Kelly

My specialist experience developing trusting and meaningful relationships with students with SEN and Autism: When processing information takes students longer than average a crucial role of the teacher is to provide patience and ongoing support. As a teacher with rich experience working with students with processing delays, I am naturally a nurturing and supportive when it comes to scaffolding learning. I am empathetic and always have time to listen to my students concerns providing a reliable and solid person for them to interact with. Routine and regular daily events are key supporting students with special needs and autism and I make a point to keep to planned structures while assisting understanding of change. Being a naturally friendly and sensitive person, I enjoy building these relationships of trust and reassuring my student that my support is unconditional, and I endeavour to celebrate every success regardless of size. Celebrating success of each individual student demonstrates to a learner that I am willing to support their learning journey and take the time and care they need to progress to their next stage in learning. A smile goes a long way and my warm nature is key in building long lasting relationships. My resilience allows me to pursue strong relationships and I am keen to work with my students through any challenges they may face.

My specialist experience working with students with Autism: During my teaching career to date I have developed extensive skills working with students with Autism. This has ranged from providing specialist support in a formal classroom environment to leading and running a complete home-school environment. I have worked with students to develop their social interaction using social stories programmes and co-ordinated with ABA therapists to ensure our academic learning has been complemented by ABA behavioural techniques. My teaching experience has allowed me to develop clear communication techniques and this forms the basis of good relationships with my students. During a particular home school assignment, I enabled my student to access the curriculum using a range of kinaesthetic learning tools and we worked on building confidence with new ideas whilst reviewing regularly past work. I have used PECs with students to assist their understanding of the world around them and also ensure we use a range of regular established routines to help comprehension of social and academic skills. I ensure my lessons with students are paced correctly to reflect the needs of the learner and enjoy using a range of different tools such as ICT and practical hands on examples of abstract concepts to support my students with Autism.

My experience working with children with SPD: When working with students who have Auditory and Sensory Processing needs I have a toolbox of techniques that ensure lessons are fruitful and productive. From ensuring the appropriate location with no distractions, to using a range of visual stimuli for sessions, I create a calm learning environment. A patient approach to teaching is required and my sessions are clearly organised with regular repetition of concepts and check-up questions to ensure each task is understood. Using recognisable routines and having clear transitions supports my teaching and builds up confidence in my students’ learning journey. Using a mixture of resources during a session is crucial and this allows my learners to have the confidence to challenge themselves in the classroom. Personalising techniques for each and every student, I ensure my sessions cater for every learning style and building strong, trust filled relationships enables my learner to feel secure in their development.

My experience teaching children with language difficulties including expressive and receptive language ; When working with students who have language difficulties or are non-verbal I have used a variety of techniques to communicate with my learner. This might be reading signs of body language or using visual prompts and pictures to share ideas together. Programmes such as Communicate in Print assist communication and help build a learning environment. Responding to a student’s needs and prompts requires my lessons to be reactive and I am flexible in my approach to enable learning. I ensure my conversation is clear and pay attention to the response of my student to assess whether an activity is successful or needs adjusting. When assisting students with difficulties with expressive and receptive language we work together to find effect channels of communication. Whether this is repetition of a set of instructions or using clear visual timetables, a number of adaptations can be made to the delivery and content of my lessons to allow skills to be developed at my student’s pace.

My experience planning and delivering fun enjoyable sessions: Having worked as a one to one tutor for over 15 years, I have developed a range of interactive and stimulating activities that build a passion for learning for my students. I am creative and enjoy linking a mixture of resources to plan both short and longer topic based sessions. The relationship between tutor and student is crucial to ensure sessions are engaging and I really work with my learners to use their own personal interests to develop and plan my sessions. For example, a student with a passion for Lego, created a workshop to look at area and perimeter calculations based on the size of their models. Taking part in physical activities such as scavenger hunts and creating board games really involves my students and they often comment on how much fun they have had during our session. Communication skills can be studied by creating radio shows and working towards audio visual presentations that can be celebrated by the student and their family. In the current shift to online learning, my creative skills have been challenged to find new ways to ensure my sessions are engaging when learning virtually. Particular success stories have included allowing the student to produce learning fact sheets using images and codes, building online quizzes together and creating interviews based upon web based learning programmes. My experience has taught me the key to engage and stimulate a student is to be passionate and positive about my own learning journey and share the learning challenges alongside the learner.

My skills and experience boosting students’ self-esteem and confidence: In my teaching experience, positive reinforcement has proven key to unlock a student's confidence and ensure they are best placed to be happy and succeed at school. I celebrate every achievement with encouraging words and rewards. I feel my approachable nature means my student are happy to ask me questions when they face difficulties. My approach is to ensure children reflect upon their process as a crucial part of the learning process and set their own goals in addition to their teachers. My experience has taught me that having high yet achievable expectations for my students raises their confidence in their abilities.

My skills and experience working with students to develop their independence: My sessions are designed to promote independence in my learners. I make use of research based activities to ensure from the start students are investigating the topics we study and experience the process of learning from questioning to investigation. I model to my students how to plan out a schedule using visual tools such as a wall calendar and visual timetable. Giving a student ownership of their learning from a young age and developing their curiosity with interactive lessons ensures my pupils are keen to learn and know how to challenge themselves. I use a reward system to encourage independence in daily tasks for younger learners so they are in charge of their learning resources and know how to support the organisation of the classroom environment. Celebrating success in both academic and everyday achievement allows my students to become independent learners and individuals.

My skills and experience working with students with complex needs: When working with students with complex needs, I always ensure I am well informed of my student’s particular needs by liaising with professionals such as SLTs, OTs and of course the students family. Once I am fully informed of the physical, emotional, cognitive and academic needs of my student, I prepare sessions to support and facilitate the best possible learning outcome for each student. I have worked in a classroom and tuition settings with students who have varied and complex needs and I have happily been able to provide a stimulating learning environment tailored to physical and cognitive requirements. I am extremely patient and enjoy planning learning activities that will enhance and contribute to a learning journey. Working alongside students who have complex needs has been a key component of my SEN tuition experience and I am always ready to plan and design a curriculum that best suits my learner.

My experience teaching English including reading and phonics: I have been teaching English as a class teacher up to KS4 level and have a strong grasp of the current National Curriculum requirements. I have twice worked as an examiner for the KS2 English Sats and keep up to date with recent literacy teaching methods. I enjoy working on a range of basic skills such as phonics, print making and developing a love of reading within my students. I have a range of resources to develop free writing skills, considering grammar and spelling and am particularly skilled working with reluctant writers to enhance their written work skills. When working upon story writing, I use visual prompts to allow my student to develop a creative world in their mind and assist the story writing process. We work together to build up characters and settings and I use images, virtual learning clips and other tools to scaffold the process from thoughts to the written word.

Reading is a core skill and I enjoy planning interactive sessions that develop my students’ confidence to tackle new texts and be able to engage with the subject matter at hand. Of particular interest to me is working with students to support their written work when faced with additional learning needs. Practical examples of writing and how they can be used in everyday life really stimulate my students and enhance their enjoyment of English learning. For example, writing instructions which they can then follow in a practical activity is a really interactive and fun way to engage a reluctant writer. I am knowledgeable with a number of different phonics programmes and can utilise a range of physical and written resources to teach phonetic recognition and blending skills. A wide range of resources such as songs, rhymes and poetry can be used to introduce reading and develop phonetic knowledge.

My experience teaching Maths: Teaching maths in the classroom and as a one to one tutor I have developed the skills to break down topics and present them in a clear and concise manner. Focusing on the fundamentals such as times tables and basic operational methods for addition and subtraction, I believe it is vital to ensure the basic skills are in place to build upon when advancing through the key subjects. Patience is vital at this early stage and regular repetition and interactive activities bringing numbers alive are part of my tools when teaching. As with most subjects, understanding the practical side of maths is key to understanding and as well as traditional text book methods, I enjoy setting up practical situations for students to explore maths concepts. These could include measuring items, working out the weight of items using scales and as further concepts develop, finding areas of different shapes through using squared paper to draw out shapes. Maths is a subject that often scares students and being a positive support during my students’ journey in this topic is vital to ensure they have the confidence and support to work through the necessary concepts. Work as a mathematics examiner has allowed me to understand the necessary skills and teaching approaches to allow students to explore the world of mathematics in more detail.

My experience teaching functional and life skills: I have worked with a number of students to work upon functional and life skills. Key to my approach is to use real world scenarios to practise core skills. From using money to go shopping and chose the most appropriate item for the job or creating a shopping list we work together to learn these basic life skills. With older students, we build a list of skills that we wish to approach together and I will guide my student with suggestions about different activities they might like to complete. Recently a student and I worked together to cook a complete meal and she took great pride in presenting the results to her family after she had worked through the process of creating a shopping list, buying and budgeting for ingredients and then the practical cooking process. Celebrating these successes are vital to ensure progress is sustained and I believe in constant positive reinforcement.