Zoe

After completing my degree in Primary Education, I embarked on a specialist placement working with children with SEND. It was during this time that discovered my passion for teaching pupils with additional needs and knew this was something I would always want to pursue. Following my passions, I was appointed the school SENCo soon after completing my master’s degree in Education with specialism in SEN. I have spent the last 7 years working across the primary phase in mainstream setting with high proportion of SEND. I have extensive knowledge of the primary curriculum and have been privileged to teach children with a great range of special educational needs during this time.

My specialist experience teaching children with speech and language needs: Spending the majority of my teaching career working in KS1, I have lots of experience implementing speech and language interventions. I have experience delivering interventions for children who have difficulties with certain speech sounds and using a range of strategies to work on using the speech sounds at the beginning, middle and end of words over a gradual process. For children with language needs, I am able to adapt the learning environment to use minimal spoken language and employ the use of visual and practical tools to support the children’s understanding of language instruction. I am able to devise activities that promote children’s listening skills, so they are able to be in a better position to develop their understanding of language. I am experienced in supporting children in developing both their receptive and expressive language skills in order to build both understanding of how people use language and how the child can use a wider range of language themselves. I am very experienced in developing children’s oral language  skills too. As part of the completion my Master’s degree, I was tasked with creating and devising a successful intervention for children with SEND based upon their oracy skills. Over a period of 8 weeks, I was able to develop the children’s ability to recognise and retell stories using familiar story language, enhance sequencing skills, improve language comprehension, their ability to verbally construct cohesive sentences, innovate and share their own ideas, develop their listening skills and enhance their ability to bring their own voice into the learning environment. 

My specialist experience teaching children with ADD/ADHD: When approaching working with children and young people with ADHD, I believe it is really important to take the time to understand the things they find most difficult, and what things they already know are helpful to them. Some children may not be able to verbalise this, but through using visual and physical tools, understanding of body language and sensory reactions, as well as taking time to speak with trusted parents and carers, I am able to build a sensory diet that helps the child to engage in the activities I have devised. When working with children with ADHD, I have found it beneficial to begin session with an active element,

Sometimes I have found that children with ADHD can have quite low esteem as sometime they have been made to feel like they cannot achieve. I am really passionate about children knowing their own personal superpowers and how the different ways that we all learn are so important and beneficial to everyone! It can be really helpful to build activities around the child’s own interests and talents so they they can showcase their skills and knowledge across many different topics and key areas of learning. I will build children up within the learning environment and create a setting which allows them to thrive and show just how much they can do.

Devising sessions for children with ADHD will be structured so that children feel safe and secure in the learning environment. Having minimal changes will reduce distraction and enable the children to focus as they will know what is next. Tasks will be broken down into achievable chunks, with breaks in between to keep sessions pacey and productive.

Is is also important to devise activities and create and environment that builds working memory. To help this, I create a consistent environment and routine that will remove the load placed on the child to remember things which would be part of their routine within the learning session. Sometimes. children with ADHD find it difficult to remember lots of new information so devising activities which stimulate the working memory, such as puzzles and games, or ensuring there is a multisensory element to learning, e.g. through a physical activity will help with this.

My specialist experience teaching children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Sensory needs: I am highly experienced with working with children with ASD and have been lucky enough to work with many pupils with a diagnosis or presenting needs related to autism. I have great understanding of how to make adjustments to the working environment in order to promote consistency, structure and reduce anxiety. I create personalised programme for children which is suited to their own interests and bespoke to each individual child. I am able to adapt the delivery of teaching and learning though different communication mediums, using signing and visuals when required. I am able to work elements of a sensory diet into learning activities and devise active learning opportunities through many different mediums. 

It is so important that children with such needs may be prepared for different transitions and changes, this can be detailed to the incremental now/next/then steps that could be required of them during an hour session, or an overview timetable of their day. It is important that children are provided with visuals to support activities or as communication tools. Choice is also a huge aspect of working with pupils with additional needs in order to provide children with ownership and autonomy over their own education. The use of visuals to support timetabling, instructions, social stories, choice and communication from both teacher and child are invaluable

My specialist experience teaching children with Down’s Syndrome: I adore working with pupils with Down’s Syndrome and have taught many amazing students during my time in the classroom. I ensure that I create a structured environment tailored towards the interests of the child, which also includes an element of choice and high rewards. I understand that pupils with Down’s Syndrome need time to process language and adapt instruction and activities to reduce the cognitive load placed upon the child. Delivering new concepts in a range of different ways to ensure effective, yet exciting, repetition of the learning goal is delivered in a range of ways to commit new understanding to memory. Working 1:1 for long periods of time can be quite intense and tiring for some children, so I understand the importance of working in lots of little breaks, that are not just focused on learning tasks, but bring an element of fun too! These breaks, though not solely focused on academic development, can be really beneficial in building social skills. 

My specialist experience teaching children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health  (SEMH) and behavioural needs: I have experience working with children with additional SEMH needs. I understand the importance of positive management of more challenging behaviours, such as the utilisation of emotion coaching, creating 5 point scales, working on the development of emotional literacy, the understanding and the consideration from the impact of ACES’s, creating trusting relationships with the young person and their families, and leading with trauma informed practice are paramount in supporting a child who may not be able to regulate independently. I understand that it is so important to build trust and the time that it takes to build those relationships, and take advice from parents and carers who know the child best. I The voice of the child is also paramount in taking small steps forwards if they are suffering from anxiety around engaging in learning to support them to take the first step towards seeing engagement in a positive way.

I see behaviour as way of communication, and always do my best to try to understand what the child or young person may be wanting to say to me through the behaviours they are exhibiting. I endeavour to understand what they may be trying to say they actually need help with. It is really important that children with SEMH and behaviour needs feel safe around the adults who are supporting them, and the environment in which this support is being carried out. In order to achieve this, children and young people need to know what is expected of them and I aim to work in collaboration with the young person to set those boundaries. Physical resources such as drawing tools, sand, fidgets, Lego can be really useful to bring into sessions with the young person in order to support them in remaining emotionally regulated and provide an outlet for stress. Sometimes young people are unable to express how they are feeling, and a technique I have much experience using, alongside emotion coaching, is a ‘wondering aloud’ approach, where I am able to put some suggestions to the child, and reducing the cognitive load placed upon them where they may be in a heightened state, in order to help them feel validated and begin the process to becoming regulated again.

My specialist experience teaching Early Reading and Writing: I am an experienced KS1 teacher who regularly employed the use of the early years curriculum to plan and deliver early reading and writing lessons for my students who were working to those cornerstone targets. I am a knowledgeable in the delivery of systematic synthetic phonics and using pure sounds. When children find phonological awareness difficult, it can be challenging for them to distinguish between the letter shapes or patterns they are learning to the sounds the letters are making. Children may find it difficult to break words down in sound chunks to then be able to blend the sounds together for reading. To develop phonological awareness, there are many fun and practical activities and resources that can be used to develop children’s ability to recognise syllables, rhyme and sound patterns.

Some children may however benefit from a precision or sight reading approach. Precision teaching is a really visual method to develop children’s reading skills by employing a range of strategies to remember the word by sight, as opposed to sounding them out. Many children will use sight reading approaches for tricky words, but it can be used a reading strategy for children who have struggled with phonics. Developing sight reading can be carried through many different practical tasks to internalise the shapes of words and patterns of the letters next to one another. The teaching of sight words can be delivered through many hands on, physical and sensory experiences to appeal to the strengths and preferences of your child.

When working to develop early writing skills, the development of motor skills are paramount to this. Developing fine and gross motor skills and building the important strengths and muscle memory needed to create letter shapes. Building these skills will help children to develop the essential building blocks to early writing such as hand-eye coordination, visual perception, become more familiar with their dominant hand, upper body strength needed to control arm and hand movements, manipulation skills and strength in their hand and fingers building up to pencil grip. This can be delivered through so many practical and multisensory mediums from threading, to playdough, to painting and skipping. Developing these skills can really be a very playful and enjoyable introduction to early writing.

My specialist experience teaching Early Maths: as previously mentioned, I have taught in KS1 for 4 years, but have continued to work with pupils who are developing their early Maths skills throughout my whole teaching career. To develop early mathematical understanding, children need exposure to many stimulating and physical representations of number that appeals to the senses. Early understanding of number comes from a range of practical,  concrete experiences where children are able to access manipulatives for their own exploration. The development of early maths skills are so important to enable children to be able spot patterns, shapes, make choices and solve problems. Becoming an active explorer in a resource rich environment is key the development of these skills. Developing Maths skills is more than just being able to count or recognise shapes, but there are so many tricky concepts that children need practical support with developing such as, more and less, heavy and light, or full and empty. Creating stimulating and hands-on activities with a range of concrete resources, supporting visuals, songs and rhymes, and multisensory opportunities will enable children with early Maths difficulties to make good progress. In order to secure mathematical concepts and skills, such as counting and 1:1 correspondence, you very often have to repeat the same learning outcome, delivered in many different ways, The amazing thing about teaching children early Maths skills is that there are so many fun, exciting, resources and approaches that are appealing to children’s senses which can be utilised to do this successfully.