Child-led learning for a student with a brain injury

What Was The Young Person's Story?

The student was referred to SENsational Tutors at the age of twelve for weekly private tuition in English and maths. The tutor, Jane, was advised that the young man had suffered a bleed on his brain at the age of three and since then had been under the care of GOSH. Their prediction was that it would take approximately eight years until his education could re-start, which turned out to be an incredibly accurate estimate.

Jane realised that tuition would need to be very gentle and not only child-centred but somewhat child-led, especially to start with. She recognised that it would take time for the student to develop trust and that she would need to ‘think on her feet’, getting a feel for the rhythm of his learning pace and adapt activities as she went along.

Lessons were to take place online in a ‘hands on’ style – keeping to thirty minutes so as not to overwhelm or tire the child – and focusing on reading, speaking, listening, writing, drawing and maths as well as building confidence and independent learning.

The young man’s mum was highly instrumental during this initial process and has been ever since as the tutor has continued to learn more about him and adapt activities accordingly.

How Our SEN Tutor Made A Difference:

Jane has found the student to be engaging and interactive, extremely polite, well-presented and despite some shyness at first, he has always displayed a huge zest for conversation and learning. Initially he was understandably a little introverted at first and his concentration-span seemed to last about twenty minutes. As time has gone by, Jane and the student’s mum decided it would be helpful to incorporate toys such as Lego into lessons.

It also became clear early on that the vocabulary used in lessons needed to be ‘stripped back’. Since then, lessons have featured colourful images of the ‘character of the week’, along with associated words (up to about ten) in bright, large, coloured font. Jane would show the boy the matching words and discuss the images and then present a word on the screen. Words would be revealed slowly, sound by sound, so that the student could absorb the concept of learning phonemes, then graphemes and then the early stages of blending.

What Was The Impact:

Now, nearly a year on, the student is in Year 1, aged thirteen, and is thriving. Sessions are still 30 minutes in duration as the student becomes tired after concentrating all day at school.

He has become more confident over the year and continues to be a joy to work with. He no longer needs his mum to be close to him in lessons, although she is still nearby. Play makes up 80% of most lessons. Cuddly toy ‘Teddy’ is a constant presence who often needs the young man to explain the learning to him! Seeing Teddy make mistakes, the student has become less anxious about getting things ‘wrong’.

The boy’s literacy, reading and vocabulary has improved using tailor-made stories with high-frequency words and simple verbs. In maths, he is flourishing, and enjoys tackling many topics including times tables, counting, shapes and number bonds.