Recently I attended a conference to learn more about literacy/SEND and EAL. The EMTAS (Ethnic Minority Traveller Achievement Service) secondary conference run by Hampshire LA is a service going from strength to strength. It’s bitter sweet for me coming from Dorset where I witnessed the EMTAS service close down, redundancies paid out and experience and …
For those who cannot use it [literacy] are excluded from much communication in today’s world. Indeed, it is the excluded who can best appreciate the notion of ‘literacy as freedom’ UNESCO – Literacy Decade This was my message today to headteachers of special schools at the @swalls_uk leaders two day conference. But what is …
Students with ADHD can not only struggle to self-regulate, they can also experience heightened feelings of anxiety, joy, fear, worry – every emotion really but sometimes in a more exaggerated form. Combine this with impulsivity, another trait of ADHD and there is a real risk of experiencing failure in school and a break down in …
It was a pleasure to give the keynote on The Inclusive Classroom at Cardiff and Vale College this week. The day was organised by James Donaldson, Head of additional learning needs and wellbeing for the college. After a phone call, we discussed what I should include in my talk and I thought about it in …
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Episode 3 where Jarlath O’Brien, Professor Graham and Dr Gillett-Swan discuss inclusion.
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The Inclusive Classroom is a podcast exploring inclusion. The first series is 4 episodes on Biesta’s values-based education. Jules Daulby interviews, Jarlath O’Brien an expert in SEND and behaviour, Professor Linda Graham who leads research projects on inclusion at Queensland University and Dr Jenna Gillett-Swan, a senior lecturer and researcher also at Queensland University.
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Here I speak to Jarlath O’Brien, Professor Graham and Dr Gillett-Swan about inclusion, behaviour and value-based education.
The humble mini whiteboard has been popping up all over the place recently: on my twitter timeline, in conversations with teachers and most recently in research. It’s as if she is poking me in the back, ‘Oi, you forget me, I am undervalued and overused, give me some credit and attention’. OK Ms Mini whiteboard, …
Adverts recruiting prison guards to control behaviour in schools has a similar whiff of the old troops to teachers campaign a few years ago. The idea that a regimented, strict and controlling approach for children is what schools require is beginning to become mainstream. The underlying message here suggests our schools are out of control, …
A tale for NQTs It was 1997 and I was a young, enthusiastic English teacher. I was teaching my mixed ability, year 10 GCSE class and was in my second term. As was usual at the beginning of my lesson, I was collecting in homework. Rob told me that he hadn’t done it and I …