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Supporting Neurodivergent Children with ADHD, Dyslexia or Autism Returning to School After the Summer I’m a parent of a child who learns differently. I’m the teacher of many children who learn differently. We are champions and cheerleaders. We celebrate the successes with real joy and listen to the challenges with a heavy heart. Most of all, we are advocates. We stop at nothing to draw attention again and again to ways the school can help our unique learner succeed. This has

Most teachers begin their school year expecting to reteach a certain amount of material from the end of the previous year. Spirits run high in the last weeks of school, teachers are writing reports, the sun is shining and on the whole, no one really has their head in the game. Throw in a play, a concert, a party or two and it makes sense that September is dedicated to settling in your new class and re-establishing the baseline from which you hope to teach. One of the notable

"...what teachers really teach is themselves — their contagious passion for their subjects and students. It reminded us that children learn from people they love, and that love in this context means willing the good of another, and offering active care for the whole person." David Brooks Isn’t that beautiful? As my teaching practice has matured, so have my students: what began as a career as a primary school specialist has necessarily evolved into secondary school specialism

Dear Gus Walz, You know what I really like about you?Your love is so big it got the world talking. Respect,Julianne It’s a bold move starting a doctorate at 59 & 11/12ths. I have a full private practice earned in 50-minute hours, shaped by the repetition of vowel digraphs, writing frames and Lady Macbeth. For any woman who has found herself late in life suddenly in need of financial independence, it can seem profoundly counterintuitive to halve your business. My business i

Why Rising ADHD and Autism Diagnoses May Be Good News for Neurodivergent Children in Mainstream School When I began private practice, after decades within educational institutions, the concept of neurodiversity was just gaining traction. Initially conceived by the autistic community, the idea that non-normative cognitive expression - neurodivergence - could (and should) be untethered from value judgements was edgy. The pioneering work of Michael Oliver’s The Politics of Disa

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson is set to announce a reading assessment to be taken by all pupils in Year 8. There are concerns that a significant number of low income white British pupils are falling behind in literacy, and this measure aims to identify them and… and what? The UK is a world leader in reading research. From the pioneering work of Snowling and Hulme on phonological awareness, Cain and Oakhill on reading comprehension and Duff et al on language intervent

Why Schools Are Built for One Kind of Brain — and What That Costs Neurodivergent and Underachieving Children Privilege: (noun) a special advantage or authority possessed by a particular person or group based on perception of status. There is a spirited challenge to systemic privilege taking place in contemporary culture. Like so many, I've been educating myself using the wealth of resources which have proliferated this year. What's so innovative, so promising, is the shift aw

Why Specialist Tutoring for Neurodivergent Children with ADHD, Dyslexia or Autism Is Not a Luxury The practice of ‘tutoring’ is viewed with scepticism in certain circles, especially by teachers in schools. I think this is a shame. 1:1 tuition can offer both neurodiverse and typically developing learners the opportunity to develop deeper awareness of how they learn, what constitutes individual differences, why it may feel like a disability in certain contexts and what strategi

ADHD and Dyslexia Strategies to Prevent Learning Loss During the Summer Holidays Most teachers begin their school year expecting to reteach a certain amount of material from the end of the previous year. Spirits run high in the last weeks of school, teachers are writing reports, the sun is shining and on the whole, no one really has their head in the game. Throw in a play, a concert, a party or two and it makes sense that September is dedicated to settling in your new class a

Teachers hate fidget toys. We want you to Pay Attention. It’s a pleasure to teach history - there is a compelling storyline one can deliver with enthusiasm and drama; fractions are a tougher ticket. We’re building on skills which I hope are embedded, asking a child to go on the journey with me for 30 or 40 or 60 minutes (hopefully first thing in the morning, early in the week) in a step-by-step process that can challenge a child’s attention. I do my best to be engaging, deliv

How to Build Resilience in Children with Learning Differences, ADHD and Anxiety There is a fuss being made in education at present about resilience. Like strong verbal skills or good working memory, current research suggests that resilience can positively affect educational outcomes. For children with learning differences this becomes hugely important because unlike processing and memory, resilience is not a fixed construct; there is no inherent barrier to full and free expre

Teaching Tip: starting revision 1= ‘I could take this exam right now and ace it’ test ready 2= ‘I definitely learnt this, could probably blag it and have a 50/50 chance of success’ revision 3= ‘ Never seen this in my life’ initial learning Steps: 1. Take an A5 piece of paper and turn it landscape 2. Divide into 3 sections numbered (from l to r) 1 2 and 3 3. Open your textbook. Look at the table of contents. Go to a chapter/unit. 4. Skim and scan for broad topics. 5. Assess w

When is revision not revision? Part 2. Initial learning is when you learn something new, begin to lay the groove in your memory which homework (a form of revision) then deepens. Initial learning is the first encounter with material, during which time you find the mental drawer into which you will come to file this new information. So in some respects, initial learning is rarely new material per se, it is additional material on a topic which has previously been introduced. It

When is revision not revision? Part 1. If you were in my spelling group you would know the answer straight away; the root of revision is vis – to look or see. Re as a prefix means again, and the suffix –ion turns a verb into a noun. Therefore revision means to look at or to see again. But what if for the life of you, you have never seen this material before? The answer is simple. You can’t revise if you haven’t learnt it. A parent, particularly one paying school fees, might

I had the good fortune of working on a series of videos as part of a DfE initiative called Parent Champions. Many of the member organisations of the Dyslexia-SpLD Trust came together to work on various projects to support families learn more about supporting children who learn differently. It had been a while since I watched these little gems and was really pleased to see they had been viewed often and well-received. The tips are still good ones so here they are. I’ve provide

I have great respect for language - as a linguist and a teacher. The intention behind which words we choose has been a vital component in my own education. We no longer ‘manned’ the stall we ‘ran’ it. The ‘chairman’ became the ‘chair’. Actor, waiter, steward: gender based suffixes were questioned as part of a larger social movement which aimed to challenge limiting social constructs. It is hard to imagine that language now commonplace was once seen as revolutionary. Which bri

ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia — Is It Time to Change the Language We Use About Neurodivergent Children? For many years, teachers and practitioners have been using the acronym SpLD to describe a group of ‘difficulties’ which make it challenging to succeed in the classroom. The most common SpLDs are dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder ADHD, attention deficit disorder ADD, dyscalculia and dysgraphia. The word ‘specific’ refers to the nature