Sunday 11 February 2018

It doesn't have to be this way...

Friends forever!

I recently read an article on the BBC News website about attacks on Teaching Assistants in special schools. The implication was that they felt that suffering violence was seen by leadership to be part of their job and to be ‘expected’. Having worked in Complex Needs Schools for most of my working life, I know exactly how they feel. My team and I bear the scars, both physical and emotional, of working with children with extreme autism and associated learning needs. The close involvement with the pupils means that you do accept behaviours from them that you would not countenance in a mainstream school. However, that does not mean that these behaviours were accepted without question, and that is where I feel the article fell short.
While I appreciate that the main thrust of it was from the point of view of the adults, nothing was said about possible reasons for challenging behaviour. In my experience, the first thing that teams in these situations ask is ‘why?’ What is it that the child is trying to tell us? Because there is little doubt, in my mind at least, that for non-verbal children with autism, behaviour is their most basic form of communication. 

A better way...

They may well be laying on the floor screaming, but what are they trying to tell you? There could be any number of reasons, from physical discomfort to not understanding what is happening next. The onus on the professionals involved is to carefully observe and come up with a hypothesis as to what is going on for individual children. In fact, one of the things I have missed the most since I retired is the ‘problem solving’ element of my job: How can I support children to learn? What is it that we need to change to support them? How can we teach them a better way of responding? Because while we recognised they were trying to tell us something, clearly we weren’t going to let our pupils think that kicking or spitting was an appropriate way to tell us!

Understanding emotions

The only way, as a school, we had successful outcomes for some of our more challenging students was to alter the way we did things and provide them with a bespoke environment to meet their needs, and adapt the curriculum accordingly. 

Working independently - Attention Autism

The ‘Attention Autism’ programme transformed the way I taught. The basic premise is that if you want children to learn, you have to make it worth their while learning! It’s not easy - you need to be confident in what you are doing and show that the pupils are making progress. 
It didn’t always work - some students need the level of support that only a 24 hour curriculum can provide - but when it did, it was amazing. By asking ourselves what those complex, stressed and anxious children were telling us with their challenging and, sometimes bizarre behaviour patterns we were able to slowly help them find better ways. 

Addressing sensory needs

It could have been through offering them visual support, teaching them to use symbols or pictures to communicate or addressing their sensory needs but the key was always consistency - it could be tedious and relentless, but it enabled us to build trusting relationships which lasted way beyond their time in our classes. 

So engaged

I still see one of my former pupils - he comes to cook his dinner in my house sometimes - and he still trusts that his friend and respite carer and me will behave and treat him in the same way as we always have. He even trusts us enough to have allowed us to persuade him to try ice skating at Christmas!

He really needed a taller penguin!


When we listen to children and young people with autism, and successfully interpret what their behaviours are telling us it can be truly joyful. 

A joyful relationship
That is why you will find teachers and TAs in Complex Needs schools around the country putting up with far more than anyone should have to in their place of work.

Wednesday 7 February 2018

I am woman, hear me roar...

This is probably less personal than the posts I usually write, but it is something that I feel very strongly about, so I guess that makes it personal. And there’s only so many times you can write about being fed up!

My husband, my best friend but above all, my equal

Yesterday saw the one hundred year anniversary of women getting the vote in the UK. It would be another ten years before they enjoyed that right on an equal footing with men. It astonishes me that, a century later, there are still institutions and companies that find it acceptable to pay women less than men, despite the fact that they are doing the same job. You only have to look at the machinations at the BBC to see that.

Gripping...

Coincidentally, yesterday was also the day that I went to see ‘The Post’, Stephen Spielberg’s latest film about the events leading up to the publication of the damning Pentagon Papers. Im a real sucker for a good journalism movie - All the President’s Men, It Happened One Night, Spotlight - and found The Post absorbing and thought provoking. The main thrust of the story, and the reason that the director rushed to make it, was the role of the press in shining a clear and rational light on things that administrations would prefer the public not to know, and the freedom to publish. It was truly gripping, and actually evoked a fist pump from me when the printing presses started to roll! But, as with all great films, there was an intriguing subplot - the role of women. 

I want to read this...

Katherine (Kay) Graham was the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, but only because her husband died. She has been quoted as saying that she was proud that her father ‘gave’ the paper to her beloved Phil, and that it never occurred to her that she would be considered suitable to take on such an important job. Astonishing! The Post is punctuated by scenes depicting how women were regarded in the early seventies - the male advisor taking over in a key meeting, the bankers assuming they know best, female clerks waiting outside the doors of the New York Stock Exchange and even Graham herself demanding more columns about fashion to please her female friends. Watching Meryl Streep portray Graham’s shift towards doing what she felt was right, in the face of all opposition and the possible loss of all she held dear was breathtaking.

Nearly an adult!

I was slowly emerging as an adult in the mid-seventies, and spent time railing against inequality in my youth. I never actually burnt a bra, but I flirted with Women’s Lib when I was at college. There is no doubt that since I waved a placard in 1975, major strides have been made, but there are still circumstances when women are discriminated against, purely because of their gender. 

My placard waving friends in 1975 - where are they now?

I never had to break through a glass ceiling in my career, but very few men worked in the Special Needs or Primary sector of education when I started out. I don’t think thats true anymore, but I’m willing to bet that its the females on the staff that get asked to do the more ‘pastoral’ or ‘care’ aspects of the job, while the men play football with the lads. I appreciate that’s a sweeping statement, but I’m sure there’s a grain of truth in it.
Looking forward, the #metoo campaign has served to shine a clear light on how people, largely female, have been exploited by those in power, Carrie Grace has fallen on her sword to demonstrate the inequalities at the BBC, and there is a heartening number of women in politics. And yet there are still clubs that refuse the admittance of woman (although, to be fair, would you really want to be a member?) and  young women who do nothing to promote the cause - if I hear one more say, ‘I didn’t bother to vote, I don’t get politics’ I will tie them down and make them watch the footage of Emily Davison being trampled by the King’s horse in 1913. 

On a stamp...must be important!

I’m sure that if they had to endure the lot of women in less enlightened times, they’d pretty soon see that ‘politics’ isn’t only about men (and women) in suits, Brexit and the budget, it’s what underpins the entire structure of our lives. You’ve got to be in it, to win it!