavior, that potentially could be a schematic behavior. Projectory. Yeah, exactly,
exactly that. I feel like the schemas is a great starting point for understanding the why behind
behavior. Yeah, so if a child is lining up, why are they doing that? It could be, you know, part
of the schema. If they're mixing things, have a look at the schema for that, because it really
could give clues as to not only what they, why they're doing it, but also what they're learning
through and what the learning opportunities come from that. You were talking right at the beginning,
so perfectly about play and not using seeing certain play behaviors as behaviors to change,
but actually as motivators to get alongside them. And okay, how can we use this interest
to motivate them in play? Well, schemas is exactly that, isn't it? If a child likes to hide under
blankets, okay, right, how can we use that? What for their learning? What, where does that fit
in learning and into the curriculum? There's a really good book literally just called schemas,
actually, and it's on Amazon. It's bright yellow. You can't miss it. That's exactly the one I've
got. It's really helpful, isn't it? And it's actually Schemas in the Earliers, I think it's
called. And it goes through each schema and how it fits into each of the early years, you know,
headings and what it can look like. It's a really brilliant and easily digestible book that I highly
recommend. Like you say, not just in early years, not just in SEND, but actually for all teachers
to understand, or parents actually to understand their child's behaviours and where they might be
coming from. I mean, just to expand on your point a bit further, if we're talking about schemas and
using that to inform our planning, you know, it's not something like throwing, you know, I've done
it where I've seen children, I've got a particular child that does like throwing, not dangerously
but likes throwing. So we end up getting some of those, you know, like two litre Coke bottles,
lemonade bottles, and we did put the phonics on the bottles. And because it's what you can wipe on
and wipe off it, and they get the ball or get it on the throw, they just take the ball at the
particular phonics. And it gives them, it appears to give them the satisfaction that they need through
why is it needed to throw. And I appreciate that, no, trying to fit or trying to use a schema to plan
it can be quite difficult. But I suppose the sort of more, it's almost I want to say more out of the
box you think, the more you're going to, the more creative you're going to come, the creative ideas
you're going to come up with, like your blanket, if they're enveloping themselves into a blanket,
you know, be daring, like let them go under a table, you know, give them a little den
under the table with some likely twinkly lights, or get some of that. It's like a stickable mirror,
it's almost like a stickable mirror that you can put under a table. Because I have a child that
loves going under the table. And that's their thing. They absolutely love, love to love doing
that. But I think, you know, it's almost we've got quite in our discussion so far, there's lots
of things like schemas, play, development. And that's what early years, I think that potentially
would work with not just early years children, I think would work with older children as well.
Yeah, I mean, I suppose I'm not the right person to comment on that. I mean, I think I agree.
But having only worked with in SEN, I have worked with ages three to 19. So I've worked with a huge
range of ages. But as far as mainstream children, my actual experience isn't there, I only did my
teacher training with in mainstream and then we've gone straight into SEN. But I'd be really
interested to know if any mainstream teachers have key stage one or key stage two teachers,
have you schemas to inform their understanding of their, of their learners or have used play
based strategies? I know somebody commented on this sounds like a lot like monster story. I know
you can get monster story secondary schools, and they're obviously quite practical and play based
learning. So I know it happens. It's just I wonder what it looks like in reality and what
teachers findings have been as far as learning goes and regulation goes. I'd be really keen to learn
that. There's a comment just I've just seen about someone said about child breaking things, and I
can't remember that comes under a schema. But I just think breaking things, depending on what it
is, and if it's dangerous, then you need to do well, probably think about health and safety first.
But I have a, I had a child maybe a couple of years ago who we introduced,
which are the entry tools or fidgets in the class, you know, are very effective, but it seems to be
that any sort of like a stretchy thing that you could stretch and break, that child would just do
it. And the child was, I don't think the child was what was, you know, meaning in a sort of
unkind manner, you know, sitting there, you know, stretching, you know, a new one,
those little plastic noodles, as far as they could, they broke it, they pulled it in half.
So I don't know with breaking things, I don't know whether that's... Yeah, there is, there is,
well, there's a couple that it could be depending on how they're breaking, but there is a kind of
destructive kind of one working out how things work and fit together. I've got a student in my
class who loves puzzles and breaking things, and I feel like they're linked. It's the separation of
things and the putting back together of things. However, sometimes the break in thing doesn't
actually fit back together, but they're still learning that, right? But yeah, we've got a child,
any soft toy gets ripped, you know, at the seam. It's almost like they're wanting to work out
how it works. And also it's really satisfying because it goes, and it just feels good. You know,
I think everybody is a liar if they say that ripping things doesn't feel actually quite good.
So that soft behavior, but yeah, also really loves puzzles. And I find, I think that's quite
interesting there, the fixing and breaking. I can't remember what schema it is, but it might
be the connecting schema actually, that that's linked to. But I've also had the children that
are breaking things, but it's actually not the connecting schema at all. It's more the trajectory.
They like seeing things up in the air and then clattering down to the ground. And the aftermath
is breaking things, but it's actually the trajectory, the up and the down that they're
actually getting a lot out of. So I suppose it's really looking at what they are doing
and what they are getting out of it and then kind of, and then putting it together that way.
Sort of facilitating all of that. And just, I've had a thought, I just had a thought sort of like
planning and getting this all together in sort of manageable form for people in that, you know,
I used to, and I'm still used to as well, you know, when you plan, you have all these boxes
and grids to fit in. I remember that's all my last year of school in sort of early years, full time,
is that one of my small display balls, I ended up just putting white paper on it and tacky backing
it all over. And like key children, I'd have a coloured pen for those particular children
and I would initial them so that they would know, no one would know who it was about. But
I ended up using my display balls as, you know, the sort of conversations that we're having.
So if one of my adults, for example, said that this particular child was repeatedly getting
blocked and making that particular sort of form with them, we make a note of that. So then we
thought tomorrow, then we think tomorrow we have the same, or do we add something to it? So then
you just have it all up there and then we take a photo of it at the end of the week. But this were
our own personal records and it's quite a fluid way out of planning because you're not,
you find, I find on supply, you are planning, you know, planning for you. I look at it and I have to
sort of think about how it works and then mine's sort of like a bit of glitter, I find a personal
glitter throughout it to make it how I want it to be. But I'm just thinking that this sort of,
almost this special interest or thematic planning, I mean, we probably do it in our heads more than
anything, but I'm just, if you want it more organised or you want it, you know, you just want
to see the process through. If you're lucky enough to have a small display board in your room,
there's nothing on it, just tack your packet over and get your colour whiteboard, if you've got any.
And just, you know, have it, you sort of be wild with, you know, putting your little, you know,
your notes on there, your, it's for the benefit of the children, I think.
It would be a lovely way of including your supporting adults in that workout as well,
wouldn't it? Almost getting them on board, because also, if it's all in your head, then you could be
having one agenda, but then your supporting adults have got another agenda and then things
don't really match up. So if you've got it really out there, visual, in the classroom, you're all
adding to it and then you can maybe come at it, you know, when you have a meeting or whatever,
and see what you've got and kind of come pick out bits together. Okay, well, how can we do that?
Okay, what do you think this means? How can we get that working in the classroom? It could be a really
lovely starting point for teamwork and building those strategies as a whole. And then ultimately,
then they're actually going to happen, aren't they? Because everyone's on board with it and you've
feel like you've come up with it together. Therefore, you feel a little bit more committed
to the cause, maybe. Yeah, I think that it brings, it brings that shared ownership
or the provision, you know, the, you know, it's valuing what people say, it's bringing it all
together. It takes a lot of work, because, you know, getting the process up and started and like,
you know, getting sort of fluid with it and then making the time to talk about it. But you have,
I think you have those conversations quite naturally, at the end of the day, anyway,
you talk about things that happened during the day, or you talked about things that may not have
gone so well, but it's almost an actual extension of that. And I think that it's almost, you know,
you're sort of reviewing your provision, what's worked, what hasn't worked, what can we add to it,
what needs altering? It's that sort of adaptive teaching, I think, is sort of being adaptive. I
think that's more the sort of where I'm coming from now. It's rather than, rather than sort of
that, that, the model of differentiation, when you're going, I'm planning this for the higher
achievers, this for the lower achievers and whatever, is what can you do to ensure these
children have access to the curriculum, whether it's things like, you know, we actually haven't
talked about yet, things like, you know, flexible seating, which I thought was a bit silly, that
sort of flexible seating. When I first heard about it, when I started doing it, though, I,
well, that stopped me straight away. I really, really did see, you know,
I'm quite new to the whole flexible seating thing. I've used a couple of things in my room,
and mostly just wobble cushions, though, for those, like, rockers. And then in the past,
I had an OT prescribe an exercise ball, like, within a chair for a child, but that's really,
is it. So can you describe to me what kind of flexible seating you're using and what kind of
impact it's had in your room? So with flexible seating, you know, I'm thinking particularly,
you know, when it comes to, it's either carpet, if you're doing whole class teaching, or
when they're, when the children are working, I think when it comes to whole class teaching,
you know, some children, actually, some adults would think, you know, if children sit on a chair
where they should be, should be sitting on the carpet, that's unfair. Well, actually, it's not.
If the child needs to sit on a chair, they need to sit on a chair. And if it's still, if they're
fully focused and engaged in what they're doing, I think that's absolutely fine. I'm a big fan of
putting the gym bands on the bottom of the... I actually have one at the moment, which I'm
using. I find that very therapeutic, doing that. I sometimes have the most, you know,
the most sort of way out there, one I've had is, you know, those things you go swimming with, what
they call those big, like foam noodles. Oh, the noodles, yeah. I sort of chopped one in half,
and then super glued it so it made a circle. And I had it on the carpet for a particular
reason. I didn't know the word for it, but I would love to. Is it just like a, I guess it feels like
a kind of hug in a way. It gives them that proprioceptive, like, this is where I am sitting.
I suppose the carpet is a little bit of too open space, isn't it? Whereas that kind of,
it hugs them in that set spot, I suppose. I've done that in a slightly larger scale. I use a
tractor tire as seating. I put some cushions in the hole of a tractor tire, and a student sat in
that on the carpet. Again, just to feel that hug kind of grounded feeling, because otherwise,
they just wouldn't settle. They couldn't settle in the space. They used to have a tractor tire,
and it just kind of used to kind of, yeah, just ground them in a way. And then they were quite
happy paying attention for a long time, just because they could settle into their bodies.
I think also, think, if you extend that a bit further and think about, well, actually, you know,
how we're working. So children don't always have to sit down at a table to be able to,
you know, take part in the learning. When I think about standing up, having the paper on the wall,
children standing up, children lying down on the floor to be able to work. And, you know,
I've also had like, you know, a big yoga ball, child sitting on the yoga ball, and they're quietly
bouncing up and down while they're working. It's not distracting. It's not noisy. But I think,
I think the flexible seating for me is guided by what I can see the children doing. So if I see a
child moving, then I think they need something different. So if it's a chair, if it's, I've seen
those wobble stools. I've never had one in the class.
No, I haven't either. I know a child in my class would need it though. At the moment,
she's really rocking on her chair right back and right forward, right back. And I think,
right back and I think, oh my goodness, you're gonna hit your head. As soon as I put this wobble
cushion, which I think does the same job as a wobble stool, to be fair, it's like a pumped up
balloon like spiky circle. Lots of schools have them somewhere in the cupboards. Pop that under
her, all of a sudden she can wiggle and wobble on that, but the chair legs stays on the ground. So
she's so much safer. And I think because it's spiky, so she doesn't need to rock quite so much
to get the same input. So yeah, you're exactly right. It's about seeing what are you seeing?
Are you seeing jumping kind of motions or then they might need an exercise ball? Are you seeing
standing up and walking around and wandering to get a water bottle every few seconds? Then they
might need some kind of standing up situation or more movement in their learning situation. Yeah,
are you seeing floor like rock, you know, when they just lay back all the way back down and their
bottoms are nearly on the floor, they're kind of, they're so far off their chair. Well, yeah,
do they need to just be sitting on the carpet? It's exactly that, isn't it? And then being prepared
for if children say, well, that person's doing that, why can't I, which I can imagine lots of
mainstream teachers are thinking, well, yeah, that's definitely going to happen. Having that equality
versus equity conversation in your head, ready, right up your sleeve, ready to go to explain,
you know, however you want to explain equality versus equity and why one child may need something
that another child doesn't. But also, we were speaking a couple of weeks ago on a live about
maybe, how do we know that they don't need it? They might be masking to the high heavens. Maybe
they would genuinely benefit from being on the floor as well or standing up as well. Let's just
assume competence, let's try it. And if it becomes too distracting, it's clearly not working,
then we can have a conversation with them and say, do you think that helps you focus? Do you
think that helps you learn? Yeah, I don't either. Let's try something else. I feel like children
are pretty good at that, but they might want to just try it. They might not know what it feels
like in their bodies. So assuming competence is always a good idea, I would say.
There's a question there that actually follows on from what you said, that how would you explain
that to other neurotypical children? And interestingly with that, I think one of the
best ways of explaining things to all children, I think there's been a big increase in terms of
particularly like picture books, storybooks that feature children who are neurodivergent. And I
use those quite a lot on my travels. And children are very inquisitive about it. There's one book
I read by a lot called When Things Get Too Loud. And it's about a child who finds everything too
loud. It's sparked a lot of discussion because children were saying things like the dinner hall
is too loud, or it's loud outside, it's loud at the playground and so on. And I think that
I find that picture books and storybooks are a very powerful way of explaining things
like that to all of them. And sometimes I have the sunflower lanyard there because I have anxiety.
I hate being on the train, having lots of people on there. It gives me a lot of anxiety. And
when I relate it to myself and the experiences that I have, children generally, even really
young children, they don't laugh at it. They don't dismiss it. They're okay. They're quite
understanding of it. Yeah, I feel like lots of children would be. It's more inquisitiveness
than judgment, I would say, with children. I think judgment is learned. I think inquisitiveness is
just a natural thing with children. I saw an idea on TikTok of how to explain it, which I thought
was really clever, actually, and any class could do this. She put a whiteboard pen quite high on
the whiteboard and asked the smallest child in class to reach it for her. And they couldn't
because they were short and the pen was quite high. And she said, Yeah, I shouldn't have asked
you to do that. So sorry, and then asked one of the tallest children in the class to reach the pen.
And obviously they could. And she said, See, like it wasn't that the child didn't know what I was
asking. It wasn't that they weren't trying hard enough. It was just unfair of me to ask them to
do that in that way. This person is really great at something else, but they're not great at getting
the pen from a really high board. And that's okay. That's my fault. That's not their fault.
Just like sometimes, children are brilliant at sitting on their chairs and getting with their
paperwork and other children aren't. And that's unfair for me to ask you to do that. I just need
to find a different way to do that. And I thought, what a simple, beautiful way of explaining that
visually for them to see that everyone is accepted as that you're not picking your pointing fingers
of who's neurodivergent, who's not the children can work out that out for themselves. But it's
just that, you know, we're all different. We all need different accommodations. And that's what
equity is. This child needs sunglasses on in the classroom. This child needs the lights off this
child can't cope with music on, etc, etc. I suppose the tricky thing is, is when you've got lots of
different needs in your room, and how to manage all of those, I suppose it's just really, it's
carefully and picking your moments, isn't it? And trying to embed a really honest environment in your
room, where they can feel like they can be honest about when they're struggling. And you can have
those conversations either individually or together and work it out as a class. I think that's right.
I think you've got to be, it's almost you're safe, how it is and allow, you know, children will say
inquisitive things. And it's, you know, it's what you do with it. As the teacher, you know, I equate
it with things like, you know, when we talk about inclusion, I think a lot of the time we talk about
send when it's inclusion, actually, inclusion just isn't send, you know, you link it to gender,
you link it to race, you link it to your sexuality, you link it to all of those things. And I think
it's, you know, it's bringing that conversation to the fore depending on what's coming from the
children. I think it's really important that, you know, we are, we talk about representation,
we talk about diversity, we talk about how we are built from our lived experience. I think that's
really powerful. Yeah, absolutely. Somebody has asked, you mentioned earlier, our older children,
I see a lot of mainstream schools where school uniform is a must and schools are really strict
on this, even when a diagnosis is there. And I feel like this question could be a lot of things,
it doesn't have to just be uniform, but it's any kind of unrealistic expectation. And it comes down
to I think it's a really great topic to finish on is reasonable adjustments. I feel like maybe
lots of this conversation about inclusion in class is about reasonable adjustments, you know,
what can we shift really easily and reasonably to support all learners in our classroom, whether
that be visual timetables, as you were saying at the beginning, whether that be using a timer,
whether that be using an hour next board, whether that be changing your seating, having movement
breaks, all of these things are very reasonable adjustments that you can make for a child,
not wearing your shoes, wearing jogging bottoms instead of uncomfortable uniform trousers,
having your buttons undone, not needing a jumper, leaving your coat on with a hood, I don't know,
whatever it is, sometimes they're unreasonable, sometimes it's not needed, but sometimes it's a
reasonable adjustment. And that can change for a child to child, it can change day to day, minute
by minute, a child that didn't need to wear their coat yesterday might need to wear it today because
it's something that's happened in the morning or something they're going through, they're not
feeling well, whatever. So it's just all about those reasonable adjustments, isn't it? And making
that decision as a class in that moment. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, in response to this question that
I think, you know, some people might not see it, but you know, like a school uniform, you know,
with a tag at the back to be, you know, causing such irritation for our child or, you know,
the colour of the jumper or, you know, the feel of the material. I think I find it sad that,
you know, if some schools are really strict on those things when actually they're little things.
Yeah, yeah, I think schools are so up on this is the way we do things, we don't want to get out of
control because we want to be proud of our school and we want to look respectful and ready for
learning. But in doing so, by not having those reasonable adjustments, you're not actually ready
for learning at all. In fact, you're only thinking about that label in the back of your jumper,
aren't you? Or the seam in your socks or whatever it is. So it's about thinking beyond whole school
and thinking about that individual and ultimately thinking about what's the main goal here. We're a
school, we're here to educate and for children to learn and feel safe and to learn. It is not a
conform place. It's not a place to learn how to behave and conform. It is about learning and
thriving, isn't it? And I feel like it's really important to remember that day to day when we're
having these kind of conversations, isn't it? Yeah, that regulation has to come first before
learning happens. That's as simple as that. Yeah, I completely agree and I'll die on that hill
until you will as well. Thank you so much for joining me this evening, Simon. This has been
such a joy. I knew it would be and we've covered a lot of things, re-inclusion and things. And I
think with all my guests, I try and take something from this into the next week for my own practice
as I'm speaking to such experts every week. And I think for me, it's that reminder that actually
there is a lot to gain from learning more about early years that we can take into our practice
and using those fundamental pillars from early years through play and communication,
these personal, social skills and physical is a really great starting point. And I'm going to
take that into my practice this week and kind of use that with my team. So thank you for that.
There's no coincidence why it's called the Early Years Foundation State. It provides the
foundation for children in their school life. It's simple as that. Yeah, that's right. Yeah,
it's exactly right. And I think it's a really good reminder to keep coming back to that and not
forget what's happened in the foundation because it's there for a reason. And it's actually a
really brilliant curriculum, isn't it? It allows you a lot of flexibility. And if you follow
particularly the Birth to Five Matters curriculum, that one for me is my preferred one. It contains
so much other stuff to do it as well related to inclusion, related to lots of other things.
Definitely recommend have a look at Birth to Five Matters. Amazing. I'll get on that. Thank you so
much, Simon. Thank you so much. And I hope you have a lovely weekend. Thanks, Jordan. Thank you.