From my first year as a qualified teacher, my mentor said I would work with children with SEND in a more specialist capacity. I have always loved teaching children with additional needs, long before I became a SENDCo/ Inclusion Manager. I have my own first-hand experiences of struggling with additional needs at school and I know the difference that high quality support and provision can make. I have taught for 15 years across a range of inner-city London schools with a wide range of SEND. Before becoming a SENDCo, I worked as an intervention teacher for several years and was able to really dive deep into the process of learning for each of the children I worked with and establish strong and positive relationships with them. I then moved onto working as a SENDCo/ Inclusion Manager for two London schools and spent a significant chunk of time building and developing a SEND Unit alongside the mainstream school. This has undoubtedly been one of the most rewarding aspects of my career so far and has been an education in and of itself. I have seen time and again what a difference it can make to a child’s life to have a skilled practitioner who is willing to go the extra mile because they believe in the child and their innate potential – no matter the barrier. I want all children I work with to feel valued, safe, and confident. I strive to support them in developing their own sense of self and in finding out who they are and what special skills, abilities, traits, viewpoints, and insights they have to bring to the world around them. I want every child to know their importance and value.
My specialist experience working with young people with SEN to develop trusting and meaningful and provide engaging sessions that inspire a love of learning and boost self-esteem and confidence:
I have seen time and again through my own practice and that of the teams of professionals I have managed, that the starting place of all good learning for children with SEND comes from prioritising and building a trusting relationship between the child and the practitioner. Without this, no matter how good the teaching, lesson plans, resources or theory, meaningful progress is difficult to achieve.
My approach is flexible, and I take time to really get to know the whole child that I am working with; their interests and hobbies, factors that might create anxiety or upset, the important people in their life, the way they communicate, and so on. When I have worked with children with Autism, for example, who are either non-verbal/ non-vocal or have very limited speech and language, I have always prioritised finding myriad ways to support the child in communicating their needs to me – whether that be through non-verbal means/ Makaton/ communication boards/ visuals / key words or any other useful approach. This is an extremely important part of building a positive and trusting relationship where the child can feel safe and seen.
Knowing the activities and special interests a child may have can really support my work with them and I will always make the effort to build these into our sessions. For example, when working with a child with ADHD and high anxiety, he would only respond to lessons that were themed around Sonic the Hedgehog and so we tailored all our resources and lesson plans to include this as well as building this into reward time to motivate him to engage with subjects that he found challenging. Another child with Autism, had a special interest in tiny objects and toys, so I used a vintage Polly Pocket collection (with very close supervision, of course), to support speech and language sessions. I have many other such examples and find that using special interests to stimulate learning can be very useful.
Starting from a place of success is also something I try to do with all aspects of learning. This means starting with a task or activity that I know the child can do well and is familiar with before introducing something new. I want for the children I am working with to build resilience and confidence and feel safe before attempting something they might perceive as challenging or tricky.
I believe that so much of how we learn is informed by our self-image and the perception of oneself as a learner. As much as I want children to learn and progress in academic subjects, I strongly believe that they must have an underpinning and understanding of their strengths and how these can support them. I invest a lot of time in celebrating with and mirroring/ reflecting to children the strengths I see in them. I use all opportunities I can to build a child’s awareness of their strengths and use this as a building block to greater confidence and positive self-image.
My experience teaching children with Dyslexia/ Dyspraxia and working memory difficulties:
I have a wide range of experience teaching children with dyslexia and dyspraxia. I work from a place of establishing trust and building confidence in the pupil in the first instance. It has unfortunately often been the case that the fun and joy of learning has been overshadowed for a child with dyslexia or dyspraxia due to the way in which a subject has been taught. This can create a lot of limiting beliefs in a child that need to be compassionately challenged, understood and worked through. My aim is to take the fear out of learning and instead to create an environment of safety, where a child can build resilience and learn meta-cognitive skills to support them when learning new and tricky concepts. I want children to know what to do when they feel stuck and to have the tools to work through the problem.
I am also trained in several interventions with a solid research base to show positive outcomes for dyslexia, including a Precision teaching approach in schemes such as Alpha2Omega, ToebyToe, Rapid Naming (my personal favourite), Plus1 and Power of 2, to name a few.
Difficulties with working memory can be prevalent among learners with dyslexia and dyspraxia so providing strategies and study skills to support this often form part of my teaching approach. Helping a child to note-take, summarise and record key information is often part of this process. I am also careful not to overload a child’s ‘memory shelf’ with too much information when teaching new concepts or giving instructions and I make explicit the key information they need to take note of.
My experience teaching children with ADHD:
As a practitioner working with children with ADHD, it is important to understand the differences that can be apparent between male and female presentations. Understanding a child’s experience of anxiety and nervous system dysregulation is also key. Before any effective learning can take place, we need to be and feel regulated and for everyone that looks different. Some children I work with require a great deal of physical activity, such as sensory circuits or simple ball games, before starting a task. Others might need strategies that support calming, for example, drawing, mindfulness meditation, use of sensory objects or perhaps a simple chat with a trusted adult. Further to this, equipping children with emotional literacy skills; identifying how you are feeling and what you need, is a core part of the way I teach. I weave these skills into and through my sessions. I also think carefully about the way I structure tasks for learners with ADHD. This might mean we flit between two or three different tasks at any one time, or we work for short periods of time with frequent breaks in between. I also spend time on supporting the child in learning how to learn. Study and organisational skills are central to reducing overwhelm for a child with ADHD and giving them a clear path forwards for how to start and complete a task.
My experience working with pupils with social, emotional, and mental health difficulties, including anxiety:
There is perhaps no clearer area of need where the importance of first developing a solid relationship / attachment with a child is more apparent than in working with children with SEMH needs. There is often, though not always, an overlap and comorbidity of need for these children which requires a holistic mindset and approach. When working with a child with SEMH needs, I will first take time to understand the child’s attachment style, possible trauma history, specific learning difficulties (if present), potential sensory processing issues, sleeping, eating and screen-time patterns, amongst other things, before trying to establish the best way to work with a child.
One of the children I have most recently worked with has a diagnosis of PDA and his sensory processing issues were contributing greatly to the emotional dysregulation and anxiety we saw throughout the day. Working closely with the OT was very beneficial in helping to establish routines, such as “heavy work” and the creation of various sensory circuits to support his nervous system. Another child I recently worked with required a lot of support in emotional regulation and developing a more positive self-image. The use of Zones of Regulation to support first labelling emotions and then making use of a range of strategies supported the journey towards emotional regulation. Further to this, the child expressed an interest in Music. I, therefore, planned in short singing and piano lessons at the end of a learning session. These provided not only an incentive for learning but a jumping off place to build confidence through something fun and engaging.
When working with children with high levels of anxiety, I try hard to build in consistent routines and support the child to understand the structure of the day and each session, as best as possible, through use of visual supports and simple language, especially when there are co-existing language difficulties. I always aim to prepare a child for any changes to reduce anxiety and I like to use tools such as social stories to support this so that a child can refer to these when I am not with them, for reassurance. If a child is dysregulated, the academic learning needs to be put on hold and supporting emotional regulation becomes the priority. This might include deep pressure massage or activities, such as a weighted blanket, sensory breaks, music, story-time or any activity that the child responds to positively. It is important as a practitioner to remain curious and committed to developing a toolkit for the child to use in times of high distress or anxiety. I spent a great deal of time as SENDCo supporting teachers to build regulation toolkits for specific children with SEND in their classrooms and wherever appropriate and possible, training the child to access this independently.
I believe strongly in the importance of language as a tool to diffuse or indeed escalate dysregulation and have also been trained in a range of approaches to use with children, including restorative conversations and non-violent communication. Children with SEMH needs have sadly and all too often, experienced the label of being “naughty.” They have, at times, been blamed, shamed and misunderstood by a system that struggles to cope with children that perhaps learn and see the world differently. As a trusted adult, I see my job as creating a safe space for a child, with boundaries and parameters. I am very serious about modelling emotional regulation through my own words and actions when working with a child.
My experience with teaching children with speech, language, and communication needs:
As part of my NASENCo qualification, I became very interested in understanding more about Developmental Language Disorder and speech, language and communication difficulties given the prevalence of this need. I have researched the subject in depth and practically speaking have worked with a wide range of children across all key stages of Primary School and EYFS, as well as developed programmes to improve children’s communication skills. I launched a whole-school project on Oracy that ran over a two-year period, using the work of Voice21 and School 21. The purpose of this work was to upskill the teachers and improve their teaching of communication skills. I successfully implemented a wide variety of strategies, games, programmes, and interventions from EYFS to Year 6.
As a teacher, I like to make my teaching as visual as possible, using objects of reference, props, pictures, images, gestures, actions, and some Makaton. I enjoy tailoring the visual aids and supports for each child and making resources such as, communication boards, Now and Next charts, visual timetables and so on. Anything that will support the child’s understanding of the concepts we are working on…
I am also fond of using Colourful Semantics as a programme to support language development in a very structured and sequenced way and have had very good results with using this across a range of age groups.
My skills and experience supporting young people to develop their independence:
My aim as a practitioner should always be to enable the child I am working with to become as independent of my support as possible and as appropriate. Building independence can take a wide range of forms, from putting on a coat or finding a pencil to start a task, using the toilet independently, using a knife and fork or being able to complete a Maths problem or write a word or sentence without teacher input. These are of course, just a few examples. Depending on the child’s needs will of course, depend on the areas of independence that need to be focussed on and developed. I have a wide range of experience in supporting children’s independence in both functional and academic skills. I take a patient, kind and fun approach and believe in starting from where the child is at and working closely with parents and professionals so that we are all consistent in our approach for the child. This can mean breaking the goal down into very small chunks. However many steps we need to break a task down into, we celebrate every achievement and moment of progress.
In working with a child with Autism, she had an intense fear of the toilets at school and would become very distressed if asked to use them. It took two years and a variety of methods before she was able to successfully and independently use the school toilets. During this time, it was important for us to really break the ultimate goal down, starting from a place that would not completely overwhelm her. We began by reading books about toilets and showing pictures of her favourite characters using the toilet to build her tolerance of the distress that this topic created within her. Through a slow and methodical step by step approach and a lot of trial and improvement, we were able to reach the final goal. This really took a commitment and persistence in approaching the situation in a range of ways.
My experience working with executive functioning difficulties and teaching study skills:
In my fifth year of teaching, I was fortunate enough to attend a course on a meta-cognitive approach to learning, called Instrumental Enrichment (IE). The purpose of the programme is to equip children with a range of learning and study skills that they can generalise and apply to all areas of their learning. It was a very intensive course that radically changed the way I viewed teaching and learning and ultimately the way I taught children. I hold certification for Level 1 IE training, and this enables me to work through a range of instruments with children to build learning skills, such as:
- Working systematically
- Categorising and comparing
- Planning
- Organising, ordering, and sequencing information
- Reducing impulsivity and developing precision and accuracy
- Logical and inferential thinking
- Being able to use more than one idea at a time
- Hypothetical thinking
- Effective checking of answers and work
- Developing resilience
All too often, our education system seeks to overload the curriculum with content rather than teach children HOW to learn. Children with SEND can experience a high level of overwhelm due to the cognitive load that accompanies a constant stream of information. There is a need to first equip a child with the skills they need to be an effective learner and once these are established, the overwhelm and anxiety can be reduced, and deep learning can take place. The underpinnings and principles of the IE approach are often fundamental to the general way in which I teach.
My experience teaching Literacy:
Equipping children with the essential Literacy skills for Reading and Writing and fostering a love of stories and storytelling is one of my great passions. I draw from a range of materials and interventions, including the work of Alan Peat and Pie Corbett. For children with specific Literacy difficulties, I have had great success in using programmes like Alpha2Omega, Toe by Toe, Precision Teaching, Echo Reading and Rapid Naming, amongst others. I am an adept and confident teacher of phonics, but I do see a need, often, for children with SEND, to use supplementary programmes and methods as the phonics approach can be limited in impact, depending on the needs of the child. Thus, flexibility is important! I am always looking for new ways to engage children in Literacy activities. Confidence building is key to this before any meaningful learning can take place and gently challenging a child’s notion of themselves as a Reader and Writer. I have first-hand experience of struggling throughout my Primary and Secondary schooling with Literacy and know the joy that can be found in discovering a passion for something that previously felt like a block!
My experience teaching Maths:
Depending on a child’s previous experience of Maths teaching, it can be a subject that creates real confidence blocks and a negative inner dialogue, which, if left unsupported, can be difficult to unpick and work past later. It is important to me, therefore, that before any learning can begin, the child I am working with feels safe to make mistakes and have a go and that they understand the process of learning can be messy and messy can be fun! I love making Maths sessions playful, engaging, and practical. It is very important that children with SEND have a real-life context to place their Maths skills in – whether that be measuring through baking cookies or teaching about 2D and 3D shapes through artwork, for example. I use a range of approaches and interventions, some structured, for example, Plus1, Power of Two, The Number Box, Precision Teaching, and others that are more flexible in nature. It very much depends on the needs of the child I am supporting. All of my teaching involves heavy use of concrete manipulatives and visual supports, and I use a lot of the principles from the Singapore Maths programme, particularly moving from the concrete à pictorial à abstract when introducing and teaching new concepts.
My experience advocating for children with SEND:
I am and have been a very passionate advocate for both parents and children with SEND. In my time as SENDCo, I gave a significant amount of time to lobbying our local MP and trying to raise awareness about the growing SEND crises and the lack of resources and provision afforded to the children who need it most. I developed some very strong relationships with parents of children with SEND – some of whom stayed connected several years after leaving our school to seek advice from me and ask for my support in advocating for their child to the new Local Authority. I have also sat on panel to determine EHCP application requests. As one of the designated Safeguarding Leads for my school, I have also worked with many parents of children with SEND to raise awareness around the services they could access that might be of help in supporting their child’s development. I have been proud to support parents through the appeals process, resulting in securing specialist school provision for a number of children on my caseload as SENDCo.
