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Initial overview of key finding relating to education, FE and SEND

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For well over a year now, the House of Commons Education Select Committee has been running an inquiry into the state of special educational needs in England. It's turned into a massive piece of work. The Committee has taken over 700 pieces of written evidence. They've heard from parents, professionals, local authority bigwigs, Ministers - and most importantly, they've heard from children and young people with SEND.

We're still waiting on the final report from the SEND inquiry - but it's not the only inquiry from this Committee that's relevant to SEND families.

In parallel, the Education Select Committee's been looking into the state of school and college funding in England. This inquiry's report was published today, and it doesn't mince its words.

What's the funding inquiry about?

The Committee opened their funding inquiry back in April 2018, the day after they opened their SEND inquiry. The terms of reference of the funding inquiry were very technical: they wanted to investigate what the Department for Education should be prioritising for school and college funding in its budget negotiations with the Treasury, whether current funding levels and budget setting mechanisms were working well, and whether some specific education funding systems were doing their jobs properly.

When the inquiry started, it wasn't obvious that SEND was going to be an important focus for it. But as evidence came flooding in, the Committee decided to hold a specific evidence session for SEND funding - and in their report, there's an entire chapter dedicated to it.

What does the report say?

Looking top-down, the funding inquiry's report lays out some stark, but familiar messages.

"School and college funding is under growing pressure. More pupils, the cumulative effect of education reforms, and increasingly complex special needs requirements have put significant strain on the education sector over the past decade, whilst pressures on social services have led schools and colleges to provide support across a growing variety of areas. Funding has not increased in line with these rising demands"
" Further education has been hit the hardest... ...This funding gap is the result of policy choices that now need to be addressed urgently. The social justice implications of the squeeze on further education colleges are particularly troubling, given the high proportion of disadvantaged students in these institutions."
A ten year plan for school and college funding, Education Select Committee

The Committee assesses that there's not enough funding - but it also believes that more funding alone won't solve the problem. They identify serious problems with the way that organisations operate within the funding system, with the Department for Education taking a particularly severe pounding:

"The underlying reasons for this bleak funding picture are varied, ranging from the lingering consequences of the financial crisis through to systemic failures in forward-planning and operational delivery, and significant discrepancies between funding requirements and budget availability that have driven a vicious cycle of spiralling costs." "The Department [for Education] must be clear that securing additional funding in the now overdue spending review will not fix deeper problems with the overall funding system. Throughout our inquiry, we encountered a troubling lack of long-term vision" A ten year plan for school and college funding, Education Select Committee
"Most concerning was the astonishing disconnect between the available funding and the costs of delivering a quality education and support system. Indeed, we were unable to determine whether the Department had a clear idea of how much money was needed to fund the various components of the school and college education system appropriately and efficiently. We suspected not."
What does the report say about SEND?

There's a whole section of this report that looks at SEND - but mindful of the separate SEND inquiry that's running in parallel, this report concentrates squarely on the funding situation. And it paints a grim picture that'll come as no surprise to most SNJ readers.

" Special educational needs and disability funding is completely inadequate. There is simply not enough money in the system to provide for the scale of demand. Local authorities are expected to face a funding shortfall in excess of £1 billion by 2021. The post-16 sector in particular is having to deal with significant challenges in the context of enormous funding constraints. This is not sustainable."
A ten year plan for school and college funding, Education Select Committee
The language here might sound fairly unremarkable to those of us knee-deep in the system - but in the clipped tones of Parliamentese, it's a full-throated roar.
The report highlights some of the evidence that inquiry witnesses put forward to explain why this is happening: the rise in the number of children and young people needing EHCPs, perverse incentives within the SEND funding system that penalise inclusive mainstream schools and make it harder to secure good SEND support without an EHCP, and increased use of more expensive specialist provision.

Some witnesses also cited increased parental expectations as a factor, although it's hard to sustain this argument. I suspect these witnesses would be appalled if they came across parents who applied these same expectations to a child without SEND.

The report then lays out some of the consequences:

" The cumulative impacts of these various pressures have been severe. A report by ISOS Partnership estimated a national high needs spending deficit of between £1.2 billion and £1.6 billion by 2021."
"Local authorities have been accused of using the EHC assessment process to act as a 'gatekeeper' to accessing high needs block funding, and attempting to avoid granting approvals due to financial constraints"
"The number of cases going to tribunal has been increasing, with an estimated £100 million spent by local authorities since 2014 on tribunal defence. On average, judgements were found in favour of families in 89% of cases." [This estimate comes from Special Needs Jungle, you can read more here]
"Further education institutions have faced particular funding challenges. The Association of Colleges told our inquiry into SEND that a significant number of college students had a degree of SEND but had not received an EHC plan or support from the High Needs Funding block." A ten year plan for school and college funding, Education Select Committee

So what does the Education Select Committee recommend?

The bigger SEND inquiry report has yet to drop, and this is a report first and foremost about funding. So the SEND-specific recommendations in this report are mostly about money, and the way it's channelled around the system. There's a blunt, upfront recommendation for more money, particularly at the high-needs end:

"The Department [for Education] must make the strongest possible case to the Treasury for sufficient funds to finance the widening high-needs deficit, projected to be over £1 billion by 2021, and address the underlying drivers of spiralling costs at an early stage. The funding uplift must include a thorough assessment of the cost implications of local authorities' duty to maintain an Education, Health and Care Plan up to the age of 25. A ten year plan for school and college funding, Education Select Committee

But again, the Committee states pretty clearly that extra dosh alone won't solve the SEND funding crisis. They take careful aim at two things in particular: the operation of the "notional budget" at mainstream school level, and the way that the Department for Education calculates how much funding each local authority gets for high-needs SEND.

"The evidence submitted to our inquiry was clear that periodic top-ups would not be enough to address the systemic drivers exacerbating the funding crisis. Rather, the accumulation of problems in the SEND funding system pointed towards the need for longer-term thinking and a co-ordinated effort to tackle the crisis of confidence, funding sufficiency, and operational delivery." "The Department's assessment of the core school funding uplift requirements must include a thorough analysis of the role that sufficient core school funding plays in facilitating early intervention and avoiding more costly interventions later on." "The Department should review and revise the high needs funding formula to ensure it is sufficiently responsive to changing needs.As part of this review, the Department should assess the extent to which notional budget allocations take sufficient account of future trends, and facilitate adjustments to the notional budget allocation methodology to make funding arrangements more forward-looking." A ten year plan for school and college funding, Education Select Committee

One funding issue that the report doesn't cover is the way that local authorities allocate their high needs SEND funding - things like banding and local policies. That's a pity - this is a rock that the Committee lifted during the oral evidence sessions, with all sorts of unpleasantness scurrying out from underneath.

Above everything else though, the Committee want to see a much longer-term approach taken towards working out education funding - ideally, a ten-year plan to match long-term funding to long-term objectives, an approach designed to eliminate short-term fixes, ineffectual tinkering and "initiative-itis". It sounds attractive, but it's hard to manage in a political system that revolves around a five-year election cycle - and by itself, long-term planning won't solve much without better accountability and culture, as any SEND parent wrestling long-term with NHS provision will tell you.

What happens next?

It's really hard to tell, simply because the wider political situation is so chaotic.

In theory, the Department for Education reads the Committee's report on funding, digests it, responds to it, and (hopefully) makes changes. The Education Select Committee is about as influential as it gets - but it doesn't have direct power to make changes. And on the key question of funding, it'll come down to hard negotiations between the Department for Education and the Treasury.

Meanwhile, the DfE is already consulting on changing some of the way that SEND funding is channelled around the system - we wrote about this consultation exercise, and you can find more details here.

And as far as SEND is concerned, this is the less important Education Select Committee inquiry report. The main SEND inquiry, described recently by the Committee's chair, Robert Halfon MP, as "one of the biggest pieces of work ever undertaken by a [Parliamentary Select] committee", has yet to issue its report.

We don't know what it's going to say, but Mr Halfon has sent up a few smoke signals. In a May 2019 interview, he described the world of special educational needs as a "...horror story. It is irrefutable that it is a disaster... the resources that have been spent badly, the lack of accountability, the constant treacle of bureaucracy that parents have to wade through - it's a horror story."

Better early intervention was consistently cited as one of the best ways to manage SEND requirements in an inclusive and cost-effective way. Evidence submitted to our inquiry into Special educational needs and disabilities indicated that schools felt unable- and were perhaps insufficiently willing-to provide a graduated response to additional needs before resorting to statutory support systems. This was said to foster a lack of inclusive practice within schools, and the diminishing faith among parents in SEN Support was associated with the increase in EHC plan requests.
A ten year plan for school and college funding, Education Select Committee

But time is ticking, and the horror story has yet to be told. Next week, Parliament will go into recess, and it won't return until early September - by which time Brexit will be looming large again. And if Parliament ends up getting dissolved or prorogued, we may never see this report at all.

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SEND funding "completely inadequate,​" says Education Select Committee report

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For well over a year now, the House of Commons Education Select Committee has been running an inquiry into the state of special educational needs in England. It's turned into a massive piece of work. The Committee has taken over 700 pieces of written evidence.

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Your chance to put forward examples from your practice to support an advisory group in determining the importance of character development and resilience.

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Character and Resilience: A call for evidence - Department for Education - Citizen Space

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Find and participate in consultations run by the Department for Education

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NOTE: Sandra is not real, but her story represents the lived experiences of many teaching assistants in the UK today
Sandra has seen a lot in her 18 years at the school: three headteachers, a rebuild, an academisation, four Sendcos, tens of thousands of lessons.... She has also worked with thousands of vulnerable young people and their families in her role as a teaching assistant.

Not many people realise that Sandra has a degree in history of art. Most people don't know that Sandra has four children at home, the eldest of whom has profound special educational needs. Quite a few teachers don't seem to know Sandra's name.

Sandra needs to bring in a salary to keep up with the rent and essential costs, though what not many people realise is that the salary she brings home barely equates to the minimum wage. She doesn't get paid during the holidays. It's some years since she and the family made it to the Sussex coast for a break.

Nevertheless, Sandra loves her job. She knows that she truly makes a difference: that, frequently, lots of people realise she is the only person in the school who knows how to de-escalate some children's tantrums or spot from the other side of the assembly hall that they are likely to have a bad day and step in, light-touch, to ensure confrontations are avoided.

The invaluable teaching assistant

During weekends, while her husband is able to take over the childcare, Sandra has a second job at the local pub, where her skills at soothing, charming and de-escalating are appreciated almost as much.

Not many people know that Sandra was the one who offered comfort to a sobbing headteacher on his last day in the short-lived post, that she volunteers at the local food bank and that, when she was younger, she dreamed of travelling the world as a painter.

Last week, Sandra took three cover lessons. Two were last-minute "favours" and the third a lesson where whoever was supposed to be covering didn't turn up. It doesn't bother her, particularly - she's perfectly capable of managing herself in a classroom - but it would have been nice if somebody had realised - and acknowledged - this.

Often, teachers won't realise how valuable Sandra is until she's not there, pulled out of lessons for exams invigilation or for a child's medical appointment. Then they'll notice a distinct change of atmosphere in the classroom and, for a moment or two, feel a little lost. Sandra appreciates it when teachers ask for her advice and feedback on their lessons. She knows that the support she's provided for Callum the NQT during his mentor's long-term absence has been valuable. The best lessons for Sandra are when she and the teacher are a team, batting ideas and humour around and modelling learning and humanity.

Sandra would love to progress in her career, but any training opportunities fall outside the hours when she is able to work and, unfortunately, during the last whole-staff Inset, somebody didn't realise support staff would be there, forgot to include their names and instead they were left drifting a little at the edge of departmental meetings.

There is distinct unease in Sandra's department at the moment. Talk of a restructure has begun. Staff leaving aren't being replaced. Sandra can't help but wonder at the piddly amount that might be saved by losing a few TAs compared to, say, an expensive SLT member, but tries not to let it bother her too much.

Last summer, a student with mobility issues for whom Sandra scribed and with whom she had worked throughout his GCSE got a grade 7 for history. Yesterday, Sandra cleaned up a pool of vomit because the site staff were too busy and she thought she might as well. Last week, Sandra visited a particularly troubled young man at his latest foster placement and he cried with relief when he saw her.

*****

POSTSCRIPT: If you're going for an interview at a school, make a beeline for the Sandras. They will give you an authentic insight into the school. If you are lucky enough to have a Sandra in your classroom, please take the time to find out her name and, ideally, a little bit about her. She's got a lot to offer. Before you send the email to the head of year about the child who's doing your head in, pick Sandra's brain. The likelihood is that she sees that child in a variety of contexts, has followed them through the years, and she may even know the family. In our world of "impact", Sandra offers it in droves, though quietly, without pushing for acknowledgement and at great financial value.
Dr Emma Kell is a secondary teacher in north-east London and author of How to Survive in Teaching

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Meet Sandra: the overlooked and underpaid TA at the heart of the school

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NOTE: Sandra is not real, but her story represents the lived experiences of many teaching assistants in the UK today Sandra has seen a lot in her 18 years at the school: three headteachers, a rebuild, an academisation, four Sendcos, tens of thousands of lessons....

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Some key findings from the recent Ofsted review of Kent’s SEND provision

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Some key findings from the recent Ofsted review of Kent’s SEND provision

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In the case of Kent, many of the findings are consistent with the overall picture:

Many parents and carers are rightly upset, angry and concerned about the services and provision that their children receive.

The quality of EHC plans is too variable. The needs and provision that children require are not always clear and outcomes are too often not child-centred.

Children and young people with SEND experience unacceptable inequality when accessing services in Kent.

Most parents are unaware of the local offer and do not know where to gain independent advice and guidance.

Children and young people experience unacceptable delays and inequality of access in having their identified health needs assessed, reviewed and met.

Joint commissioning arrangements have not ensured that there are effective processes in place to ensure key professionals from education, health and care provide advice for EHC assessments within statutory timescales.

The best local authorities, according to Ofsted have:

strong co-production with a secure focus on impact

coherent support and training for SENCos

an effective evaluation about how the local area works cohesively with different leadership teams for joint strategic commissioning

Kent now has 70 working days from 29th March to provide Ofsted with a written statement of action detailing how it plans to address issues raised in 9 different areas.

This can only be a good thing. Ofsted and the CQC now know what parents have known for a long time, and this focus and the re-visit that will occur in 18 months will hopefully improve outcomes for children with SEND. Kent parents may feel soon that their voices are being heard.

Certainly my experience of the variable quality of EHC plans is consistent with this picture. It is common to come across plans which do not include all of the child's needs; with needs without provision; and with generic provision that is not adequately specific.

For me one of the most concerning points noted was

"Too many professionals in the local area do not understand the purpose of an EHC plan."

Whilst an EHC plan is not the only way to get support, nor is it required for 97.5% of the school population, in some cases an EHC plan is the solution to provide access to resources that are not usually available in a mainstream school, or access to specialist provision. As parents we tend to trust that professionals know what they are talking about, however this report makes it clear than in Kent this might not necessarily be the case.

The full report can be found :

Not in Kent? - check the Ofsted for their report for your Local Authority, and sign up for any updates in the future.

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In the case of Kent, many of the findings are consistent with the overall picture: Many parents and carers are rightly upset, angry and concerned about the services and provision that their children receive. The quality of EHC plans is too variable.

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It’s officially going to court in June...

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It’s officially going to court in June...

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https://schoolsweek.co.uk/government-set-for-high-court-showdown-over-legality-of-send-funding-cuts/ The Government are being taken to court over SEND budget cuts

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According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), ADHD comprises two predominant sub-types: inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive. Joel Nigg, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University, and other researchers studying the neuroscience of ADHD believe the condition is far more nuanced.

"Some kids are anxious. Some are angry. Some don't have problems with emotions, but can't pay attention. ADHD is variable," Nigg says. "Children with ADHD appear to exhibit different profiles of emotional regulation and attention problems, perhaps associated with different patterns of maturation of brain networks." The ADHD brain is quite different.

The Biology of the Brain

Brain networks, of course, are numerous and complicated. At a cellular level, neurons transmit messages and make connections between and within different brain regions - the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe, the parietal lobe, and the occipital lobe - as well as subcortical structures. Brain scans show us that ADHD brains are, on average, about 10% smaller than neurotypical brains. Other scans show that connections in the brain networks are underdeveloped, suggesting problems with the quality of the connections between neurons, which are called axons.

"As a child matures, the white matter - or the myelin sheath - around the axons continues to develop and mature until the 20s. For people with ADHD, the brain could continue to mature until the 30s. This growth in myelin is like replacing a dial-up telephone Internet connection with a fiber optic cable. It makes neural transmissions faster and more efficient," Nigg says. "Recent research has shown that there are changes to axon growth in the ADHD brain as well. Recent neuropsychological studies suggest that people with the condition process information more slowly, and there is more 'noise' during their processing. This may be related to immaturity of myelin fibers, which makes the axon's neural transmission between certain brain circuits less efficient."

In his research, Nigg and his collaborators have concentrated specifically on the connections between and within the frontal cortex, the parietal cortex, the basal ganglia, the thalamus, and the nucleus accumbens. Underdeveloped axonal fibers in the connections between these regions may help to explain the inattention, impulsivity, and emotional regulation problems so common in people with ADHD, Nigg says.
[Free Download: Secrets of the ADHD Brain]
" The fronto-cerebellar network links the frontal cortex to the cerebellum. The executive function network links the frontal cortex, the parietal cortex, and the subcortical areas (basal ganglia). The attentional network links the frontal cortex to the supplementary motor cortex and the parietal cortex. Each network could be a locus of dysfunction for people with ADHD."

Two fundamental kinds of brain signaling must be considered to understand ADHD.

Bottom-Up Signaling: "The signaling from the back of the brain to the front of the brain, and from the interior of the brain to the outer part of the brain is bottom-up signaling. Those signals respond to sensory input - what you see and hear - and immediately trigger attentional capture or emotional reaction."

Top-Down Signaling: "In response to these bottom-up signals, top-down signals come from neurons projecting either from the prefrontal cortex backward towards the back of the cortex or downward into the interior of the brain to modulate the spontaneous bottom-up signals. The top-down modulatory signals are based on your goals, your learning, or what you want to be doing. They respond to internal signals instead of external signals."

In a neurotypical brain, he says, "There is a good balance of bottom-up and top-down signaling. Bottom-up systems appropriately interrupt attention when something important happens (e.g., someone physically draws near, a loud sound, or if you are a child - the teacher frowns). These are occurrences that your brain recognizes as something unexpected, not-supposed-to-happen in the moment, and makes you notice so you can modify your top-down response."
[Uncomfortable Truths About the ADHD Nervous System]
The ADHD Brain

In ADHD brains, however, these top-down signals are relatively weak. One hypothesis is that they are overpowered by the much more powerful bottom-up signals. And that imbalance manifests in several different ways, depending the area of the brain impacted. Nigg and his team have focused on three common manifestations of this imbalance: inattention, impulsivity, and emotional regulation.
Inattention
The problem: A child with ADHD becomes so hyperfocused on a video game that it is not easy for him to stop playing. Or he can't focus on his homework when siblings are watching TV or playing nearby.

The explanation: The "automatic attention capture system" in the brain is activated by the stimulation of the video game or the enticing distractions nearby. It sends a bottom-up signal to the parietal lobe, which should reply with a top-down signal reminding the brain of its long-term goals and obligations. In ADHD brains, the axonal fibers in this top-down reply are underdeveloped, so the message to ignore the environment and refocus on the goals is lost. There is not enough top-down control.

" Studies that observe the brain using an fMRI scanner while children work on an attention task (like a math problem), show the frontal-parietal attention network functions poorly," Nigg says. "Additionally, in research that examines the axon fibers connecting the attention circuits of the brain, it's found that certain fibers are underdeveloped, which could explain the under-functioning of the front and back areas of the attention network. It's as if they are not well-connected, so they are not talking to each other. Because the front of the brain can't capture attention, the behavior is not suppressed."
Impulsivity
The problem: A child with ADHD blurts out answers in class, says something hurtful to a friend without stopping to consider the consequences, or literally leaps without looking and ends up injured.

The explanation: The thalamus is the interior area of the brain that helps to signal the need for response inhibition; in other words, it helps stop you from performing a behavior that is not in your best interest. It operates like a gate, sending signals to allow and stop behaviors as is appropriate. In ADHD brains, the limbic-hippocampal connections relaying these warning signals from the thalamus to the frontal cortex are impaired. It's as if the gate is broken, and behavior doesn't get suppressed when it should.

"People without ADHD have the ability to stop, mid-stream, if they recognize a person is not smiling or responding well to something they are saying," Nigg says. "The average adult needs only 200 milliseconds of warning to interrupt something they are about to do, even if they started doing it. The average child needs about 280 milliseconds. The child with ADHD needs 20 to 30 milliseconds longer warning, which is an eternity when it comes to behavior control because behavior is so fluid."
Emotional Control
The problem: A child with ADHD responds in overblown, extremely emotional ways to small setbacks or challenges that most children would shrug off. Perhaps she suffers from anxiety or worry due to school frustrations, or she throws temper tantrums that last hours because she can't regulate her anger. Long-term rewards are meaningless; immediate gratification is everything.

The explanation: The amygdala are two internal brain regions that are involved in emotional reactions and decision making. When flooded with anger or worry, these regions deploy bottom-up signals to the cerebral cortex. The insula, a region of the cerebral cortex, should then respond with top-down strategies and goals designed to inhibit an individual's emotional response in line with the goal. This is what helps you take a deep breath and think before acting on a sudden emotion. In ADHD brains, this insula-amygdala connection is weak, which "can lead to a breakdown in regulating negative emotions," Nigg says. " Emotion regulation is a big part of ADHD that has been traditionally ignored."

"At the same time, people with ADHD over-respond to rewards when they are immediate, and don't remember or value future rewards, which indicates a potential breakdown in the regulatory system," Nigg says. "When comparing ADHD brains to people without ADHD, we see that the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the reward system (which is partly in the nucleus accumbens) has reduced activation, especially in the dorsal part of the prefrontal cortex. This could explain overexcitement, frustration and anger, and inability to respond to delayed rewards."

Not all Kids with ADHD Are the Same

"ADHD is not a breakdown of the brain in one spot. It's a breakdown in the connectivity, the communication networks, and an immaturity in these networks," Nigg says. "These brain networks are interrelated around emotion, attention, behavior, and arousal. People with ADHD have trouble with global self-regulation, not just regulation of attention, which is why there are attentional and emotional issues."

In the future, brain imaging may lead us to classify ADHD according to various valid sub-types like those explained above. Currently, though, "brain types determined by brain scans are just speculation by physicians," Nigg says. Due to variability in brain-imaging equipment and analysis procedures, Nigg says he does not recommend pursuing a brain scan to help diagnose symptoms of ADHD in anyone.

"My own view of this [brain-imaging] data is [that] it's not worth the money that it's going to cost you to have this test," he says. "It may give the clinician a little more confidence in their ADHD diagnosis, but that may not be valid; it's important to note there's an improvement in accuracy from simply using a standardized rating scale too, and that's a lot less expensive."
[Neuroscience 101] Joel Nigg, Ph.D., is a member of the ADDitude ADHD Specialist Panel.

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New research suggests that ADHD comprises several meaningful subgroups - each one tied to a weak connection in the brain's neural networks. Here, Joel Nigg, Ph.D. maps the regions of the brain that control attention, impulsivity, and emotion, and explains why scientists are studying the "white matter" connections between these circuits.

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Barry doesn't exist. His traits do, of course, exist in what my leadership courses taught me to call the "blockers" - the cynics; the seen-it-alls; the awkward squad. Only, it's the people like Barry who, without need for recognition (indeed, while apparently recoiling from it), have given me the strength, the perspective and, yes, the quiet kindness I've needed to carry on. If you teach, I sincerely hope you are lucky enough to work with a Barry.
Barry doesn't give much away. Among the first things anyone new to the school community learns is not to touch Barry's mug. It's the one with the ginger cat. He can be found at "Barry's seat" in the staffroom between 8.12am and 8.23am and again between 11.07am and 11.23am, reading his newspaper.

Barry is the subject of much speculation in the school community. He's got to be up for retirement soon, surely? Nobody knows how far off it is, but it is generally known that the grandchild of one of Barry's former students started in Year 7 in September. Barry wears cufflinks. Barry doesn't "do" mobile phones.

Barry greets the colleagues who wish him good morning (around a third of them) with a nod as he makes his way to his classroom. Barry doesn't smile often. Barry has a bowl of fruit on his desk and a faded tapestry behind it. He has a peg for his jacket and stores his bicycle lock in his bottom drawer. There aren't really any other clues about Barry in the classroom. He doesn't give much away.

Barry's known in SLT as a "maverick" - spoken through gritted teeth in much the same tone as one might identify a "vigilante". There have been a few "difficult conversations" recently. Last month, Sam, the deputy head, had to "have words" about a parental complaint. The parents of a Year 10 boy are deeply aggrieved at Barry's "victimisation" of their son. Barry, aware of the recent drive on healthy eating, had meant his words about Pringles for breakfast and expanding waistlines to be in jest. He acknowledged the room for alternative interpretations but didn't say more.

A teacher loved by the pupils

Barry has mentored many trainee teachers over the years. Barry is no longer a member of the "growing new talent" team because of concerns that he doesn't consistently embody the school's mantra: "aspire to excellence". If he's disappointed, he doesn't show it.

For the past decade, Barry has run a poetry club every Wednesday lunchtime. He has been scolded by the stressed-out head of geography recently for "taking her key marginals away". He understands. She's under pressure to get grade 5s, after all. SLT have omitted the club from the cultural enrichment passports they've recently introduced because it "doesn't have a tangible impact on outcomes". Students still come. Sometimes he even pretends he hasn't seen them. But he doesn't give much away.

Last Friday, Barry was called to the headteacher's office to discuss "growing concerns about his compliance". She referred to a notepad on which she had apparently scripted her words. Professional standards were cited. He was asked to explain the following:

Why was he seen blatantly reading a book during the latest twilight Inset on meeting the needs of more able learners?

Why had he failed to give the requisite (academy policy) three merit points in his last Year 8 lesson, instead recording an unprecedented 20 rewards on the system?

How had he failed to comprehend the potential professional misconduct charge incurred by his spending his own money on lunch for students at the latest British Museum trip, encouraging them to eschew their pre-labelled pupil premium packed lunches?

Barry nodded and asked if he was free to leave. He babysits for his granddaughter on a Friday from 5.00pm. He doesn't give much away.

When he cites TS Eliot in class, it is for Barry's students' eyes and ears only. (When he is observed, he sticks to worksheets.)

In the classroom next door, Salim, an exhausted NQT, dreams of lighting children's passion for poetry as Barry once did for him.

Barry's lessons start with "Let us go then, you and I..." and his Year 9s are pin-drop silent. They are not engaging with this week's "initiative focus", whereby they have to tick off "learning for life" characteristics on their passports, as will be discussed with the assistant headteacher in charge of personal development this coming Friday afternoon.

School budgets are tight. Barry is expensive. It would appear that Barry is resisting the gentle nudge to become "natural wastage"; one more in a line of departing and non-replaced teachers. But Barry doesn't give much away.

Barry's fruit bowl provides the only sustenance that many of his students get in the morning. In the drawer above his bicycle lock, he keeps cereal bars, and in the cupboard at the back of his classroom, he keeps spare school shoes. Those whose shoes wear out know where to come. Those who are hungry know where to come. Those who just need somewhere quiet to sit and feel safe know where to come. Barry doesn't give much away.

Yesterday, just down the corridor, Maryam, three years into her career, was having one of those days that chew you up and spit you out. Barry didn't give much away, but when she came back from trying (and failing) to have some lunch, there was a chocolate bar and a fresh cup of tea by her computer.

Barry is supposed to mark in green. Barry still marks in purple.
Dr Emma Kell is a secondary teacher in north-east London and author of How to Survive in Teaching

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Meet Barry: the old-school teacher who defies the SLT

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Barry doesn't exist. His traits do, of course, exist in what my leadership courses taught me to call the "blockers" - the cynics; the seen-it-alls; the awkward squad. Only, it's the people like Barry who, without need for recognition (indeed, while apparently recoiling from it), have given me the strength, the perspective and, yes, the quiet kindness I've needed to carry on.

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A call for radicalism in secondary education 

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A call for radicalism in secondary education 

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Have you managed to keep up this week? Assessment week. Mock week. Half-termly data-drop week. Parents' evening, curriculum planning meeting...oh, and teaching, of course.

For all the talk of reducing workload, as the February break approaches, it's business as usual.

Amid all that, you'd be forgiven for missing that Damian Hinds has launched his flagship policy. Given the becalmed character of his tenure, the flag doesn't have to fly high to stand above the flotsam. Aboard his lonesome raft, cast adrift by the Brexit tempest, Mr Hinds has been contemplating the nature of character and deduced its five key components. These will constitute new school self-assessment benchmarks. Miraculously, they will not add to teachers' workload. Yes, it will be business as usual.

The "character" benchmarks are to be modelled on the Gatsby careers-guidance model. The one most schools ignore and the government makes no effort to ensure compliance to. Another set of fine words for a privileged audience. Another policy without meaning or intent. Business as usual.

You might have also missed this week that one academy trust has employed a crisis-management PR firm to deflect criticism of its alleged behaviour policy; another has had the finger pointed at it by Ofsted for off-rolling; and a third is set to sell its curriculum-support product to other schools. In essence, the organisations running our schools are secretive, coercive, exclusive and exploitative. You could say that's business. As usual.

Meanwhile, Lord Baker has joined a chorus of voices calling for the GCSEs he created to be scrapped. There's no sign from him of any regrets about introducing an education market and a punitive accountability system to police it. The rationale for scrapping them is that raising the leaving age has made them redundant. Efficiency: the core purpose of business, as usual.

And as I write this, the Royal Society has come out in favour of scrapping A levels, too. The rationale? They don't prepare young people for the 21st century workplace. Young people are leaving without the skills they need for business. As usual.

All of this and more is driven by a thriving cottage industry in international comparisons, stoked by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development through its Pisa and Timms rankings. While we look abroad to pilfer from high-performing systems, others look to us to magpie ours.

Policymakers everywhere are in thrall to this global ranking system. There's soft power in it. Winning means market share for our private and semi-private education institutions to get a hold of in the developing world. All the better, I assume, to share with the rest of us the proceeds of business. As usual.

As usual, too, all of these policies are promoted by people presenting their ideas as radical.

A failed anti-radicalisation strategy

Character education has been in the works for years, to no avail. Hinds has supposedly discovered a radical way to see it through. Except he hasn't. His only claim to radicalism is in devising a policy implementation that convinces who it needs to convince, while delivering nothing at all. He's given the market a choice to buy or not buy into one of education's core purposes.

Zero-tolerance behaviour policies are presented as a radical rebirth of teacher authority. Except they aren't. They simply capitalise on the ripe old idea of parent choice to justify selection.

Ofsted's move to look for and call out off-rolling is supposedly a radical shift. Is it? What's radical is to have convinced so many that it wasn't responsible for stoking the fires of competition to such a heat that many chose to compromise their professional integrity rather than to see their schools and careers incinerated.

Is Ark Schools' Curriculum Plus programme a radical new way for schools to share expertise in a self-improving system? No. The trust, once led by Amanda Spielman, has simply brought consultancy in-house to leverage its position as a leader in curriculum. It's using other schools' budgets to purchase its place at the top of Ofsted's new judgements, spearheaded by Amanda Spielman.

Lord Baker labelled his call for scrapping GCSEs as radical on the grounds that the Department for Education opposes it. If that's the only criteria, then we're all radicals. Unlike Lord Baker, however, few of us get the opportunity to scrap something we created - that a country has spent 30 years trying to make work - and call it radicalism rather than a monumental mistake.

And scrapping A levels? Radical? The former permanent secretary to the DfE called for this four years ago and Cambridge University led the same charge 10 years before that.

Our brand is crisis

There isn't a trace of radicalism anywhere in our system. Nothing and nobody goes anywhere near questioning the fundamental problem. That's the definition, surely, of radicalism.

Everything else is just tweaking - no matter how big or burdensome the tweak might seem.

So if we're done tweaking and we want radicalism, we need to ask what is at the heart of our system that nobody questions anymore. What has become so ingrained in our collective consciousness that we are blind to it? What has achieved such quasi-religious status that to speak of it is taboo?

Since Lord Baker's tenure, the market has been the key driver of all education policy, the yardstick by which we are measured, the carrot by which we are rewarded and the stick with which we are punished. Today, it is the only mechanism for school improvement in England.

Far from delivering what it was meant to, it has created a recruitment crisis, a retention crisis, a workload crisis, an exclusions crisis, a behaviour crisis, a curriculum crisis, a qualifications crisis, a teacher mental health crisis, a student mental health crisis, a million PR crises, and as many faux radicals as the invisible hand can hold to offer solutions to each of them.

If we don't want to be sold crises anymore, nor the snake oil meant to relieve the symptoms of crises, then real radicalism means turning our backs on the marketplace, where problems are created, and heading back together to the town hall, where they are solved.

There lies the real test of our character. No more business as usual.

JL Dutaut is co-editor of Flip the System UK: a teachers' manifesto (Routledge). He is currently on a career break from teaching to research school accountability systems around the world. He hasn't found one he likes yet, and he doesn't think you would either

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Radical reforms? Please, we've seen it all before

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Have you managed to keep up this week? Assessment week. Mock week. Half-termly data-drop week. Parents' evening, curriculum planning meeting...oh, and teaching, of course. For all the talk of reducing workload, as the February break approaches, it's business as usual. Amid all that, you'd be forgiven for missing that Damian Hinds has launched his flagship policy.

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Will this take off and replace more traditional approaches to staff CPD?

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The lady gets up from her seat and stands by the bar. Then, pint in hand, she begins to address the pub.

"Bold Beginnings," she begins, "when Ofsted published this report...."

She talks for 30 minutes. No-one tells her to sit down. No-one heckles. No-one, actually, bats an eye lid. They just watch, attentively, pitching in with a point or a comment. Sometimes, a discussion is started.

Because this is what they all came here for on a blustery Saturday afternoon. You see, this is BrewEd. This is CPD in the pub. And teachers are going bonkers for it.

A new kind of event

BrewEd was founded by Ed Finch, a teacher at Larkrise Primary School in Oxford, and Daryn Egan-Simon, an ITTE tutor, researcher and writer. They got talking on Twitter about their shared view that something was missing in the education landscape. Grassroots CPD events had bubbled up across the country, but it all looked very traditional: groups of people sat in front of a speaker in a school hall, being lectured to.

Finch and Egan-Smith wanted to attend something that enabled teachers to talk about teaching and learn new things, but in a setting that was a little more relaxed, a little more social, and - compared with some of the events on offer - a little less tied to a particular ideological viewpoint.

Seeing nothing on offer that matched this description, they decided to set something up themselves. They chose a pub. They chose the city of Sheffield. And the set a date for November 2017. BrewEd was born.

Broad appeal

"It's a new way of bringing people together, in a way that feels really authentic and genuine to them," says Finch. "With BrewEd, you don't just sit in an audience, you're a part of a day, part of a conversation. It's about philosophy, it's about pedagogy, it about ideas that shape practice, not about tips for teaching."

Since that first event (where the pair met in real life for the first time), BrewEd has grown at a rapid pace. Both Finch and Egan-Simon encourage others to use the concept and adapt it to their own area, and teachers have done so in London, Cornwall, Newcastle - and even Prague.

Today (9 February), marks a real coming of age for the movement: four BrewEd events are happening at once, in Bristol, Preston, Wimbledon and Birmingham.

Sell-out venues

All sold out, there is clearly a real appetite for the idea of pedagogy over a pint - and it is not a list of star speakers that is bringing them in: you don't have to be a pedagogy-guru or have been teaching for 20 years to offer your words of wisdom at a BrewEd event - anyone who wants to share something, can.

"We have people with contrasting mindsets in the room, but the common ground is that they are coming together in the spirit of equality, and the spirit of engagement," says Finch.

'BrewEd is a way of getting teachers together to have a chat with people from across all sorts of different areas - we get secondary teachers, primary teachers and people from PRUs and people from initial teacher training, and people from all different silos coming together."

Having an impact

The feedback has been excellent.

"I think it really does wonders for their self-esteem and professional identities. It makes them feel like players as opposed to pawns," says Finch.

And he says it has done wonders for him, too.

"After 17 years of teaching, the BrewEd events simply keep me alive and keep me learning," he says.

Future plans

So, what's next for BrewEd?

Well, there is talk of the event becoming a regular fixture in people's diaries. Finch hopes that it continues to grow in the UK, and that it will progress overseas to Australia and even the US.

But as it grows, Finch is determined to keep the event true to its original objective.

"All we created was having a nice day out with some friends", he says.
If you're interested in taking part in BrewEd, click here, or search #BrewEd on Twitter. Read all about BrewEd on its website.

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Meet the men bringing pub-based CPD to the nation

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The lady gets up from her seat and stands by the bar. Then, pint in hand, she begins to address the pub. "Bold Beginnings," she begins, "when Ofsted published this report...." She talks for 30 minutes. No-one tells her to sit down. No-one heckles. No-one, actually, bats an eye lid.

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Teacher negativity and restorative justice 

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Teacher negativity and restorative justice 

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A new approach to pupil behaviour management that uses restorative-practice sessions to promote values of right and wrong has led to accusations that "teacher negativity" is to blame for poor behaviour, a union has warned.

The Pivotal Approach to Behaviour Management, which is used in more than 1,000 schools and colleges, is being advocated by consultants from Pivotal Education Ltd.

The Pivotal website says the method involves "shaping the behaviour of adults" and creating a "platform for change based around the one behaviour we can control absolutely...our own".

And the company's executive director, Paul Dix, has written a book, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes, which is billed as showing "that it's far more effective to change the behaviour of the adults in a school than it is to try to change the behaviour of the children".

Pivotal said its approach is never about blaming teachers or lessons for poor behaviour.

But concerns from NASUWT members have prompted the union to carry out a survey to gauge opinion on the approach, which advocates "restorative sessions" as its fifth pillar of good practice.

NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said that "in principle" there was no problem with restorative-behaviour practices. But she said teachers often did not have enough time to take part in the required 15-minute discussions at the end of the day, on top of their "excessive workload".

"Like any system, it can be used well or it can be abused, but at the moment, all we're hearing is the abuse of it," she said.

"I've had an example raised with me where the senior management in a particular school went back after they'd been trained on this, and called a staff meeting and said 'We know what the problem of pupil indiscipline is in this school - you're all too negative to the pupils'. So immediately the teachers were being blamed."

She said it was "staggering" that at the same school using the Pivotal approach, teachers had been told to wear a "pledge ribbon" on their lanyard.

"The ribbons show what teachers pledged to do for pupils, for example, to 'not be negative'," said Ms Keates. "But immediately the pupils are empowered because they know the teachers are the ones with the pressure on them."

Ofsted has already warned that teachers are being undermined during "restorative justice" sessions held by schools. But some teachers have said the approach has had a positive effect in their schools.

Martyn Dadds, managing director of CPI International (of which Pivotal Education Ltd is a division) said: "Pivotal Education recognises the invaluable contribution that teachers make to our education system, and we are committed to empowering them to confidently and safely respond to a range of behavioural situations.

"We are proud that, across thousands of schools and colleges that we have worked in, 97 per cent rate our training as excellent.

"The concerns raised here are not an accurate reflection of the Pivotal approach, and our training clearly states that teachers do not cause poor behaviour. However, we would welcome the opportunity to meet with the union involved to discuss the issues they raise."

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Exclusive: Restorative behaviour policies 'leading to teacher-blaming'

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A new approach to pupil behaviour management that uses restorative-practice sessions to promote values of right and wrong has led to accusations that "teacher negativity" is to blame for poor behaviour, a union has warned. The Pivotal Approach to Behaviour Management, which is used in more than 1,000 schools and colleges, is being advocated by consultants from Pivotal Education Ltd.

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For those of you working with secondary schools..

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For those of you working with secondary schools..

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It does specify that it must be a mainstream secondary but I know that some of you are based in a provision within a mainstream school so your SLT may appreciate this.

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Outdoor play to support cognitive development 

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Outdoor play to support cognitive development 

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When I was eight years old, I spent an hour every autumn day after school shooting baskets in our driveway in New Jersey. I was small for my age, had little talent for the sport, and didn't love it all that much; what I loved were the stories I made up in my head as I practiced my layups alone. I loved how my mind was free to wander as my arms and legs and hands went through the repetitive motion of throwing the ball. Entranced by the silence and solitude, I invented elaborate tales and characters. I never wrote them down, nor did I go on to play competitive basketball. It wasn't the game or the plots that stuck, but the discovery that motion and imagination are inextricably linked. Move your body and your mind will follow.

Now that I'm a parent, I'm reliving it through my daughters. I watch my eight-year-old talking to herself as she lags behind on the walk to school. Sometimes I get impatient and chide her to hurry. Then I catch myself. This is what I was did when I rode my bicycle over and over around the block, pretending I was Harriet the Spy. My older daughter makes up songs and sings them aloud while she skis. When children have time and freedom to move through the world at their own pace-not necessarily unsupervised, but unstructured-they delve into their imaginations. This is the important work of childhood, and it lays the foundation for growing into curious, open-minded, problem-solving adults.

Research shows that exercise-whether team sports, individual sports, or even just goofing off outside-makes us more creative and more attentive when we come back to our desks. It can also help us imprint learning into our muscle memory, much like repetitive sports training. In a 2014 study from the University of North Texas, researchers found that aerobic activity among kids led to higher scores on reading and math tests. Scientists at the University of Illinois, using MRI data to measure brain size, found that physically active nine- and ten-year-olds had larger hippocampi than their sedentary peers and scored higher on memory tests. And in an ongoing study, Northeastern University psychology professor Charles Hillman has found evidence that children who run and play for 70 minutes a day exhibit better cognitive skills than those who don't.

Why is exercise key to cognition? "There are many different mechanisms," Hillman says. "We don't understand them all, but one of the basic ones is that in response to cardiovascular exercise, there's an increase in blood flow. Blood carries oxygen, which feeds the brain tissue. Another is that neuro-protecting molecules increase during exercise, and these are related, among other things, to memory." The bottom line is movement-even a single bout of moderate physical exercise improves brain function. Says Hillman, "If you asked me to design a perfect school day, it would have 45-minute lessons, with ten- to 15-minute recesses in between so they can gain the benefits of outside activity."

The human brain has evolved to integrate and respond to signals from all five senses-not just sight-which may help explain why kinesthetic and tactile stimuli are a boost to learning. A friend whose ten-year-old son is dyslexic sends him to a tutor who has him practice spelling words aloud while jumping on a trampoline. Repetitive, rhythmic, multisensory activities like jumping, skipping rope, dancing, hopping, and throwing a ball engage the body, not just the mind, helping us better absorb information and retain it longer. Movement, especially when it's enjoyable, also takes our minds off what might be otherwise perceived as an onerous task.

Just how much movement do kids need? In a report issued in November by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee, kids ages six to 17 are advised to get one hour of moderate-to-vigorous activity every day. This is is unchanged from the previous report, but what's new is the recommendation for even younger children: Preschoolers ages three to five should be "active throughout the day." Team sports and organized activities are great physical outlets, but unscripted or solo free-play is also important. When they're not responding to outward stimuli and instructions from their coaches or friends, kids are better able to tune in to their own imaginations. And according to recent studies, daydreaming is both a marker of intelligence and a conduit to greater creativity.

So the next time my girls seem too slow on their bikes and destined to be late for school, I'm going to chill out and let their minds and bodies wander.

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When I was eight years old, I spent an hour every autumn day after school shooting baskets in our driveway in New Jersey. I was small for my age, had little talent for the sport, and didn't love it all that much; what I loved were the stories I made up in my head as I practiced my layups alone.

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Some experts say the normal effects of severe adversity may be misdiagnosed as ADHD.

Shutterstock

Dr. Nicole Brown's quest to understand her misbehaving pediatric patients began with a hunch.

Brown was completing her residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, when she realized that many of her low-income patients had been diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

These children lived in households and neighborhoods where violence and relentless stress prevailed. Their parents found them hard to manage and teachers described them as disruptive or inattentive. Brown knew these behaviors as classic symptoms of ADHD, a brain disorder characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and an inability to focus.

When Brown looked closely, though, she saw something else: trauma. Hyper-vigilance and dissociation, for example, could be mistaken for inattention. Impulsivity might be brought on by a stress response in overdrive.

"Despite our best efforts in referring them to behavioral therapy and starting them on stimulants, it was hard to get the symptoms under control," she said of treating her patients according to guidelines for ADHD. "I began hypothesizing that perhaps a lot of what we were seeing was more externalizing behavior as a result of family dysfunction or other traumatic experience."

Considered a heritable brain disorder, one in nine U.S. children-or 6.4 million youth-currently have a diagnosis of ADHD. In recent years, parents and experts have questioned whether the growing prevalence of ADHD has to do with hasty medical evaluations, a flood of advertising for ADHD drugs, and increased pressure on teachers to cultivate high-performing students. Now Brown and other researchers are drawing attention to a compelling possibility: Inattentive, hyperactive, and impulsive behavior may in fact mirror the effects of adversity, and many pediatricians, psychiatrists, and psychologists don't know how-or don't have the time-to tell the difference.

Though ADHD has been aggressively studied, few researchers have explored the overlap between its symptoms and the effects of chronic stress or experiencing trauma like maltreatment, abuse and violence. To test her hypothesis beyond Baltimore, Brown analyzed the results of a national survey about the health and well-being of more than 65,000 children.

Brown's findings, which she presented in May at an annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, revealed that children diagnosed with ADHD also experienced markedly higher levels of poverty, divorce, violence, and family substance abuse. Those who endured four or more adverse childhood events were three times more likely to use ADHD medication.

Interpreting these results is tricky. All of the children may have been correctly diagnosed with ADHD, though that is unlikely. Some researchers argue that the difficulty of parenting a child with behavioral issues might lead to economic hardship, divorce, and even physical abuse. This is particularly true for parents who themselves have ADHD, similar impulsive behavior or their own history of childhood maltreatment. There is also no convincing evidence that trauma or chronic stress lead to the development of ADHD.

For Brown, who is now a pediatrician at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, the data are cautionary. It's not evident how trauma influences ADHD diagnosis and management, but it's clear that some misbehaving children might be experiencing harm that no stimulant can fix. These children may also legitimately have ADHD, but unless prior or ongoing emotional damage is treated, it may be difficult to see dramatic improvement in the child's behavior.

"We need to think more carefully about screening for trauma and designing a more trauma-informed treatment plan," Brown says.

Dr. Kate Szymanski came to the same conclusion a few years ago. An associate professor at Adelphi University's Derner Institute and an expert in trauma, Szymanski analyzed data from a children's psychiatric hospital in New York. A majority of the 63 patients in her sample had been physically abused and lived in foster homes. On average, they reported three traumas in their short lives. Yet, only eight percent of the children had received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder while a third had ADHD.

"I was struck by the confusion or over-eagerness-or both-to take one diagnosis over another," Szymanski says. "To get a picture of trauma from a child is much harder than looking at behavior like impulsivity, hyperactivity. And if they cluster in a certain way, then it's easy to go to a conclusion that it's ADHD."

A previous edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders urged clinicians to distinguish between ADHD symptoms and difficulty with goal-directed behavior in children from "inadequate, disorganized or chaotic environments," but that caveat does not appear in the latest version. Unearthing details about a child's home life can also be challenging, Szymanski says.

A child may withhold abuse or neglect to protect his family or, having normalized that experience, never mention it all. Clinicians may also underestimate the prevalence of adversity. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, a years-long survey of more than 17,000 adults, found that two-thirds of participants reported at least one of 10 types of abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction. Twelve percent reported four or more. That list isn't exhaustive, either. The study didn't include homelessness and foster care placement, for example, and the DSM doesn't easily classify those events as "traumatic."

It's not clear how many children are misdiagnosed with ADHD annually, but a study published in 2010 estimated the number could be nearly 1 million. That research compared the diagnosis rate amongst 12,000 of the youngest and oldest children in a kindergarten sample and found that the less mature students were 60 percent more likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis.

Though ADHD is thought to be a genetic condition, or perhaps associated with lead or prenatal alcohol and cigarette exposure, there is no brain scan or DNA test that can give a definitive diagnosis. Instead, clinicians are supposed to follow exhaustive guidelines set forth by professional organizations, using personal and reported observations of a child's behavior to make a diagnosis. Yet, under financial pressure to keep appointments brief and billable, pediatricians and therapists aren't always thorough.

"In our 15-minute visits-maybe 30 minutes at the most-we don't really have the time to go deeper," Brown says. If she suspects ADHD or a psychological condition, Brown will refer her patient to a mental health professional for a comprehensive evaluation. "You may have had this social history that you took in the beginning, but unless the parent opens up and shares more about what's going on in the home, we often don't have the opportunity or think to connect the two."

Caelan Kuban, a psychologist and director of the Michigan-based National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children, knows the perils of this gap well. Four years ago she began offering a course designed to teach educators, social service workers and other professionals how to distinguish the signs of trauma from those of ADHD.

"It's very overwhelming, very frustrating," she says. "When I train, the first thing I tell people is you may walk away being more confused than you are right now."

In the daylong seminar, Kuban describes how traumatized children often find it difficult to control their behavior and rapidly shift from one mood to the next. They might drift into a dissociative state while reliving a horrifying memory or lose focus while anticipating the next violation of their safety. To a well-meaning teacher or clinician, this distracted and sometimes disruptive behavior can look a lot like ADHD.

Kuban urges students in her course to abandon the persona of the "all-knowing clinician" and instead adopt the perspective of the "really curious practitioner."

Rather than ask what is wrong with a child, Kuban suggests inquiring about what happened in his or her life, probing for life-altering events.

Jean West, a social worker employed by the school district in Joseph, Missouri, took Kuban's course a few years ago. She noticed that pregnant teen mothers and homeless students participating in district programs were frequently diagnosed with ADHD. This isn't entirely unexpected: Studies have shown that ADHD can be more prevalent among low-income youth, and that children and adolescents with the disorder are more prone to high-risk behavior. Yet, West felt the students' experiences might also explain conduct easily mistaken for ADHD.

Kuban's course convinced West to first consider the role of trauma in a student's life. "What has been the impact? What kind of family and societal support have they had?" West asks. "If we can work on that level and truly know their story, there's so much power in that."

As a school official, West sometimes refers troubled students to a pediatrician or psychiatrist for diagnosis, and meets with parents to describe how and why adversity might shape their child's behavior. In her private practice, West regularly assesses patients for post-traumatic stress disorder instead of, or in addition to, ADHD.

Though stimulant medications help ADHD patients by increasing levels of neurotransmitters in the brain associated with pleasure, movement, and attention, some clinicians worry about how they affect a child with PTSD, or a similar anxiety disorder, who already feels hyper-vigilant or agitated. The available behavioral therapies for ADHD focus on time management and organizational skills, and aren't designed to treat emotional and psychological turmoil.

Instead, West teaches a traumatized child how to cope with and defuse fear and anxiety. She also recommends training and therapy for parents who may be contributing to or compounding their child's unhealthy behavior. Such programs can help parents reduce their use of harsh or abusive discipline while improving trust and communication, and have been shown to decrease disruptive child behavior.

Szymanski uses a similar approach with patients and their parents. "I think any traumatized child needs individual therapy but also family therapy," she says. "Trauma is a family experience; it never occurs in a vacuum."

Yet finding a provider who is familiar with such therapy can be difficult for pediatricians and psychiatrists, Szymanski says. Though some hospitals have centers for childhood trauma, there isn't a well-defined referral network. Even then, insurance companies, including the federal Medicaid program, may not always pay for the group sessions commonly used in parent training programs.

Faced with such complicated choices, Szymanski says it's no surprise when clinicians overlook the role of trauma in a child's behavior and focus on ADHD instead.

While there are few recommendations now for clinicians, that will likely change in the coming years. The American Academy of Pediatrics is currently developing new guidance on ADHD that will include a section on assessing trauma in patients, though it won't be completed until 2016.

Dr. Heather Forkey, a pediatrician at University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center, who specializes in treating foster children, is assisting the AAP. Her goal is to remind doctors that inattentive and hyperactive behavior can be traced back to any number of conditions-just like chest pains don't have the same origin in every patient. Ideally, the AAP will offer pediatricians recommendations for screening tools that efficiently gauge adversity in a child's life. That practice, she says, should come before any diagnosis of ADHD.

When speaking to traumatized children inappropriately diagnosed with ADHD, she offers them a reassuring explanation of their behavior. The body's stress system, she says, developed long ago in response to life-or-death threats like a predatory tiger. The part of the brain that controls impulses, for example, shuts off so that survival instincts can prevail.

"What does that look like when you put that kid in a classroom?" Forkey asks. "When people don't understand there's been a tiger in your life, it looks a lot like ADHD to them."
This story was produced for ACEs Too High

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Rebecca Ruiz is a reporter based in Oakland. She has written for NBC News, Forbes, and The American Prospect.

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How Childhood Trauma Could Be Mistaken for ADHD

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Some experts say the normal effects of severe adversity may be misdiagnosed as ADHD. Dr. Nicole Brown's quest to understand her misbehaving pediatric patients began with a hunch. Brown was completing her residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, when she realized that many of her low-income patients had been diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

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Educators are increasingly recognizing that students often have complicated lives outside of school that affect how ready they are to learn. Many students experience some kind of trauma in their lives, whether it's a health problem, divorce, violence in their neighborhood, or a combination of experiences. Research shows these experiences affect kids' brains and behavior -- a challenge for teachers expecting to arrive in class and only focus on content.

Trauma-informed teaching has become a popular topic of conversation in recent years, as teachers try to adapt their methods to best serve the kids in front of them. It all starts with understanding what kids who have experienced trauma might be feeling. This TED-Ed video lays out the biology and reminds viewers of some of the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

intrusive thoughts

reactive symptoms like irritability and difficulty sleeping

negative thoughts like anger, guilt, and fear

avoiding reminders of trauma

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What's Going On In the Brain Of A Child Who Has Experienced Trauma? | KQED

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Educators are increasingly recognizing that students often have complicated lives outside of school that affect how ready they are to learn. Many students experience some kind of trauma in their lives, whether it's a health problem, divorce, violence in their neighborhood, or a combination of experiences.

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Ofsted: SEND provision is disjointed and inconsistent 

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Ofsted: SEND provision is disjointed and inconsistent 

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Ofsted condemns 'disjointed' special educational needs provision

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Thousands missing out on vital support, report says, with pupils being removed illegally

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Free Level 2 Certificates - for after you finish your courses! 

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Free Level 2 Certificates - for after you finish your courses! 

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You cover most of the course content for these certificates but some may be of interest

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'The Skills Network is one of the UK's most successful providers of technology-enabled training and skills solutions.'

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Music lessons to support neurological connections in learners with ASD and ADHD 

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Music lessons to support neurological connections in learners with ASD and ADHD 

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Musical training creates new brain connections in children

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Taking music lessons increases brain fiber connections in children and may be useful in treating autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), according to a study being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

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Climbing trees to be on a list of extracurricular goals...who will be responsible for supporting children to achieve this? 

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Climbing trees to be on a list of extracurricular goals...who will be responsible for supporting children to achieve this? 

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Schoolchildren could be encouraged to climb a tree, go stargazing and try yoga, as they tick off items on a character-building "bucket list" being drawn up by ministers.

Education secretary Damian Hinds is due to publish a series of extracurricular goals for pupils to achieve every year - which could include exploring a cave, knitting and growing vegetables - to develop their resilience.

Building children's character has been a key theme of Mr Hinds since he joined the Department for Education in January, and was mentioned in his first speech as education secretary.

He explained: "Bluntly, it is about doing stuff that doesn't involve looking at a screen. It's about getting out and about."

Mr Hinds told the i newspaper that formal qualifications "are obviously not the only thing" and it was important to teach children how to "bounce back from the knocks that inevitably come to all of us".

"We put a lot of effort into making sure we can share really good curriculum plans and teaching materials," he said. "This is an equivalent of that for stuff outside the curriculum, in recognition of the fact that what you do academically is only part of the story."

The education secretary came across the idea on a visit to St Werburgh's Primary School in Bristol, where pupils are given a "passport" of enrichment activities.

Between arrival in Reception and leaving in Year 6, youngsters are given 15 goals to achieve each year. They include visiting a place of worship, baking a cake and sending an email.

The school's list is based on the National Trust's "50 things to do before you're 11¾" initiative.

Among the goals are skimming a stone, finding frog spawn and learning to ride a horse.

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Hinds wants pupils to climb trees and try yoga

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Schoolchildren could be encouraged to climb a tree, go stargazing and try yoga, as they tick off items on a character-building "bucket list" being drawn up by ministers. Education secretary Damian Hinds is due to publish a series of extracurricular goals for pupils to achieve every year - which could include exploring a cave, knitting and growing vegetables - to develop their resilience.

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Ofsted - should it stay or should it go.....or should it change?

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Ofsted - should it stay or should it go.....or should it change?

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I've never seen a single programme about British education that better captured why teachers are leaving the profession than episode 3 of BBC Two's School this week.

It highlighted an interesting debate on what's causing the crisis: funding? Ofsted and accountability systems? Or school leadership?

I've made clear my view on this - above everything else, it's the unjust and intense pressure on teachers to impact the progress of their students day in, day out, that is at the root of the crisis.

Yes, that's facilitated and in many cases exacerbated by leadership decisions, but many of those come about due to the pressure to "do something" to increase progress - whether that be more observations or accountability systems or by introducing a whole new raft of interventions.

It's my belief that without the threat of a poor Ofsted grading due to poor student outcomes, everyone would relax a whole lot more. I know this first-hand after teaching the past few years in an international environment. Yes, there are still those typical stressors that make teaching an innately tiring job, but behind them isn't the threat of losing pay progression, a job or professional reputation.

In this particular episode, you see headteacher Mr Pope under intense pressure, operating in difficult circumstances. At the end of the programme, he resigns because of an Ofsted report, citing personal reasons. He seemed broken and I personally felt immense sympathy for him, as I did for everyone else in the school.

Pressure on teachers for results

You can't help but feel it's what the inspectorate wanted, or at least knew was going to happen, when Mr Pope announced his departure to staff on the back of the interim inspection report which bemoaned lack of progress since the previous visit 12 weeks before.

Minutes after we see his resignation, we learn that the assistant headteacher for teaching and learning has also left.

Of course, these inspections were carried out within Ofsted's current framework, one where "outcomes" have trumped everything else.

Mr Pope isn't the first headteacher to walk away in these circumstances - we could "fill a few buses" with Mr Popes. What a bloody waste.

Ofsted chief executive Amanda Spielman favours a turn away from data towards curriculum and its impact - hence Ofsted's "quality of education" replacing outcomes as a measure. Nevertheless, she also confirmed, writing to the Commons Education Select Committee, that outcomes would still play a major role in inspection.

Either way, subjective, non-contextual judgements are likely to continue and Ofsted will still promote the downloading of the "outstanding" banner from its Twitter account.

Another aspect of the programme which really upset me was the observation and feedback to the head of the humanities faculty. After the observation, the teacher said that he felt there was an expectation for each lesson to be "world class".

In the feedback session following the observation, when the teacher said "It wasn't terrible though?", the observer said "no" very unconvincingly. She then said that if an Ofsted inspector were in the room, she would have had concerns.

Of course, we don't know the back story leading up to the observation, what happened in the entirety of the lesson and the other pressures that the teacher was under. But what we did see following the process was a highly deflated teacher left feeling as though they weren't doing a very good job.

As he shuffled around the room, alone, picking up bits of paper, you could sense the withdrawn sadness of the man, a man who obviously cared deeply about the students and the job he was doing and who was seemingly given the message - "you aren't good enough".

Back in the headteacher's office, they mooted blending two groups together to create a class of 40-plus students (a plan which it was revealed didn't have to be implemented).

The stark impact of cuts in UK education was brought into focus during this chilling conversation as three MFL teachers were almost disbelieving of what was being proposed. As the number of students in British schools rises and funding continues to stutter, these scenarios could be much more commonplace.

While the top 15 chiefs at Ofsted took home bonuses of in excess of £50,000 between them for 2017-18 "performance", this school pays £200 a pop for supply teachers, called in as teachers drop like flies under the pressure. I feel sick, do you?

After the programme, social media was littered with teachers utterly frustrated at what they'd seen.

Mary Bousted, of the NEU teaching union, perhaps captured the vibe best when she said: "Watching #School is unbearable. The humiliation and distress heaped on the headteacher and his staff is appalling. How can this improve standards?"

My answer is this - start by abolishing Ofsted. Save £134 million a year. Create an informal school-to-school peer-review system in its place. Second, scrap any accountability measures based primarily on student outcomes. That's it. Save money and retain teachers.

On the money front, I'm not really sure what the answer is, but with more teachers entering and staying in UK teaching, the money saved would be huge. Fewer Department for Education adverts costing thousands, fewer bursaries to try and persuade people to go in, fewer far-flung and desperate schemes to try and keep teachers in.

They'd just want to stay if they could get on with their jobs with some peace of mind. I hope Damian Hinds and Amanda Spielman were watching.
Tom Rogers is a teacher who runs rogershistory.com and tweets @RogersHistory For more columns by Tom, view his back catalogue

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'Last night's episode of "School" proves it: it's time to get rid of Ofsted'

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I've never seen a single programme about British education that better captured why teachers are leaving the profession than episode 3 of BBC Two's School this week. It highlighted an interesting debate on what's causing the crisis: funding? Ofsted and accountability systems? Or school leadership?

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Should English and Maths resits be scrapped? 

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Should English and Maths resits be scrapped? 

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The controversial GCSE English and maths resits policy would be scrapped under a Labour government, Angela Rayner is expected to announce.

The shadow education secretary will tell the Association of Colleges conference this afternoon that her party's National Education Service would "reform" FE.

As part of a "series" of changes, she'll tell delegates that Labour would ensure the boards of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Office for Students have an FE student placed on them.

The IfA would also be required to report to Parliament "on the quality of completed apprenticeships".

Today's announcements appear to be the first bit of detail about the NES' FE policy, after Ms Rayner was criticised for falling short of revealing any during her Labour party conference speech in September.

However, she refused today to be questioned on her plans for other areas of interest including apprenticeships, T-levels, or bringing colleges back under local authority control, an idea which Jeremy Corbyn floated in an interview with FE Week at last year's AoC conference.

"We won't just make sure that FE has a voice. We will also listen," Ms Rayner is expected say today.

"Recently, bodies from across the sector, including the Association of Colleges, have raised concerns about students in both the 16-18 and 19-25 age ranges who are being forced to re-sit English and Maths GCSEs over and over again due to ESFA funding requirements, even where other equivalent qualifications are available.

"So I can announce today that we have listened and we have heard. A Labour government would end that requirement."

The move would include the opportunity for students to "pursue other courses that enables them to attain level 2 qualifications in English and Maths, such as functional skills".

The current condition of funding rule, introduced in 2014, means that all students without at least a grade 4 - or a C, under the old alphabetical grading system - in English or maths must continue to study these subjects as part of their study programme.

Those with a grade 3, or D in the old system, must resit the GCSE exam rather than an alternative.

The requirement remains in place until the young person has completed 16 to 19 education, or achieved at least a grade 4.

A Labour spokesperson said the current system is "failing to improve grades for many students while creating serious issues for further and adult education which have faced real terms funding cuts of over £3 billion since 2010".

Many FE representative bodies have asked the government to review the resits policy, mainly because of the sector's tight resources due to the increasing number of students required to retake the qualifications, and they find that resitting a GCSE over and over again demotivates learners.

According to data released by the Department for Education in October, the number of people aged 17 or above who took maths GCSE last year fell by 7,000 to 160,519. Of those, just 22.6 per cent achieved at least a grade 4 - considered to be a pass - down from 25.4 per cent the year before.

Meanwhile, 148,894 people of the same age took English GCSE last year - up from 135,888 last year. Of those, 33 per cent achieved at least a grade 4, up from 31.1. per cent the year before.

Commenting on Labour's announcements, Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the AoC, said: "We welcome Labour's package of proposals, which will make a real difference to the education and skills training of millions of people across the country each year.

"We particularly welcome their position on English and maths GCSE retakes. It's vital that every young person leaves education with strong foundations in these subjects - they are the basis for success in work and in life.

"Colleges have long called for flexibility in how to support learners to achieve this. A one-size fits all approach has not worked and does not work. Colleges know their students and what works best for them."

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Labour would scrap GCSE English and maths resits policy

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The controversial GCSE English and maths resits policy would be scrapped under a Labour government, Angela Rayner is expected to announce. The shadow education secretary will tell the Association of Colleges conference this afternoon that her party's National Education Service would "reform" FE.

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#thankateacher #classroomheros

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We've all had a great teacher. They show a real interest in who we are, listen to our thoughts, inspire us to learn and encourage us to achieve our best, no matter what our goals are. The influence of a good teacher lasts a lifetime. We want to raise the profile of the teaching profession, highlight the positive impact teachers and school leaders have in our society - with pupils, parents and the wider community, and show teachers how much they are valued. We do this in the following ways:

Thank a teacher - send a card campaign

We know an amazing teacher makes all the difference at school. A thank you card shows how much you appreciate their hard work and dedication. Say "thank you" to an amazing teacher and we'll send them a lovely card through the post, with your personal message, for free. Anyone can send a card; children, students, parents, grandparents and colleagues can all say thank you to a teacher, teaching assistant, headteacher or team. It can be for anything - helping your child settle in, last year's class teacher, helping you though a difficult time, understanding something tricky or just being supportive, kind or funny! Let's see how many teachers we can thank! *CLICK HERE TO SEND A CARD*

Please note, we are only able to send cards to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Cards are sent out in batches, usually about every 6 weeks. We accept thank you messages all year round. Any thank yous received from 9th March 2018 will fall in to the 2019 awards year.

You can hear our 2017 Teacher of the Year in a Secondary School, Luisa Martin-Thomas, talking about what it means to receive a Thank You card on Radio 2 here.

Video thank you messages - We love to hear your stories - which teacher would you thank and why? Upload your short video 'thank you' message to our YouTube page - don't forget to say who you are, the name of your school or college and the name of the teacher(s) you'd like to thank.

Thank a Teacher day

Thank A Teacher Day took place on Friday 22nd June. Winners of our prestigious Silver Pearson Teaching Awards in schools and colleges across England, Wales and Northern Ireland were announced on this day. Click here for more information.

House of Commons Tea

Silver Teaching Awards Winners are invited to a tea at the House of Commons in July 2018. To see photos from previous events, view our gallery page.

Social media

Which teacher would you thank and why? Share with us on and . And if you're a teacher who's received a Teaching Awards Thank You card why not share a photo too? We look forward to hearing from you!

There's lots of content on our YouTube page - check it out here.

Use the hashtags #ThankaTeacher #classroomheroes and #teachingawards to connect with us.

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Send a "Thank You" card to an amazing teacher today - for free

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We've all had a great teacher. They show a real interest in who we are, listen to our thoughts, inspire us to learn and encourage us to achieve our best, no matter what. Thank a teacher through us, we'll send a card, for free, from you.

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New Mulitplication Assessment - will be used with 19/20 Year 4 classes 

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New Mulitplication Assessment - will be used with 19/20 Year 4 classes 

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Statistically less girls have ASD.....or are they being overlooked?  

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Statistically less girls have ASD.....or are they being overlooked?  

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Many more boys than girls are diagnosed on the autism spectrum: more than four boys for every autistic girl, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control. Researchers point to genetic differences. But clinicians and researchers have also come to realize that many "higher functioning" autistic girls are simply missed. They've been termed the "lost girls" or "hiding in plain sight" because they're overlooked or diagnosed late. They don't fit the stereotypes or their symptoms are misinterpreted as something else. And they may be better at hiding the signs, at least when they're young.

Even when girls' presentation is clearer, they can be overlooked. Take Melissa's two children. Both have an autism diagnosis. But while daughter Lisa's symptoms were much more obvious than son Justin's, the girl's were waved off for three years by a variety of clinicians.

"On paper," Melissa says, "she seemed to check all the boxes." Lisa had a significant language delay - she didn't speak in sentences until she was 4 - did no pretend play, and had several meltdowns each day. There were also other signs, like lining up her stuffed animals, spinning in circles, and constantly seeking sensory input. She was also unable to handle any change in routine.

Though Lisa's challenges qualified her for Early Intervention at 18 months, it wasn't until she was 6 that a developmental neurologist would diagnose her with autism.

Melissa's son was also diagnosed at 6 - but by the first clinician who saw him, despite the fact that his symptoms were far less obvious.

"The developmental pediatrician who saw Lisa didn't believe autism was common in girls. He came up with excuses for her behavior and reasons why she couldn't be on the spectrum," Melissa says. "At one point, we were even told that my daughter just had low self-esteem and that's why she didn't speak. And, of course, that her issues were just a parenting problem. We were never told those things about our son."

Autistic girls don't fit the "model"

Autism is a developmental disorder that is marked by two unusual kinds of behaviors: deficits in communication and social skills, and restricted or repetitive behaviors. Children with autism also often have sensory processing issues. But here's the hitch, according to Susan F. Epstein, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist. "The model that we have for a classic autism diagnosis has really turned out to be a male model. That's not to say that girls don't ever fit it, but girls tend to have a quieter presentation, with not necessarily as much of the repetitive and restricted behavior, or it shows up in a different way."

Stereotypes may get in the way of recognition. "So where the boys are looking at train schedules, girls might have excessive interest in horses or unicorns, which is not unexpected for girls," Dr. Epstein notes. "But the level of the interest might be missed and the level of oddity can be a little more damped down. It's not quite as obvious to an untrained eye." She adds that as the spectrum has grown, it's gotten harder to diagnose less-affected boys as well.

In fact, according to a 2005 study at Stanford University, autistic girls exhibit less repetitive and restricted behavior than boys do. The study also found brain differences between autistic boys and girls help explain this discrepancy.

Wendy Moyal, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Mind Institute, adds that girls are more likely to control their behavior in public, so teachers don't catch differences. "A lot of autistic girls get ruled out because they may share a smile or may have a bit better eye contact or they're more socially motivated. It can be a more subtle presentation," Dr. Moyal explains. If girls are socially interested but odd, which is the case with the majority of these girls, she adds, "I think people give them a pass."

Related: What Every Autistic Girl Wishes Her Parents Knew

Another problem: misdiagnoses

Dr. Epstein says there's another reason autistic girls are misdiagnosed, or diagnosed later than boys. Girls struggling with undiagnosed autism often develop depression, anxiety or poor self-esteem, and clinicians may not "really dig underneath to see the social dysfunction" caused by autism.

Dr. Moyal adds that these girls can also be misdiagnosed with ADHD. "I see a lot of girls who are diagnosed with ADHD when they're young who actually meet the criteria for autism," she says. "There's hyperactivity without as much social impairment or a different kind of social impairment, so the autism is missed."

Autistic girls "pass"... at least for a while

Another reason girls may not be diagnosed is because they're able to "pass."

"Girls tend to get by," Dr. Epstein says. "They might not understand what's going on but they'll try to just go along and imitate what they see. And they may get away with it to third grade or fifth grade, but once they get to junior high and high school, it shows as a problem."

This has been the case for Lisa, now 13. Melissa says of her daughter, "She is less mature than her typical peers, and girls are so intricate in how they behave socially. It's very difficult for her to maintain friendships because of this and, let me tell you, 13-year-old girls are not very accepting of someone different."

The cost of a missed diagnosis

Dr. Epstein says undiagnosed autistic girls end up wondering "what's wrong" with them, which can lead to depression, anxiety and loss of self-esteem. They work so hard to fit in that it wears them out. "That's the thing about imitating," she says. "You don't necessarily 'get' it so you're just trying to do what people do. If you're just trying to mimic and you don't really understand, it makes it pretty rough."

Dr. Moyal says less severe autism in girls is often first flagged because of these social issues, or the depression they generate. "In people we call mildly autistic, there are adolescent social problems or they're seeming hyperfocused on a topic and not participating in school to their potential or abilities," she says. "Depression can be more common among high-functioning kids on the spectrum. So they'll come in for something like depression or poor school performance. Then it becomes more clear to me that they have a restricted interest and social communication issues."

Another cost of being overlook is missing out on early support for skill-building. "We talk about early intervention," Dr. Epstein says. "When the girls are identified late, they've missed out on a lot of social interventions that are much harder later. That's the danger for anybody who gets a late diagnosis."

Dr. Moyal concurs, adding that they've missed opportunities to get the proper support in school as well as socially: "Academically, it's harder for them to focus on topics that are not of interest. That's true for people who have ADHD and even to a greater degree for kids who are on the autism spectrum."

Safety risks for autistic girls

Autistic girls may be bullied simply because they're "different." Also, Dr. Epstein says, because these girls miss social cues and want to be liked, their autism can leave them more naïve. This makes them easy prey for someone trying to take advantage of them, be it a bully or a sexual predator. "The girls may be wanting the interaction but not understanding what it's about, what the cues are," Dr. Epstein says. "It can be very easy for them to follow their hormones without an understanding of what the dangers are. And sometimes even if they have been taught, they need ongoing support to be able to maintain safety."

Melissa says this has been true with Lisa. "I've had to think about female issues at a much earlier age than I expected," she says. "We've already had an incident of her being inappropriately touched by a boy, for whom the excuse was made that because he's also disabled, he 'didn't understand what he was doing was wrong.'"

One of her daughter's greatest strengths is how accepting she is of others, Melissa adds. "She always finds the good in people, even when they are mean to her," she says. "But because she is so accepting and kind, others can easily take advantage of her, or bully her, and she won't say anything."

Dr. Moyal notes that there's an area of study that's rethinking how to help girls on the spectrum: "There's expanding research on how boys and girls present differently and how our treatments may need to be specified a bit more for a girl's presentation vs. a boy's presentation."

But first the girls need to be identified - and accepted. This will require more awareness and sensitivity on the part of parents, teachers and clinicians.

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Many more boys than girls are diagnosed on the autism spectrum: more than four boys for every autistic girl, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control. Researchers point to genetic differences. But clinicians and researchers have also come to realize that many "higher functioning" autistic girls are simply missed.

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An initiative encouraging primary school children to focus on the acts of kindness around them is being launched today.

The Kindness Book is being piloted in 15 London primary schools with the aim of rolling the scheme out throughout London, the UK and Europe.

The book invites children to draw and write about moments of kindness with each other. It is hoped that, through the process of recalling these moments, children will come to realise how small acts of kindness are carried through their school and throughout society.

Aimed at children between the ages of 7 and 12, the book invites pupils to write down a moment of kindness with a friend, who they then pass the book on to. The friend then writes down their memory of a moment of kindness with another friend who becomes the next recipient of the book, and so on.

Small acts of kindness

The book is the first initiative of the Kindness Movement, an initiative founded by brothers Jason Holt and Stuart Acker Holt together with business leader Debra Charles to honour the life of Robert Acker Holt.

The oldest surviving member of Hatton Garden's London Diamond Bourse, and founder of jewellers Holts Gems, Mr Holt died in January, aged 94. Having fled the Nazis as a Jewish refugee, aged 16, his sons said he never forgot the small acts of kindness shown to him during this time.

The mission of the movement is to encourage small acts of kindness at schools, which are then carried through to society, as well as to raise awareness of the value of kindness and to reduce prejudice. The organisers plan to turn the finished books into an exhibition.

Jason Holt said: "Dad instilled in my brother and I - and all who met him - a sense of kindness he himself felt from one or two individuals during his years of persecution in Vienna in 1938. This book is a celebration of dad's memory and a way to pass on that sense of kindness to all our children."

Stuart Acker Holt added: "One of my father's greatest words of advice were 'always carry a pen'. He used his own pen to record and share moments, or doodle observations in his little notebooks of kindness. He carried them throughout his life and I believe this record fed his remarkable reservoir of empathy. He would be delighted to see this simple and beautiful idea carried forth to children in the Kindness Book."

Debra Charles, founder and chief executive of the Novacroft Group, said: "We firmly believe the best place to have a meaningful impact is within our education system and to place discussions around kindness, integration and respect within the curriculum. That is why the Kindness Book, the first project of the movement, is directed at schools."

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Primary pupils encouraged to spread kindness

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An initiative encouraging primary school children to focus on the acts of kindness around them is being launched today. The Kindness Book is being piloted in 15 London primary schools with the aim of rolling the scheme out throughout London, the UK and Europe.

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"The windows, the bare walls. It was that every day. Every single day. They put me in a room on my own, I was in isolation," says Casey, 16.

More than 200 pupils spent at least five straight days in isolation booths in schools in England last year, a BBC News investigation has learned.

Casey's school disputes the length of time he spent on his own and said he was "regularly disruptive".

The teenager says he was placed on his own after he contracted fibromyalgia.

He takes the painkiller Tramadol for the chronic pain condition.

More than 5,000 children with special educational needs also attended isolation rooms at some stage.

Dozens of them had education, health and care plans (EHCPs) provided for children with complex needs.

The Children's Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, says school isolation can be "distressing and degrading" and she is concerned it is being used "as a gateway to excluding and off-rolling", where pupils are removed from a school's register.

The Department for Education says children should be in isolation no longer than is necessary and that the health, safety and welfare of pupils must always be put first.

Casey's father died when he was nine and he lives with his grandmother in Bristol.

"I was quite athletic, I was happy, then I fell ill. That's when it all went downhill."

He says he didn't learn during the isolation period and spent much of his time copying out of GCSE revision books, often without a teacher present.

"It made me feel there was no point to learning," he said.

Casey says the experience has had a lasting impact on him.

"I locked myself into my room every day after I came home and shut the blinds," he said.

"It felt like being isolated was normal. I wouldn't expect them to treat a dog like that. It was just vile."

Casey's school says the room he was in was not the school's actual isolation facility.

In a statement, it said that schools were increasingly encountering pupils "in crisis" who are being "failed by a combination of public services".

What is school isolation?

Isolation rooms, or internal inclusion units, are facilities pupils are sent to when it is thought they need to be removed from a classroom during the school day.

They vary in their nature significantly. Many include so-called isolation or consequence booths - partitioned desks in which children typically face the wall and work in silence.

Occasionally schools use "seclusion" units - rooms where children sometimes remain on their own - while others place pupils in more conventional classrooms to work in silence.

A recent government report on alternative provision said that schools with internal inclusion units saw them as a halfway point between excluding a pupil and keeping them in a mainstream classroom.

How are isolation rooms being used?

The BBC sent Freedom of Information requests to more than 1,000 secondary schools and academy chains across the UK asking how they use isolation and around 600 responded.

It learned that more than 200 schools in England used isolation booths, with 12 in Wales and six in Scotland but none in Northern Ireland.

While the majority had rules for children spending a maximum of one, two or three continuous days in isolation, 225 pupils in England and one in Wales spent a whole week in isolation booths as a single punishment last year.

The investigation also learned:

more than 5,000 pupils with special educational needs in England spent time in isolation

children with autism and ADHD have attended isolation

one school had five separate isolation rooms, each permanently staffed at an annual cost of more than £170,000

some schools prevent pupils from using the playground during the day and the dining hall at lunch

two schools - which included a bathroom as part of the facility - do not allow pupils to leave the unit all day.

What rules are there for using them?

Government guidance in England says schools are free to decide how long pupils should be kept in isolation, but they should be there "no longer than is necessary".

The guidelines also say that in order for isolation to be lawful as a punishment it should be "reasonable" in all circumstances, and factors such as special educational needs should be taken into account.

Schools do not need to record use or report to parents that their child has been sent to isolation, although many do.

Paul Dix says he has probably visited more isolation facilities than anyone else in his work as a behavioural consultant in schools across England.

He says he has seen 50 children at one time in isolation in one school and children with Asperger's syndrome and ADHD in isolation rooms and met one child who said they had spent 36 days in isolation in one school year.

"That is not education, it is a custodial sentence," he said.

"Where's the regulation around it, where's the reporting, where is the accountability?"

He said he has heard of pupils being placed into isolation for not bringing a pen or wearing the right shoes.

Paul says disruptive pupils may need to be removed from classrooms but believes they should be returned after a short period and a discussion of their behaviour with an experienced teacher.

"That is the intelligent way. Isolation is desperation," he said.

Why are they used?

Richard Sheriff is the executive head for eight schools - three of which have rooms with isolation booths - as well as president of the Association of School and College Leaders.

He says his schools would never place pupils in isolation booths for five consecutive days, but understands why some schools feel the need to find ways of tackling extreme behaviour.

"There is a gathering storm with regards to student behaviour," he says.

"We've seen cuts in services in local authorities, but also in the ability of schools to purchase well-run, good quality alternative provision."

He says a lot of society's problems are now being "laid at the door of schools".

The government's school behaviour expert, Tom Bennett, says isolation rooms can be effective in tackling disruption in classrooms.

"When you're a lone adult with a class of 25 pupils, it only take two people to really persistently wilfully misbehave for that lesson to be completely detonated," he said.

He believes removing students from classrooms should be seen as a positive solution.

"It can be a way of preventing fixed-term exclusions by keeping them in the school and being looked after," he said.

You can follow Noel Titheradge on Twitter at @NoelTitheradge
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'Hundreds spend week in school isolation'

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"The windows, the bare walls. It was that every day. Every single day. They put me in a room on my own, I was in isolation," says Casey, 16. More than 200 pupils spent at least five straight days in isolation booths in schools in England last year, a BBC News investigation has learned.

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Does homeschooling battle the rise of product driven schools? 

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Does homeschooling battle the rise of product driven schools? 

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'School is very oppressive': why home-schooling is on the rise

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Exams, rules, timetables: do teachers know what's best for children? Increasing numbers of British parents don't think so

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Have the tech focused AltSchool gone too far? 

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Have the tech focused AltSchool gone too far? 

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Combining education and technology is great-until it's not.

Frederick Florin / Getty

Four years ago, Paul France left a teaching job in the Chicago suburbs to move to San Francisco and be part of the so-called personalized-learning revolution in education. He joined a high-profile start-up called AltSchool whose investors include Mark Zuckerberg and the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. France was passionate about both education and technology and welcomed the opportunity to combine the two. But they would not prove to be as complementary as he thought.

AltSchool's founder, a former Google executive named Max Ventilla, envisioned it as a place where students, aided by technology and tech-savvy teachers, would learn at their own pace, based on their interests and aptitudes. Teachers, using proprietary software to track student performance and help guide their learning, would be freed from time-consuming tasks like scoring exams and could devote more attention to students. The company's mission was to help move the American education system from an industrial-age model "where schools were set up to resemble factories and students had a conveyor belt-like experience" to a more "learner-centric" approach that gives students a sense of agency and 21st-century problem-solving skills, Devin Vodicka, who is responsible for guiding the company's personalized learning platform as it expands to more schools, told me.

The company opened small lab schools in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and New York. Students were provided with their own iPads or Chromebooks along with individualized "playlists" of learning activities to choose from. Cameras in classrooms videotaped students' and teachers' interactions, enabling teachers and engineers to analyze the footage and review what worked, a process AltSchool technologists hoped would eventually be aided by computers using machine-learning algorithms.

AltSchool was flooded with applicants willing and able to pay tuition of $30,000 or more for their children to attend, and became one of the hottest start-ups in educational technology; to date, it has raised more than $170 million in investment. It was part of a broad investor rush to ed tech. Last year, venture-capital investors put $2.7 billion into ed-tech companies, up from $1.6 billion in 2016, according to CB Insights, a software company that examines technology trends. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Netflix founder Reed Hastings, and the Gates Foundation have given millions of dollars to schools implementing technology-based personalized learning-many of them urban charter schools serving low-income children.

But in the midst of all the excitement, there's little strong evidence that classroom technology, including personalized learning, is improving educational outcomes. A 2015 report from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development found that countries that invested heavily in computer technology for schools showed "no appreciable improvements" in reading, math or science, and that technology "is of little help in bridging the skills divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students."

A recent Rand study evaluating the use of personalized learning found emerging signs of promise, but with plenty of caveats. Students in 40 schools with personalized-learning programs funded by the Gates Foundation scored a bit higher on standardized English and math tests over the course of one school year, with only the math gains reaching statistical significance. A "slight majority" of schools had positive gains, the report found. But because it didn't have a randomized control group, "our study is not able to make a very strong statement about whether the personalized learning approaches actually caused the improvement," Elizabeth Steiner, a study co-leader and an associate policy researcher at the think tank, told me.

The Rand report also found challenges: Helping students work at their own pace can make group projects and collaboration more difficult because students are at different places, while also making it harder to prepare kids for year-end standardized tests. Another review of the Gates-funded effort, by the Center for Reinventing Public Education, concluded that: "At the end of two years, despite some pockets of innovation, few schools had developed replicable strategies for personalized learning."

Vodicka, aware of such findings, said the results of personalized learning depend on how it's implemented-and that AltSchool was already addressing many of the concerns identified by the Rand review by, for example, creating flexibility in the pace at which students progress through a course and giving teachers time and resources to develop and evaluate new materials and approaches. "There's a version of personalization which ends up as computer-based screen time in which the learner basically gives up their agency to the technology," he told me. "That's not what we're trying to do at AltSchool."

Another school network that has been using technology and personalized learning for years in an effort to eliminate the achievement gap, with mixed results, is the RocketShip chain of charter schools, which serves low-income Latino and African-American students, mostly in and around San Jose. It has won credit for pushing up test scores but has also been criticized for its heavy reliance on computer-based instruction.
Why technology alone won't fix schools
At Rocketship Los Sueños in San Jose, students spend 30 to 60 minutes a day on laptops in their classroom and another 90 minutes in the Learning Lab-a large room where kids sit at long tables, wearing headphones and working on laptops, supervised by classroom aides. On a visit last June, I found that few things broke the silence: when kindergartners filed in from recess; when a staff member pulled kids out for testing. Students scarcely talked and when they did, or their attention drifted too far, they were admonished. "Stephanie, focus," Nicki Muñoz, a supervisor, said. "Yuridia, sit up." She counted down-"8, 7, 6, 5, 4"-when it was time to switch from one software program to another. The kids looked zoned out, with blank expressions on their faces. Ninety straight minutes on computers is "way too long," Munoz told me. "Kindergartners will focus for 15 minutes." Some kids get dizzy or have problems with their vision, she added.

When Paul France went to work at AltSchool, he told me, he believed using technology in schools could "minimize the complexity of the classroom ... and make us more powerful, allowing us to do other things with our time." He helped open three Bay Area schools and worked closely with engineers, testing and developing software. As the school's buzz grew, he became the company's poster-teacher, appearing in stories in Wired, The New Yorker, and Pacific Standard. "He is young, enthusiastic, and enterprising-the kind of teacher every parent would want for their child," Issie Lapowsky wrote in Wired.

France and his fellow teachers prepared lengthy narrative reports on each child's progress sent twice a month to parents. For many parents, that wasn't enough. "Parents are coming to me asking, 'What are you doing to individualize for my child?'" France said. "Or 'Why is my child working on the same thing as that kid over there?'" He felt many parents seemed to put more faith in software like Lexia, a reading program, and DreamBox, a math application, than in teachers. They'd ask, for example, why a student who'd already passed a certain standard in DreamBox was still doing similar work in class. "They don't know how mastery works with kids," France said. "The programs aren't really assessing for conceptual understanding, they're assessing if they answered the question right."

As time went on, France started questioning what he and his colleagues were doing. "The vision was a curriculum that catered to every child so they're learning at their level all the time," he said. "But when every child is working on something different, you're taking away the most human component in the learning process, which is social interaction-learning from one another and collaborating to solve problems. They're developing a relationship with their tablet but not with each other."

For France, the turning point came one morning when he looked around a kindergarten classroom, "and the kids were staring at their tablets, engrossed by them. And I'm thinking to myself, 'They could be building with blocks, they could be doing a number of different things that are more meaningful that also build social and emotional skills but they're choosing not to. Why? Because the tool is so addictive, that's all they want to do.'"

AltSchool representatives say that after four years of experimentation, and a fair bit of trial and error, they've solidified their approach and let go of concepts that don't work, including some of those that bothered Paul France. Vodicka, a former superintendent of Vista Unified Schools in California, was hired last year to build AltSchool's network of partnerships. The company closed its Palo Alto school and shelved plans to open more of its own schools in favor of providing its platform to more partners. It also ditched the idea of collecting data from classroom cameras. "That was an idea that unfortunately did not validate," Vodicka says.

Today, more than a dozen charter and private schools, along with four California school districts, are using AltSchool's technology and receiving training and support. In his visits to partner schools that are using AltSchool's technology, he says, "I'm seeing learners that are energized and inspired, that are highly collaborative. I'm encouraged by that."

An AltSchool spokeswoman said its teacher-retention rate is 90 percent. In the summer of 2017, though, France quit AltSchool and returned to Chicago. He spent the past year teaching at a traditional private school that's been around for a century and, in his view, sees the "value in using a plain old notebook and pencil to engage in the writing process." He still uses technology when it's appropriate. His class last year did a project on Chicago neighborhoods and visited many. Since they couldn't get to all of them, they used Google Earth to virtually walk through several. "I'm not anti-technology but I'm definitely for minimizing it," France says. "You use technology to remove a barrier. And the question always should be: Is the tech in my classroom going to preserve or enhance human connection?"

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Rob Waters is a journalist based in Oakland.

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The Backlash Against Screen Time at School

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Combining education and technology is great-until it's not. Four years ago, Paul France left a teaching job in the Chicago suburbs to move to San Francisco and be part of the so-called personalized-learning revolution in education. He joined a high-profile start-up called AltSchool whose investors include Mark Zuckerberg and the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

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To illustrate the value of metacognition and how it actually plays a role in learning, we can consider an example from mathematics, where it has been shown that metacognition plays a central role in learning and achievement. Specifically, when novice students were compared to seasoned mathematicians, the students selected a seemingly useful strategy and continued to apply it without checking to see if the strategy of choice was actually working well. Thus, a significant amount of time was wasted in fruitless pursuits. The more experienced mathematicians on the other hand, exercised metacognition, monitoring their approach all along the way to see if it was actually leading to a solution or merely to a dead end.Being aware of how one is engaging with the process of learning influences how the student interprets the task at hand, and what strategies are selected and employed in service of achieving learning goals. It can help optimize the problem-solving experience at a very high level, and is thus applicable across a large range of contexts. These metacognitive strategies are powerful tools for any discipline, inter-discipline or for learning in general.

Of course, with such an abstract learning goal, it is important for educators to be precise with how they teach it. Traditional methods for improving students' learning strategies often focus on prescribed procedures (note-taking, self-testing, scheduling, etc.) and typically result in initial motivation and some short-term improvement, but ultimately a reversion to old habits happens. While these tactics may work in the short term (e.g., to cram for an exam), once the context changes, successful transfer of these methods is less likely to occur. More strategic methods that focus on metacognition for deeper learning- such as developing a growth mindset (discussed later), setting and monitoring one's learning goals, and growing one's capacity to persist despite difficulties-have been shown to result in more permanent learning gains.

It is important to note that since metacognition involves higher-level thinking overseeing lower-level thoughts, there is actually a range of mental processes that fall under its definition. Effects of metacognitive training vary based on what kind of lower-level thoughts are being overseen, and how they are being overseen. Research has identified three levels of reporting on metacognitive processes:

1. Verbalization of knowledge that is already in a verbal state (such as recalling what happened in a story).

2. Verbalization of nonverbal knowledge (such as recalling how one solved a Rubik's Cube).

3. Verbalization of explanations of verbal or nonverbal knowledge (such as explaining how one makes use of the rhetorical structures of a story as one reads).

Only this third level of metacognitive process has been linked to improved results in problem solving.

Metacognition can be developed in students in the context of their current goals and can enhance their learning of competenciesas well as transfer of learning, no matter their starting achievement level. In fact, it may be most useful for lower-achieving students, as the higher-achieving students are already employing strategies that have proven successful for them. For learning disabled and low - achieving students, metacognitive training has been shown to improve behavior more effectively than traditional attention-control training.

Students who have higher levels of self-efficacy (more confidence in their ability to achieve their goals) are more likely to engage in metacognition and, in turn, are more likely to perform at higher levels. This strongly indicates a positive feedback loop for high-achieving students-they are more successful by using metacognitive strategies, which increases their confidence and in turn leads them to continue to increase their performance. Metacognition is an integral part of this virtuous learning cycle, and one that is amenable to further improvement through instruction.
Charles Fadel is founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign, Bernie Trilling is founder of 21st Century Learning Advisors and Maya Bialik is researcher at CCR.

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The Role of Metacognition in Learning and Achievement | KQED

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To illustrate the value of metacognition and how it actually plays a role in learning, we can consider an example from mathematics, where it has been shown that metacognition plays a central role in learning and achievement.

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'Stop taking the skills of TAs for granted' | Tes News

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Teaching assistants take on extra responsibilities in times of crisis, yet they have little training and lower salaries

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Over the past several decades public education has shifted to focus on literacy and math learning, largely due to high stakes tests measuring those two elements of school. But educators have long known that while reading, writing and math are important to academic success, they are far from the only qualities students need to go forth and lead productive lives.

In recent years, the pendulum of education trends have swung back to emphasize the importance of relationships to learning. Schools are using social and emotional learning curricula to help students develop interpersonal skills and learn ways to solve problems peacefully. But there's still debate around which social and emotional skills are the most important to teach -- such as empathy, e xecutive functioning or persistence -- and some educators feel unprepared to take on a role that seems more like parenting.

In a video series called "Schools That Work," Edutopia offers some examples of social and emotional learning routines that successful schools use. At Highlander Charter School in Rhode Island, elementary school students talk about the importance of morning meeting to their day.

"It puts me in a focused and good mood," said Monica, a third grader at the school. Every morning during the 15-minute meeting, students greet each other, have sharing time, do a quick movement activity and review the schedule for the day. Educators say this routine is an invaluable way to help students transition from home to school; it helps build a community where students feel cared for, known and ready to learn.

"I like it when people share because we get to know them a little better," said first grader Dianelys. Educators at this school said carving out this time every day creates a culture in which students respect each other and their teacher.

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Setting School Culture With Social And Emotional Learning Routines | KQED

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Building students' social and emotional skills with daily routines or regular classes is an important part of setting school culture.

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Too often, school removes all the fun from learning | Tes News

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We need to give children to chance to explore, engage and take risks away from standardised testing and regimented learning

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Girls with ASD - the importance of friendship 

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Girls with ASD - the importance of friendship 

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Autistic girls are not getting the support they need to form friendships at school, according to a new study.

The research found that autistic girls reported more conflicts with friends than autistic boys, or non-autistic boys or girls.

Co-author Vivian Hill, of UCL Institute of Education, said that the research, published in the journal Autism, shows the need for schools to be given ways to support autistic girls' friendships.

"Typically, the influence of autism on girls has been less well understood, leading to later identification, and the widespread neglect of their psycho-social needs," she said. "The failure to address their needs can lead to escalating anxiety and predisposes them to mental health challenges.

"The findings of this study highlight the vulnerabilities of autistic girls in coping with the more complex social pragmatics of friendships during adolescence. It is clear that schools need to be supported to provide interventions to help these young people to develop strategies to manage the conflict they experience and to promote their wellbeing and mental health during the crucial developmental phase of adolescence."

The study of 102 children - 27 autistic girls, 26 autistic boys, 26 non-autistic girls and 23 non-autistic boys - found that girls and boys formed friendships differently. Girls had a focus on developing friends whom they could depend on for social and emotional support, whereas boys' friendships revolved around shared activities and practical support.

The value of friendships for autistic girls

Autistic and non-autistic boys had a similar approach to friendship and resolving conflicts, which were usually to do with jokes being taken "too far" and becoming annoying.

But while non-autistic girls would typically have a wide group of less intimate friends, autistic girls usually formed close bonds with just one or two friends and thus found conflict harder to deal with than non-autistic girls.

When girls did fall out, this could lead to exclusion or "the silent treatment", and while non-autistic girls would work out a compromise, autistic girls would end up accepting all the blame themselves or labelling the other person as the wrong-doer and breaking off the friendship.

Felicity Sedgewick, of King's College, London, who co-authored the report, said that what was important was not to expect autistic girls to have the same social lives as neurotypical girls, but to support and value the friendships they have.

"While we saw a real connection between social difficulties and mental health challenges which schools should be aware of, there were also positive outcomes from the study," she said.

"All the autistic girls had at least one best friend, and even if their friendships didn't look 'typical', they were highly satisfied with them. So there is an obligation for schools to not only be aware of how to support autistic girls where they are struggling (such as with bullying, wider peer relationships, and mental health) but also to recognise and value the friendships they build themselves."

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Autistic girls 'need more school support'

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Autistic girls are not getting the support they need to form friendships at school, according to a new study. The research found that autistic girls reported more conflicts with friends than autistic boys, or non-autistic boys or girls.

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On average, three children in every classroom have a diagnosable mental health condition - and many more go through periods when they struggle to cope. There is mounting evidence that this mental health crisis is growing. More young people than ever before are seeking support from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, and recent research by The Children's Society indicates that a fifth of 14 year-old girls have self-harmed.

While schools should never be expected to do the job of mental health services, they have a crucial role to play in promoting good mental health in everything they do and in signposting pupils to support when problems first emerge. But the current education system is unbalanced, with a far greater focus on academic performance than on the wellbeing of students.

And it's important to remember that the wellbeing of students goes hand in hand with the wellbeing of teachers. When staff are constantly stressed and overworked, it can affect their interaction with students. Taking a whole-school approach to wellbeing has benefits for young people's wider education, and for everyone who works in school.

That's why, over the last year, we've been campaigning for a rebalancing of the education system, so that schools can focus on wellbeing at least as much as exam results.

During that time, we've seen some very welcome progress. The government's plans to introduce mental health to the curriculum, mental health support teams, designated mental health leads and optional new measurements of wellbeing could all make a huge difference.

But we need to see a more fundamental change to the system.

At the moment, schools that are doing excellent work on wellbeing and mental health do not receive the resources or recognition that they deserve. That means that, when school leadership teams have to make difficult decisions about how to spend their limited budgets, it can be hard for them to make wellbeing a priority. This needs to change.
Ensuring Ofsted focuses on wellbeing
Ofsted inspect schools and colleges across England, and give them ratings from 'inadequate' to 'outstanding' based on a variety of criteria. The framework is currently being reviewed, with new criteria to be introduced next year.

At the moment, wellbeing is simply not well enough recognised in inspections. Amanda Spielman, Ofsted's Chief Inspector, has already announced that the new framework will no longer focus on exam results and grades. This is good news, and will hopefully help to reduce the burden of teachers.

But we want an explicit commitment that the wellbeing of children will be Ofsted's priority.

Our campaign has the backing of young people, parents and teachers. 90% of young people we surveyed said that they would like mental health to be more important in their school or college. Three-quarters of parents say that they'd rather send their child to a school where children are happy over one with better exam results.

And, when we polled nearly 7,000 teachers earlier this year, 86% of teachers agreed that they Ofsted framework should be revised, so that there is a greater focus on wellbeing and mental health, with other elements scaled back.

This Thursday, our young activists will be delivering an open letter to Ofsted, asking them to ensure that wellbeing is at the heart of the new inspection framework. So far the open letter has been signed by more than 20,000 people.

While Ofsted inspections can only give a snapshot of what a school does, they inevitably shape a school's agenda until the next inspection. That's why the framework should reflect what matters most to young people, parents and teachers. For a school to be outstanding, it should have the wellbeing of children - and of the staff who work with them - at its heart.

Sign our open letter: https://act.youngminds.org.uk/wise-tell-ofsted-prioritise-wellbeing-schools

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For A School To Be Outstanding, It Should Have The Wellbeing Of Students At Its Heart

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We need a rebalancing of the education system, where schools focus on wellbeing at least as much as exam results

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A few weeks ago, I attended an event at Newnham College, a part of Cambridge University specifically founded for women by women during a time when the idea of possessing a degree and a vagina simultaneously was deeply controversial. Speaking on the topic of gender divides in the workplace, psychologist Dr Linda Papadopolous said that "confidence is more important than competence" when it comes to getting a job.

She cited statistics which revealed that a man looking at a job spec will generally feel comfortable applying if he has 60 per cent of the desired qualifications, whereas a woman will, on average, only throw her CV into the ring if it contains 100 per cent. I thought of all the teacher conferences I've attended where 90 per cent of delegates have been women, then the headteacher events where that gender split has been reversed, and I concluded this stood to reason.

Research conducted by graduate recruitment site Milkround bears this out. It found that the salary expectations of female graduates are much lower than their male counterparts, with one third believing they will earn less than £20k as a starting salary and a quarter expecting to be earning £25-30k in five years' time. Their male counterparts, conversely, expected to be earning between £35k-£40k.

Nearly half of the women surveyed cited a "lack of confidence" as the reason for their low expectations, which many used interchangeably with the term "imposter syndrome".

I'm uncomfortable with the way "imposter syndrome" is used colloquially here, in the same way I dislike the phrase "a little bit OCD" when used to mean "likes things tidy". Imposter syndrome is an all-pervading and distressing belief system, centred around feelings of inadequacy, of being a "fraud" and fears concerning "being found out". Statistics show it does indeed disproportionately affect women.

However, if young women are emerging from education and into the job market with very different ideas about their value than young men, this suggests the issue is a systemic one, rather than being a matter of confidence levels in individuals. I am joined in this belief by Afua Hirsch, author of the best-selling (and rather brilliant) Brit(ish), who told me: "The problem is that we are all conditioned by social norms which define and portray power as man-shaped, middle-aged, elite and white. This is the blueprint by which we all measure ourselves and to the extent we deviate from that norm, we inevitably feel self-conscious about our non-conformity."

Young women 'cautious about applying for jobs'

The age consideration Hirsch mentions might explain why Milkround's research that found just under a quarter of young men shared women's salary expectations on entering the job market, but the expectations of each sex begin to diverge significantly as they imagined growing older.

Schools, of course, have a role to play in combating this. They can help to ensure that the "shape of power", as defined by Hirsch, is as fluid as possible by making the range of figures, historical and present, who are studied and celebrated within its walls diverse. Adults need also to keep our inherent gender bias in check when dealing with children. Girls tend to be socialised from a young age to believe that the best thing they can be is "good" and therefore "liked". Is it any wonder, then, that, as adults, women often fear demanding their worth and settle for substandard pay and conditions, for fear of upsetting the proverbial apple cart?

I remember some of my primary teachers advising me to "just let it go" when something I considered deeply unfair had happened to me because "you know you're right and that's what matters". I found this, even at the tender age of 8, thoroughly frustrating. Sometimes, it's more important to be right than liked - sometimes happiness comes from sticking to your principles as opposed to pursuing an "easy life", and I wish someone had, if not advised me that was the route to take, at least supported me when I did (because I was always going to. I always do).

Of course, the responsibility for fixing this shouldn't be another thing to land in the laps of schools. This is a whole-society issue requiring a response which incorporates every aspect of our culture. In her recent column for Grazia magazine on the gender pay gap, Cosmopolitan editor Farrah Storr asserted that "those who had studied the issue" know "a really feminist question" would be why women aren't properly remunerated for their more "natural" skills which, she claimed, include caring and nurturing.

Whilst the idea that women are "naturally" predisposed to certain tasks obviously caused me to hurl my copy of my favourite women's glossy at the wall, Storr has a point on which characteristics society, and more specifically employers, value. Even their given-name -"soft skills" - implies that the ability to deal with people is somehow "less" than the ability to navigate a spreadsheet. Teaching, which is at least 70 per cent understanding and catering to the 30-plus sets of individual needs in a classroom, is systematically undervalued and underpaid for that very reason.

In short, it may just be that when girls come out of education having seen their (predominantly female) teachers having been properly respected and remunerated, that their problems with imposter syndrome will at last disappear.
Natasha Devon MBE is the former government mental health champion. She is a writer and campaigner and visits an average of three schools per week all over the UK. She tweets @_natashadevon. Find out more about her work here

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'Girls need to see teachers being respected'

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If girls witness female teachers being respected they might suffer less from 'impostor syndrome', says Natasha Devon

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Words are great, aren't they?

Plethora. Dwindle. Reverie.

The way some of them roll around the mouth - bravado - and drop off the tongue - fecund - is joyful.

I love nothing better than dropping new words into my class' vocabulary; giving them exciting synonyms for overused words is a delight, a thrill.

Some words disappear the moment you've taught them, only to reappear months later in unexpected ways. Some new words help to blow the dust from the thesaurus, depositing ever richer words in their stead. While some words lodge themselves squarely at the nib of the children's pens until you're sick of the sight of them (remind me never to teach them the word "beseech" when doing persuasive writing).

And then there are the words that the children already think they know.

Pupils, assemble

Assembly was one of those words.

We were writing instructions and wading our way through a big pile of how-to booklets when one boy tentatively raised his hand.

"Sir, why does it say assembly instructions on this one?"

"Well, because assembly means to put something together."

At this point his eyes drifted to the timetable.

"So... why do we do assembly at the end of the day?"

"Well... because that's when we all come together... as a school community..."

He didn't look convinced.

"You know... we assemble in the hall... like the Avengers..."

Better options?

In trying to persuade him that sitting on the floor every afternoon with numb buttocks and aching legs was in any way similar to the exploits of Iron Man et al, I'd lost him completely. And really, who can blame him?

I can only imagine what I'd have got if I'd asked him to play a game of Mallett's Mallet with the word "assembly": boring, tedious, repetitive, dull, preachy, uncomfortable.

So why do we have assembly?

Two reasons, I suppose: the desire to build a school community, and the little-enforced requirement for daily collective worship that must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character (I know, I was surprised that was still a thing as well).

Marshalling an entire school to and from assembly is no easy feat and can take anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes. Which rather prompts the question: is this the best use of that time?

Building community

And I don't even mean that from a judgemental, show-me-your-progress point of view. Is this the best use of time if our aims (let's put that whole worship thing to one side) are to build a sense of community and do something collectively?

What if, rather than singing another song about autumn leaves, the whole school was outside kicking, collecting and comparing them?

What if rather than always being lectured about behaviour, the children spent time out on the playground, with all their teachers, having that good behaviour modelled to them?

What if rather than singing the same old songs that our parents sang in their school days, assembly was a whole-school conga chain and Macarena?

If assembly is where we're building a school community, ought we take a good look at the materials we're using?
Ian Goldsworthy is a primary teacher and tweets @Ian_Goldsworthy

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Assembly: outdated, ineffective and a waste of time

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If we want to build community, there are many better ways of doing it than assembly, argues Ian Goldsworthy

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BBC film crew documents England's school funding crisis

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Six-part series School lays bare the funding crisis affecting schools across the country

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Findings from the more recent Marshmallow Test

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Findings from the more recent Marshmallow Test

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Socioeconomic background impacts future success more than early signs of willpower

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Ultimately, the new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to better outcomes. Instead, it suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in large part by a child's social and economic background-and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what's behind kids' long-term success.

The marshmallow test isn't the only experimental study that has recently failed to hold up under closer scrutiny. Some scholars and journalists have gone so far to suggest that psychology is in the midst of a " replication crisis." In the case of this new study, specifically, the failure to confirm old assumptions pointed to an important truth: that circumstances matter more in shaping children's lives than Mischel and his colleagues seemed to appreciate.

This new paper found that among kids whose mothers had a college degree, those who waited for a second marshmallow did no better in the long run-in terms of standardized test scores and mothers' reports of their children's behavior-than those who dug right in. Similarly, among kids whose mothers did not have college degrees, those who waited did no better than those who gave in to temptation, once other factors like household income and the child's home environment at age 3 (evaluated according to a standard research measure that notes, for instance, the number of books that researchers observed in the home and how responsive mothers were to their children in the researchers' presence) were taken into account. For those kids, self-control alone couldn't overcome economic and social disadvantages.

The failed replication of the marshmallow test does more than just debunk the earlier notion; it suggests other possible explanations for why poorer kids would be less motivated to wait for that second marshmallow. For them, daily life holds fewer guarantees: There might be food in the pantry today, but there might not be tomorrow, so there is a risk that comes with waiting. And even if their parents promise to buy more of a certain food, sometimes that promise gets broken out of financial necessity.

Meanwhile, for kids who come from households headed by parents who are better educated and earn more money, it's typically easier to delay gratification: Experience tends to tell them that adults have the resources and financial stability to keep the pantry well stocked. And even if these children don't delay gratification, they can trust that things will all work out in the end-that even if they don't get the second marshmallow, they can probably count on their parents to take them out for ice cream instead.

There's plenty of other research that sheds further light on the class dimension of the marshmallow test. The Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and the Princeton behavioral scientist Eldar Shafir wrote a book in 2013, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, that detailed how poverty can lead people to opt for short-term rather than long-term rewards; the state of not having enough can change the way people think about what's available now. In other words, a second marshmallow seems irrelevant when a child has reason to believe that the first one might vanish.

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Why Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test

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Affluence-not willpower-seems to be what's behind some kids' capacity to delay gratification.

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ADHD and Motivation - neurological or willpower?

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ADHD and Motivation - neurological or willpower?

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Warning: includes an adult reference

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Why do adults and children with ADHD have strong motivation and executive function for some tasks and never find the cognitive spark to do others?

Despite the many differences among children and adults with ADHD, there is one similarity shared by virtually all of them. Although they have considerable chronic difficulty in getting organized and getting started on many tasks, focusing their attention, sustaining their efforts, and utilizing their short-term working memory, all of those diagnosed with ADHD tend to have at least a few specific activities or tasks for which they have no difficulty in exercising these very same functions in a normal or an extraordinary way.

The inconsistency in motivation and performance is the most puzzling aspect of ADHD. It seems like the child or adult with the disorder who can show strong motivation and focus very well for some tasks should be able to do the same for most other tasks that they recognize as important. It appears as if this is a simple problem of lacking "willpower." If you can do it for this, why can't you do the same for that and that, which are even more important? However, ADHD is not a matter of willpower. It is a problem with the dynamics of the chemistry of the brain.

One of my patients once told me: "I've got a sexual metaphor you can use to explain what it's like to have ADHD. It's like having erectile dysfunction of the mind. If the task you are faced with is something that turns you on, something that is really interesting for you, you're 'up for it' and you can perform. But if the task is not something that's intrinsically interesting to you, if it doesn't turn you on, you can't get up for it and you can't perform. It doesn't matter how much you tell yourself, 'I need to, I ought to.' It's just not a willpower kind of thing."

Recent research offers considerable evidence that ADHD is not a "willpower thing," even though, in many ways, it appears to be a lack of willpower. When individuals with ADHD are faced with a task that is really interesting to them, not because someone told them that it ought to be interesting - but because it is interesting to them at that moment - that perception, conscious or unconscious, changes the chemistry of the brain instantly. This process is not under voluntary control.

The willpower assumption is based on two fundamental misunderstandings of how the human brain works. This assumption ignores the complex and powerful role of unconscious emotions in the brain's processes of motivation, and it does not recognize the critical importance of working memory for prioritizing tasks moment by moment.
[Self-Test: Signs of Emotional Hyperarousal]
The primary difference between Google searches and any given individual's motivations, beyond the obvious differences in the size of the information database, is the process by which relevance and prioritizing of information is determined. Google prioritizes based on the relevance of manifest content, and on the frequency of demand in similar searches by others. The primary basis on which humans prioritize information is the emotion associated with conscious and unconscious memories activated by the individual's thoughts and perceptions at any given moment.

Your Emotional Brain

In 1996, neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, Ph.D., published The Emotional Brain, a book highlighting the central importance of emotion in the brain's cognitive functioning. He emphasized that emotions - mostly unconscious emotions - are powerful and critically important motivators of human thought and actions. This understanding of the essential role of emotion in all aspects of human motivation and behavior has not been adequately integrated into current thinking about ADHD.

Emotions, positive and negative, play a critical role in executive functions: initiating and prioritizing tasks, sustaining or shifting interest or effort, holding thoughts in active memory, and choosing to avoid a task or situation. Whereas Google responds to queries typed into the search engine, the human brain responds to the quality and intensity of emotions attached to associated memories.

Many people think of emotions as involving only conscious feelings, limited to sensations of sadness, anger, pleasure, worry, and so on, that a person is fully aware of and generally able to identify. Neuroscience has shown that conscious feelings are only a tiny part of the variegated range of emotions that operates within each person to motivate executive functions. Neuroscientist Joaquin Fuster, M.D., emphasized, "Whereas we may be fully conscious of a retrieved memory, the vast majority of memories that we retrieve remain unconscious."
[Free Download: Stop Procrastinating! Finish Your To-Do List TODAY]
Often, these unconscious emotions conflict and cause us to act in ways that are inconsistent with our recognized conscious intentions. An undercurrent of conflicting emotions is often involved in our failure to do tasks that we believe we want to do, or in directly or indirectly engaging in actions that we consciously believe we do not want to do.

Sometimes a person thinks of a particular task as important, honestly believing that he wants to give it immediate attention and sustained effort, yet he does not act accordingly. He may continue to procrastinate, busying himself with work on other tasks that are not as urgent, or he may actively seek out distractions by getting in touch with friends, surfing the Internet, getting high, or going to sleep. Such contradictions make sense only when we realize that the emotions that guide our motivations often are not fully conscious or conflicting. We may be influenced by emotions that we do not know we have (see "Running Away from Stressful Situations," below).

Motivation Factors

The most basic factor contributing to the ability of persons with ADHD to focus very well and efficiently utilize their executive functions on some tasks, while being chronically unable to focus adequately on most other tasks, is a problem of neural transmission. For many years, it has been recognized that individuals with ADHD tend to chronically have insufficient release and reloading of the neurotransmitter dopamine at synaptic junctions of neurons in the networks that manage executive functions.

Many studies have demonstrated that treatment with stimulant medications improves the efficiency of neural communication. However, this increased release and slowed reloading is not under voluntary control. It occurs only for those tasks in which the individual with ADHD has a strong interest. The heightened interest may be because that activity has brought pleasure or other rewards to the person in the past. Or interest may be intensified because the person fears that something he or she anticipates as being unpleasant is likely to occur very quickly if he or she does not attend to the task immediately. Whether because of anticipated pleasure or fear, the heightened interest generates increased release of dopamine instantly, and sustains it for as long as the intensified interest persists.

The second factor that influences the ability to pay attention to some tasks but not to others is the relative weakness in working memory that is characteristic of many persons with ADHD. Working memory is essential for keeping in mind relative priorities of our various interests at any given time.

Social psychological research has shown that individuals with larger working memory capacity are generally better able to deal with emotions, pleasant and unpleasant, without getting excessively caught up in them. Those with ADHD tend to have less "bandwidth" in their working memory functions, and are likely to have more difficulty than others in quickly linking together various memories relevant to doing or not doing a task. They are less likely to take into account the bigger picture of which the present moment is a part (see "Stuck in Emotion," below). They operate more like someone watching a basketball game through a telescope, unable to take into account the rest of the action on the court, the threats and/or opportunities that are not included in the small circle of focus provided by their telescope.
Excerpted from Thomas E. Brown, Ph.D., is a member of ADDitude's ADHD Specialist Panel. Outside the Box: Rethinking ADD/ADHD in Children and Adults, by THOMAS E. BROWN, Ph.D. Copyright 2017. American Psychiatric Association Publishing.
Running Away from Stressful Situations

It was a difficult exam, and Jim was having a lot of trouble answering most of the questions, possibly because he had not yet read even half of the chapters assigned for the test. Jim had put off doing any work on the exam for several days. He had been preoccupied with an email from his girlfriend back home. She wrote that she wanted to break up because he was now too far away, and she had gotten involved with someone else.

At 2 a.m., after struggling with the exam for several hours, Jim decided to take a nap for a couple of hours and try to finish the exam when he woke up. He set his alarm for 4 a.m. When the alarm buzzed, Jim woke up for a few moments, turned the alarm off, and went back to sleep. He did not wake up until five hours later.

When he realized he had slept through the deadline, Jim panicked. The professor had announced that he would not accept any late exams. Recognizing that he would certainly get an F on the midterm, Jim impulsively decided he was not ready to be in college. Without discussing his decision with anyone, he packed his suitcase and left to go home, planning to stay there until the following fall, when he would try again to go to college.

In talking with me back home about this, a week later, Jim said that dropping out of college was the best thing for him at that point. He said he had been excited to go off to college, but the work seemed too hard for him, he had not yet made any real friends, and he had really been missing his girlfriend and his parents. He also claimed that getting an F on the midterm would have meant failing that course, so it made no sense for him to continue any of his courses that semester. He could see no other way to deal with that situation. He also mentioned that, in coming home, he had hoped he could win back his girlfriend's affections. As it turned out, she was not interested in getting re-involved with him.

It was a pattern that Jim hadn't recognized. Jim had quit many activities before. He was quick to feel unsure of himself and quick to get himself out of any situation where he was afraid he might not do well. He was biased toward early escape from stress.

Only after several months of psychotherapy was Jim able to see that his "accidental" going back to sleep that morning, his failure to even discuss his situation with his college advisor, and his assumption that he faced inevitable failure were not actually the best choices for him.

Stuck in Emotion

A woman told me that she dreaded Wednesday evenings. For her family, that was the night after their Wednesday morning trash pickup. She had two teenage sons, and her husband asked their boys to take on the job of dragging the trash cans down to the foot of their driveway every Tuesday evening, and then to bring the emptied cans back up the driveway each Wednesday afternoon. Many times they forgot to bring the trash cans back in.

The mother explained that any time her husband got home from work on Wednesday evening and saw the trash cans still at the base of the driveway, he would become enraged and scream at them, saying they were losers, irresponsible, ungrateful for what they had been given, unwilling to help the family by doing the simple chore of bringing the trash cans back up to the house once a week.
[Free Download: 11 ADHD Coping Mechanisms]
The mother explained that, each time her husband scolded their sons so harshly, he would later calm down and mumble an apology to the boys. She said, "I know he loves them both and would give his life for either one of them, but when he gets wound up in one of those Wednesday-night episodes, he gets so enraged that he seems to forget that those are his sons whom he loves and wants to protect. All he knows in that moment is that he is furious with both of them for not having done that chore."

Any parent can lose his or her temper with a child occasionally, but most parents, most of the time, can express their frustration to the child without such an intense verbal attack. Their working memory allows them to hold in mind their love, even while their anger is taking up a lot of space in their head.

Tags: Fall 2017 Issue of ADDitude Magazine, hyperfocus, memory, motivation, teen, The Emotional Symptoms of ADHD, treating adults, treating kids, tween

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Thomas Brown, Ph.D., explains why people with ADHD have strong motivation and executive function for some tasks, but never find the will to do others.

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Criticism by (and of) Warwickshire Council as to the impact of a dyslexia diagnosis and following support. 

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Criticism by (and of) Warwickshire Council as to the impact of a dyslexia diagnosis and following support. 

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Warwickshire County Council has been heavily criticised in the House of Lords for saying that a dyslexia diagnosis is "scientifically questionable" - a stance that one peer compared to denying global warming.

The council's guidance states that "research in the field of dyslexia lacks consensus" and that "the techniques used to teach reading to children diagnosed with dyslexia are the same as those used to teach any other struggling reader".

"A diagnosis of dyslexia does not provide any additional information that is useful for addressing the difficulties nor does it predict the rate of progress," Warwickshire Educational Psychology Service said in guidance published this year.

"It is widely accepted that the diagnosis of dyslexia is scientifically questionable and can be misleading," the guidance added.

Labour peer Lord Watson called for the government "to ensure that this misguided policy and guidance is withdrawn as a matter of urgency" during a debate yesterday.

"Warwickshire County Council's guidance to parents ignores the science and refuses to recognise that dyslexia is a medical condition," he said.

"One wonders if perhaps they have also advised their residents that the earth is actually flat and there's no such thing as global warming."

Minister for the school system Lord Agnew said he supported the need for early intervention and that the council should "consider carefully" advice from the British Dyslexia Association.

Families in legal battles over dyslexia support

The British Dyslexia Association said the council's policy "is a first and sets an alarming precedent that cannot stand".

Chief executive Helen Boden said schools in the area have interpreted the policy as meaning that the local authority will not assess children for dyslexia.

Several families had been forced to mount legal challenges to get support for their dyslexic children as a result - one of them five times.

"The document makes no sense. It's full of contradictions and it makes no sense," she told Tes.

"There are clear responsibilities for a local authority around identifying individual needs, around acting if a parent comes and says their children are dyslexic."

According to the NHS, about 10 per cent of the population, or an average of three children in every classroom in the UK, are thought to have dyslexia.

Recent research by the Driver Youth Trust found that a third of local authorities face a shortage of dyslexia teachers, and government plans to train more dyslexia specialists are "in tatters".

Other research has found that support for students with special educational needs varies dramatically across England, with a child in inner London 50 per cent more likely to get sufficient help than a child in the North or Midlands.

Warwickshire currently has 3,509 young people with special educational needs (SEN) statements and education, health and care plans (EHCPs), according to official statistics, which do not show how many have dyslexia.

A council spokesperson said: "Warwickshire County Council does, and always has, recognised dyslexia along with the many other needs we see coming through our schools.

"We are confident that the guidance produced by Warwickshire County Council Educational Psychology Service, and followed by schools and services, is sound and the needs of children and young people are being met."

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Council attacked for saying dyslexia 'questionable'

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Warwickshire County Council says diagnosing children with dyslexia 'does not provide any additional information'

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What if ADHD, OCD and ASD had similar roots?

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What if ADHD, OCD and ASD had similar roots?

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On the wall of Dr. Evdokia Anagnostou's office hangs a framed photo of a lone toddler. The boy, a patient of hers, is captured pedalling away from the camera on a plastic orange tricycle.

A quote attributed to U.S. journalist Hodding Carter Jr. floats above his head, and Dr. Anagnostou reads it out loud: "There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots; the other wings."

It's a gift she received years ago from the boy's father, she explains. It's also a reminder of the challenge she faces. Roots and wings are a tall order for a doctor who's striving to understand and find new treatments for autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Anagnostou, a senior clinician scientist at Toronto's Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, has spent more than a decade trying to unearth the causes of autism, with the aim of improving the lives of children affected by it.

But it's become clear that she and others in her field have hit a wall, the soft-spoken child neurologist tells me.

Although her young patients share the same diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder, including difficulties with social interactions and communication and repetitive behaviours, individual cases often look very different. One child might thrive at school, while another might be nonverbal and prone to hitting himself. And almost all the children she sees also have additional disorders, like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and intellectual disability.

Further confounding her: In study after study, potential therapies that have shown promise in some children fail to yield the same results when applied to larger groups of individuals with the same diagnosis. And not a single drug has been approved that could treat the core symptoms of autism, which by some projections affect as many as one in 63 people.

"I am frustrated," she says, then adds with a puckish smile, "but I am also feeling that this is the right time to do something different."

About five years ago, Dr. Anagnostou began to consider some unsettling questions: What if she and her colleagues had it all wrong? What if by grouping all their patients under an autism or ADHD or OCD label, they were missing critical clues about the roots of their symptoms? What if they needed to rethink their diagnostic categories?

She and her colleagues are now taking a new tack. In a trailblazing project called the Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental Disorders (POND) Network, sponsored by the provincially funded Ontario Brain Institute, they're studying multiple disorders together, with the hope that such an approach will lead to a better understanding of their biology.

"We basically say that these concepts may be overlapping. So autism spectrum disorder may not be a distinct biological entity," Dr. Anagnostou, principal investigator of POND and Canada Research Chair in translational therapeutics in autism, explains.

The POND Network is part of a paradigm shift in how researchers around the world are beginning to examine mental and neurological disorders. Many are finding the current diagnostic categories don't quite reflect what genetics and neuroscience suggest about the underlying biology of dysfunction. So rather than study each disorder in isolation, they're compiling wide pools of data and seeing where the patterns emerge.

If they are on the right path, this approach may lead to more effective, targeted treatments and, ultimately, to entirely new ways of classifying the disorders. But a diagnosis is more than just a label for a set of symptoms. For some patients, it's a core part of their identity. What would new diagnostic categories mean for them?
'The big poke in the eye'
When I first heard Dr. Anagnostou discuss her work at an Ontario Brain Institute presentation in December, my mind reeled. Does this mean, I thought, dumbstruck, autism spectrum disorder may not exist?

On the contrary, the symptoms of autism obviously exist. Dr. Anagnostou and her colleagues are clear on that. The issue is they may not exist in isolation. "So the construct [of autism] may not be very useful as a diagnostic category," Dr. Anagnostou explains.

I'm reminded of childhood sorting games, where a category such as "things that hop" might include kangaroos, frogs and grasshoppers, even though to get a better grasp of the nature of each creature, you're better off grouping them with other mammals, insects and amphibians. This oversimplifies the matter, of course. But throughout history, people have categorized mental illness and neurological conditions in various ways that don't necessarily best reflect their nature. The ancient Greeks, for example, explained them as an imbalance of bodily humours or fluids.

"It's human nature to try to categorize things because lumping helps us understand, especially in the face of great diversity," says Dr. Russell Schachar, a co-investigator of POND and senior scientist at Toronto's SickKids hospital.

Lumping things together may seem like an intellectual exercise, but the ramifications of doing so are very real. Current diagnostic categories, developed over the past century, have provided criteria for distinguishing one type of disorder from another: autism from intellectual deficiency, schizophrenia from bipolar disorder, and ADHD from conduct disorder. And it has allowed doctors to communicate and policymakers to collect statistics and determine public-health strategies. "That helped us in every which way," Dr. Schachar says.

But the discovery in recent years of genetic mutations that cut across disorders have presented "the big poke in the eye, if you will - the thing that made it impossible to go any further," he says.

Genome sequencing, for instance, has pointed to not just one autism mutation, nor even a manageable handful, but hundreds of possible mutations that could be interacting with an infinite number of environmental factors to determine whether an individual develops the disorder. What's more, these mutations aren't exclusive to autism. Many of them also appear to be involved in a variety of other neurodevelopmental disorders.

To get anywhere in understanding what's going on in these neurodevelopmental disorders, Dr. Schachar says, scientists must figure out what is shared among them and what is distinct.

Instead of conducting separate studies on each disorder, POND's approach breaks down the boundaries between them. For example, a POND study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry last year examined how well participants diagnosed with OCD, ADHD, and autism could read other people's emotions by looking at their eyes. Although the inability to read emotions is assumed to be an autistic trait, Dr. Anagnostou explains the researchers found it is common among children with ADHD too.

"It looks like it has nothing to do with disorder," she says. "If you're an ADHD kid with impaired social function, your ability to read emotions is as bad as a kid with ASD [autism spectrum disorder]. So it cuts across disorders."

POND researchers are also beginning to find similar structural connectivity in the brains of children who have ADHD and autism.

Other studies within POND are looking at participants' cognitive processes, neurochemistry, and the role of epigenetics or how environmental exposures and other factors may interact with genes.

Now in its third year, the POND project is collecting data on the genetics, behaviours and brain imaging of children with various disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, OCD, intellectual disability, Rett syndrome, Tourette syndrome, Fragile X syndrome or Down syndrome. It's a whole new approach to conceptualizing the problem and conducting research, Schacher says.

Thus far, investigators from several participating institutions, including Holland Bloorview and SickKids in Toronto, and McMaster University and University of Western Ontario, have recruited some 1,300 children. Their goal is to bring that to a total of 2,500 within the next two years.
Reliable but not valid?
This new approach to research is like tackling a puzzle from the opposite end. Traditionally, investigators have asked "what can we find out about a specific disorder?" whereas the paradigm shift involves sorting through all the various puzzle pieces - the genetics, neuroscience and behaviours - and asking, "what categories do these form?"

The POND investigators aren't the only ones finding that current diagnostic constructs don't seem to align with the latest findings in genetics and neuroscience.

In the United States, the National Institute of Mental Health is taking a similar approach. Its Research Domain Criteria, an initiative launched in 2009, encourages investigators seeking research funding to think beyond the existing diagnostic categories of mental disorders of all kinds.

"Nature, the brain, behaviour, symptoms don't abide by those categories, and so we shouldn't pretend that they do any more because it's getting in the way of progress," says Dr. Sarah Morris, acting director of the initiative.

Dr. Morris says she and her colleagues acknowledge that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) are the standard diagnostic tools for clinical care. But they hope that by opening up the research to other conceptualizations of mental disorders, the results may inform better diagnostic practices. So, for example, instead of conducting a study on depression, a research team might focus on the various genes, molecules, brain circuits or behaviours that may interfere with people's responses to reward.

The thing about the existing categories, whether it's autism, ADHD, depression or schizophrenia, is they're reliable in a scientific sense, Dr. Morris notes, meaning the same results can be generated repeatedly. Individuals with a specific set of symptoms, for instance, can reliably be diagnosed with the same disorder by multiple doctors. But, she says, the real question is whether the current diagnostic categories are valid in terms of understanding the nature of mental illness. That is, do they accurately reflect the phenomenon being studied?

"There's evidence to think that they're not," Morris says.
Neurodiversity and Identity
In recent years, the concept of "neurodiversity" has grown as a movement in the world of autism advocacy. Neurodiversity - the idea that autism and other neurological differences are normal variations of human life - has gained widespread public attention, thanks to the likes of renowned autism activist Temple Grandin, whose 2010 TED Talk on the importance of autistic minds such as her own has received more than 3.7 million online views, and journalist Steve Silberman, author of the recent best-seller NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. Many proponents of neurodiversity view autism and ADHD not as deficiencies that require fixes or cures, but as natural differences that require acceptance and inclusion in society.

Susan Cosgrove, a Toronto autism advocate who has three children with neurodevelopmental disorders, says she fully believes in neurodiversity. But at the same time, she says, her children need treatment to be able to cope with the world around them. The city won't get any quieter just because they're overwhelmed by sounds, she says, nor will buses clear out just because they find it too crowded.

"I absolutely, 100 per cent believe in accepting them for who they are, but the society is not built for them right now," she says. "Therapy and treatment is super important and is just as important now as it was before neurodiversity was accepted."

Cosgrove says the questions the POND researchers are posing make sense to her. Her family offers proof that the lines between neurodevelopmental disorders are hazy.

Between her two sons, Liam, 12 and Phoenix, 2, both diagnosed with autism, "there are definitely more differences than similarities," she says. At the same time, both also share symptoms with their sister, Kaya, 10, who has been diagnosed with ADHD. Those include difficulty with sensory processing and working memory. At Phoenix's age, for example, Liam barely spoke. And when he did, he mostly uttered words he made up himself. By contrast, Phoenix has an astonishingly precocious ability to read and an uncanny affinity for numbers.

During a recent visit to the family's apartment, Liam, a shy, sweet preteen, quietly watches his favourite YouTube video on the features of a model excavator. For him, having autism means "I'm scared of strangers," he explains to me, and "it can be hard to communicate."

Meanwhile, Phoenix, an energetic, cherubic toddler reads from a stack of pictureless flashcards, shown to him in random order. Without even having to sound the letters out, he bounced happily as he declared in rapid-fire: "Truck!" "Orange!" Hockey!" "Fifty" "Dinosaur!" "Clown!" "Diamond!" "Egg roll!"

So, if it turns out their diagnostic labels aren't valid, what does this mean for her children's care?
A new classification
Dr. Anagnostou emphasizes POND has a long way to go before it can offer any answers. But eventually, she says, if it turns out the researchers can conclude they "have no confidence that our constructs exist," it could lead to new diagnostic labels.

"Maybe instead of having autism, ADHD, intellectual disability, OCD, we may have [separate clusters of patients with] these types of mutations, these types of brain findings, and these types of behaviours. And they're more likely to respond to medications A, B, C," Dr. Anagnostou says.

This will, however, have significant consequences for patients and those who provide services for them, she says.

At present, for instance, even though there is great variability between children with autism, a school teacher may at least have a general idea of what to expect of a student with an autism diagnosis, Dr. Anagnostou says. "But if I told them this child has mutation X, Y, Z in this particular cluster, what will the teacher do with that?"

In addition, she says, people often incorporate their diagnoses as part of their identity.

"So what happens if somebody identifies as an autistic person and we come out and say, 'We don't know that autism exists as an entity'? That would be something we need to figure out as we proceed."

The aim, she says, is not to take away patients' diagnoses, but to take away their suffering.

Cosgrove, whose two sons are enrolled in the POND study, says she isn't holding her breath, but she would have no hesitation accepting new diagnostic labels, as long as they meant her children would receive more appropriate treatment that would improve the quality of their lives.

"Whatever gives them the best chance of a successful future," she says.

In Britain, Dr. Declan Murphy, managing director of the European Autism Interventions - A Multicentre Study for Developing New Medications (EU-AIMS), doesn't believe doctors will stop diagnosing people with autism in the future. Rather, he says, sub-types of autism may eventually emerge, which will allow for better targeted treatments.

"It wouldn't be that someone who is autistic today would be... no longer called autistic," Dr. Murphy says.

But, he says, what has become clear is that researchers need to collaborate to collect and share data, since it's only by studying large numbers of individuals that meaningful subgroups can be identified. "The days of small studies are just over, really. They've gone far enough."
From research to patient
For families and advocacy groups, the promise of better treatments and explanations seems to outweigh any complications that may arise out of reconsidering diagnostic constructs.

Dr. Suzanne Lewis, chair of the professional advisory committee for the advocacy group Autism Canada, which is not involved in POND, says she applauds POND's approach.

"It's not so much what it means to those who are defining the labels. It really is: What does it mean to those individuals and families living with the condition?" Dr. Lewis says, adding she has no doubt that research into the biology of the condition will benefit families. "It'll remove burdens of them wondering 'What did I do or what didn't I do that may have contributed to my child having autism or schizophrenia or whatever?' "

Back at Holland Bloorview, Dr. Anagnostou acknowledges the POND project is a gamble. While she is confident they're onto something, she admits it's possible she and her colleagues may end up being wrong about their assumption that the differences and similiarites among neurodevelopmental disorders will lead to any breakthrough in treatments.

"We may fail," she says. But, she notes, in the end, whatever data they end up with will help inform future research one way or another.

"If we haven't made a big difference with an alternative approach, we'll have learned something so we aren't where we started. But the kids are where they were," she says.

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province of ontario neurodevelopmental disorders network

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ADHD, OCD, autism: Is it time to redraw the boundaries separating childhood behavioural disorders?

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Although Dr. Evdokia Anagnostou's patients share the same diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder, individual cases often look very different

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"Children do make choices to misbehave," states professor Essi Viding, "but the tools they bring to make the choices are different. Someone who has very stable developmental history is making a particular choice with a completely different toolkit than a child who has an unpredictable developmental history."

Viding is professor of Developmental Psychopathology at University College London (UCL) and, together with Eamon McCrory, professor of developmental neuroscience and psychopathology at UCL, she studies the effects of trauma on a child's behaviour, at the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit. Speaking on this week's Podagogy podcast, they explain how trauma affects development, how this affects behaviour and what teachers can - and should - do about it.

"The impact of trauma and early adversity - we want to understand how those experiences develop the brain," explains McCrory.

"The impact of adversity forces the child to adapt in ways that will help them cope in an environment that is chaotic or unpredictable and those adaptations occur in autobiographical memory functioning, their threat-processing, their reward-processing - these systems calibrate to protect the child in that environment. But once they move into a school environment, then those adaptations can cause problems."

Adaptations to environment

He cites the example of a child who has become hypervigilant to survive in a violent household. In a school environment, this can mean the child overestimates threat and this can lead to disruptive behaviour, a tendency towards physical violence and an inability to form social bonds.

To a teacher, this behaviour may just appear to be a child playing up, he says, but it "may simply be a spill-over of the adaptation to their environment in which they live. Ill intent can be perceived in the child when they are just acting how they have learned to survive."

This is not the fault of teachers. Viding stresses that teachers will not have had the training to be able to support students who have experienced trauma. And she suggests that, actually, a mainstream school may not always be the right place for these students.

"I think even if you are a teacher informed about how trauma can impact a child, there is still a real challenge because you have to teach a class of 30 - there are 29 other children with needs," she says.

"Increasingly, because of the cuts to social welfare and care, and because of the inadequate state of clinical services for children, schools are left to deal with a host of social and mental health problems that they are quite understandably not equipped to deal with and it is not their place to deal with.

"They are there to educate the children and try to do so in an environment where children have the peace to sit down and learn. I do not think it is reasonable to expect a classroom teacher to deal with a child's very complex needs."

Different approach

This is not to suggest that children who have experienced severe trauma and who present with challenging behaviour should be excluded from mainstream education. Rather, Viding believes we need a more flexible relationship between specialist provision and mainstream provision.

"There is a reality here: you cannot scupper education for 29 children because there is one child unable to engage with mainstream education," she says. "The aim ought to be that, yes, this child should have specialist provision, but with the view that they can be reintegrated into the mainstream provision. At the moment that is very difficult in the British school system."

Both stress, too, that we should not see trauma as having "damaged" the brain, or that trauma causes irreversible changes.

"It is important not to over-interpret this, to see it as brain damage," says McCrory. "What we are seeing is that these changes are adaptive...and there is no reason these systems cannot recalibrate. A new set of environmental experiences can lead to new calibrations. Plasticity continues into early adulthood."

Genetic influence

In the podcast, they go on to talk about genetic factors in reactions to trauma; behaviour-management approaches best suited to children who have experienced trauma; and they also describe a group of children who present as if they have experienced trauma, but who are actually genetically at risk of callous emotional traits.

You can listen below or search for " Tes the education podcast" on your podcast platform.

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Trauma can lead to numerous behavioural issues that require specific support strategies, write two experts

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Some key points from the recent government budget

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Some key points from the recent government budget

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Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, delivered the Budget yesterday, setting out the Government's tax and spending priorities for the year. We explained previously some of the issues that we would be looking out for.

Here are the main announcements from the Budget affecting autistic people, which include social care, the NHS, mental health, and universal credit:

Social care

As a member of the Care and Support Alliance, a coalition of 90 charities, we have been calling on the Government to increase funding for adult social care to fill a funding gap of around £2.5bn.

The Budget included additional social care funding of £650 million. This includes £240 million that was announced earlier this autumn. The Chancellor also promised a further £410m in 2019-20 for adults and children's social care.

While we welcome the additional funding for social care, we are also concerned that what has been announced covers less than a third of the current funding gap. The Government will set out ideas on the future funding of social care later this year. We believe these ideas must tackle the growing social care funding crisis.

The Government also announced £55m in 2018-19 for the Disabled Facilities Grant which helps some disabled children and adults make changes and adaptations to their homes.

Read the Care and Support Alliance's full response on their website.

NHS

The Chancellor reiterated the Government's plans to increase NHS spending by £20.5bn a year in real terms by 2023-24.

This is important as the 10-year Long Term Plan announced in the summer includes autism, alongside learning disability, as a clinical priority. While the Budget did not set out how the Government will arrange the overall funding for the NHS, it is crucial that the money is used to ensure autistic people can access to all the health services they need, including diagnosis, mental health support, and that staff understand autism.

Mental health

As part of the increased spending for the NHS, the Chancellor promised £2bn for mental health care. This includes promises of a mental health crisis centre in every A&E department by 2023-24, and children and young people's crisis teams in every part of the country.

We welcome increased support for mental health care. Autistic people are more likely to experience mental health problems than people who aren't on the autism spectrum. This money should be used to make sure that any new mental health services are accessible to autistic people and meet their needs.

Universal Credit

The Chancellor made some changes to Universal Credit, following concerns about how the benefit is being rolled out.

He promised to increase Universal Credit Work Allowances (the amount you are allowed to work, before your benefit is reduced) by £1,000, and said this would mean 2.4 million households will keep an extra £630 a year. The Chancellor also announced a £1 billion package of extra support for claimants during transition to Universal Credit.

While this will ease pressure on many claimants, we are still concerned about the difficulties that many autistic claimants may face in managing their finances. If you need more information about benefits, please visit our website.

Other announcements

The other significant announcement from the perspective of autistic people and their families was a one-off £400m capital payment for schools to help purchase equipment or cover maintenance costs. We will be watching the Government's upcoming Spending Review to see whether this will affect SEND schools.

You can find out more about what happened in the Budget and what was announced on the BBC website.

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Our response to the Government's Budget (30 October 2018)

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Find out more about the Government's recent budget decisions and how this could affect autistic people.

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I have asked myself the following question over the past couple of weeks: why is it so hard for some adults to say sorry?

At our school, I have started to look deeper into the conflict cycle and the escalation of issues with children that could have perhaps been prevented.

A situation I had with a pupil relatively recently comes to mind. Jacob was clearly in crisis and was exhibiting behaviour I needed to put an end to. As a matter of pride - because other children were around - I felt that I couldn't let Jacob "win". Rather than really focus on the needs of Jacob in that situation, I felt it was more important that Jacob did as I wanted him to.

As a result, I entered into an argument with a child.

Wrong approach

This does not make me proud. But our children can be incredibly challenging and this can happen to any of us. Jacob did walk away from the incident, it ended, yet he left sad and angry. I returned to my office. Had I "won"?

Within a few minutes of the incident occurring, two colleagues came to my office. Since the introduction of secondary trauma-informed supervision at our school, I have encouraged all staff to co-regulate when they see a staff member who may need "encouraging" to reflect on their practice. Both of these teachers said, "Do you think that was the best way for that to end?"

I knew in that moment that I had lost. And I knew I had to say sorry.

Better behaviour

I quickly returned to Jacob. He had returned to class (exactly what I had wanted him to do) and I waited outside until his lesson had finished. I asked for a moment with him and I apologised. He accepted the apology and apologised, too. I allowed other children - and other staff members - to hear me apologise.

I didn't have any more problems with Jacob that day.

Co-regulation with colleagues is difficult. It is hard to encourage someone else to reflect on their practice and it is even harder to encourage someone to apologise if they do not see that they are wrong. I have read so many articles and books on the power of the word sorry, yet there are still so many in the profession that refuse to acknowledge this.

I have heard people say "but we are the adults so they must do as we tell them" and "they will never learn if they don't know how to respond to authority".

There is truth in that, but I do maintain that, as practitioners, we can all make mistakes, and just because we are the "adults" or the "authority" in the situation, it does not mean we are exempt from having to apologise when we are wrong.

Genuine apology

It is all the more frustrating when the adult does not even realise that they could have done better. I have seen the power of "sorry" so often in my current and previous school. I have some team members that are incredible at forming positive relationships with our children and getting the best out of them in lessons. These team members are teachers, learning-support assistants and leaders, but they all have these key components:

1. They will apologise if they know that is what the child needs. I have even seen them apologise when they didn't need to, as it allowed the pupil to win in their mind, which could get them to a place of calm to further discuss the incident and then apologise for their own part in the situation.

2. They use the power of "sorry" to validate feelings. An example: "I'm sorry you feel that way, but I am here to try to help, so can you take a few minutes to calm down and I'll come back to you?"

3. If they need to apologise, they mean it. They are not sarcastic. They do not say it because they have to. They know they have done something to upset or anger the pupil and they say sorry with sincerity.

4. They are not afraid to make mistakes. They work with passion, they are competent, yet they recognise we can make mistakes and are more comfortable in admitting when they have been in the wrong.

5. They know that saying sorry builds trust with children. All of the children in our school are experiencing trauma or attachment-related issues, and all of those children respond better to staff that exhibit the ability to say sorry when required.

6. They are masters of self-reflection and are the most confident to co-regulate with colleagues. They are always keen to improve on practice and are solution-focused.

Leanne Forde-Nassey is head of a PRU on the south coast on England

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Behaviour management: the importance of apologising

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Willingness to apologise is crucial to effective relationship building, says this headteacher

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10 ways to declutter our teaching | Tes News

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Teachers are so bogged down with admin and regulations that they don't have space left to teach, says Yvonne Williams

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Power Up+ is a digital tool to support wellbeing in young people with SEND. It aims to support them in taking an active role in the decisions about their life, facilitate a level of independence and enable their voices to be heard through helping expression of feelings and emotion.

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Growth Mindset being misunderstood in schools

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Growth Mindset being misunderstood in schools

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Carol Dweck has become the closest thing to an education celebrity because of her work on growth mindset. Her research shows that children who have a growth mindset welcome challenges as opportunities to improve, believing that their abilities can change with focused effort. Kids with fixed mindsets, on the other hand, believe they have a finite amount of talent that can't be altered and shy away from challenges that might reveal their inabilities.

Dweck believes educators flocked to her work because many were tired of drilling kids for high-stakes tests and recognized that student motivation and love for learning was being lost in the process. But Dweck is worried that as her research became more popular, many people oversimplified its message.

In an interview with The Atlantic , Dweck explained to reporter Christine Gross-Loh all the ways she sees growth mindset being misappropriated. She says often teachers and parents aren't willing to take the longer, more difficult path of helping students identify strategies and connect success to those strategies. Instead, her complicated psychological research has gotten boiled down to, "praise the effort, not the outcome." Dweck also explained what she means by a "false" growth mindset:

False growth mindset is saying you have growth mindset when you don't really have it or you don't really understand [what it is]. It's also false in the sense that nobody has a growth mindset in everything all the time. Everyone is a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets. You could have a predominant growth mindset in an area but there can still be things that trigger you into a fixed mindset trait. Something really challenging and outside your comfort zone can trigger it, or, if you encounter someone who is much better than you at something you pride yourself on, you can think "Oh, that person has ability, not me." So I think we all, students and adults, have to look for our fixed-mindset triggers and understand when we are falling into that mindset.

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Carol Dweck Explains The 'False' Growth Mindset That Worries Her

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Carol Dweck has become the closest thing to an education celebrity because of her work on growth mindset. Her research shows that children who have a growth mindset welcome challenges as opportunities to improve, believing that their abilities can change with focused effort.

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The police officer sits between the two families on one side of the circle; I sit between them on the other. The anxiety in the room is high.

It's unsurprising: the boy to my left was hit hard enough by the boy to my right that a hospital visit was needed. His eye is still swollen, black, the lid half-closed. The police became involved. And a week later, it's time to decide what comes next.

In many schools, the solution would be relatively straightforward. Responses to challenging behaviour are generally sanction-based; evidence of this can be seen in statistics that show, on average, that nearly 1,800 fixed-term exclusions are issued every day, totalling 339,360 in 2016. Permanent exclusions in the same year reached 6,685.

In light of the level of violence that had occurred in the case in question, permanent exclusion would likely have been the option taken in most schools. Not here, though. Here, we're talking it out.

The conversation is carefully structured; everyone speaks in a respectful way and the level of challenge is high. Some responses are painful to listen to, but everyone takes their turn. There is no prejudged outcome; just a will to find a solution that works for all.

The Iffley Academy is a restorative school. We are one of only a few schools in the UK to have the restorative-service quality mark. And we are arguably in a situation where such an approach is more challenging than most: we are a special school with 150 learners, over 40 per cent of whom have social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) difficulties; 50 per cent are eligible for pupil premium; many have communication and interaction difficulties; and all have cognition and learning difficulties.

We have used a restorative approach for 14 years. We believe it works. And we believe it could work elsewhere, too.

What is restorative justice?

Restorative approaches in schools have grown out of work in the youth justice system. It is a way of working that recognises the harm that has been caused, and it aims to repair relationships. The repair takes place through restorative actions, such as repairing harm or damaged property, taking the time to develop an understanding of those who have been hurt and working together to identify new ways to interact.

As the Restorative Justice Council explains: "Restorative approaches give those affected by harm an opportunity to meet with the wrongdoer, and for them to play a part in repairing the harm and finding a positive way forward." Contrary to the perception of some, it's much more complex than just talking about what went wrong.

Restorative approaches allow adults to model emotional literacy and develop the student's empathy, so that their drive to behave in a negative way is challenged not by sanctions, but by the impact the behaviour has on others in society. It is not about using fear to force a person to change behaviour or make amends, but instead using structured conversation to make them accountable for what they choose to do.

Admittedly, this can be hard work and the expectation within schools such as the Iffley Academy is for the students involved to do that work. Pupils in this system do not receive detentions or other punitive actions, and exclusions are rare. When conflict is encountered, staff use their restorative training, research and knowledge to resolve conflict, carefully considering the needs of the young people, their backgrounds and prior behavioural interactions.

Upon reading this, some teachers will no doubt be labelling the system "soft" or "unsupportive" (you see these comments a lot among teachers when restorative approaches are discussed). But detentions and exclusions do not make students accountable for behaviour - they simply provide feedback for a specific action. If they did work, our exclusion rates would not be so high; those same children would not be in trouble each time; and our alternative-provision sector would not be full to bursting point. We are not changing behaviours with sanctions. They are a simple and basic response, not the professional, considered interaction that should be expected of a teacher.

Moreover, if a young person is hurt in an interaction and an exclusion has been issued to the wrongdoer, what work is being done to support either of the children's emotions or their right to reply? You have taken the power of change away from them both. A restorative culture ensures all parties are heard. The approach puts the responsibility not in the hands of teachers, but in the hands of those that have been hurt and those that caused hurt.

A common myth about restorative practice is that it is some new-age, light-touch approach in which there are no rules or boundaries. On the contrary, in this system, rules and boundaries need to be even clearer. To work in a restorative way, individuals have to be ready, they need to be safe from harm's way and they must understand the boundaries. The responsibility of the adults is to ensure that students are staying within those boundaries and that they are accountable for their behaviour.

Such a system requires an intelligent approach. In a punitive system, you know the rules and apply the sanctions, but in a restorative system, it is about the students knowing the rules because they believe in them. They understand why the rules are in place, they invest in relationships and it actually matters to them if they or their peers break the rules.

Break and make

The strongest evidence for the approach as a whole comes from the justice system, where it has been used extensively for some time. Prisoners engaging with restorative justice are 14 per cent less likely to reoffend.

In a 2017 Restorative Justice Council report, Restorative Justice and Prison, Rosie Olliver notes: "The largest study into this was a UK government-funded £7 million, seven-year randomised control trial in 2001-08. It looked at the use of restorative justice alongside the criminal justice process, rather than as a diversionary measure, including with offenders who were serving prison sentences."

Oliver then quotes a prisoner involved in the approach and his testimony is telling: "Going to prison, that's just running away from it all. But to go into a room and sit down knowing that they're going to walk through that door in a few minutes and want to know why you stole from them - that's scary for me. It kind of broke me, but it made me as well."

The largest studies in schools have been carried out in Australia and New Zealand. These found that truancy and exclusions were reduced, and the relationships with staff and parents were greatly improved (Buckley and Maxwell, 2007). A report published in 2014 by the Department for Education gave whole-school restorative approaches the highest rating of effectiveness at preventing bullying; when schools were surveyed, 97 per cent of them rated restorative approaches as highly effective (DfE, 2014).

At the Iffley Academy, there were no permanent exclusions in 2016-17. On average, in 2016, less than 1 per cent of incidents at the academy were related to bullying and 0.32 per cent involved racism. For those pupils who were most involved in bullying, bullying only made up 7 per cent of their individual challenging behaviours across the year. With staff addressing behaviour, incidents became less frequent and less likely to occur as the year progressed.

Of course, the research - or our own experience at the Iffley Academy - won't convince some people, but to them I ask: how far is your current system evidence-based in comparison? Particularly when it comes to children with special educational needs and disability (SEND).

Pupils with SEND are eight times more likely to be permanently excluded from school, and those with SEMH difficulties are the most likely - with 79,935 fixed-term exclusions passed down in 2015-16.

Jarlath O'Brien, in What Does This Look Like in the Classroom? (Hendrick and Macpherson, 2017), sets out three key reminders when working with students with SEMH:

* Remember that communication is an unmet need: between 35 per cent and 50 per cent of children with speech, language and communication difficulties also have behavioural difficulties.

* Behavioural difficulties are skills gaps that need to be filled, much like we do when we teach reading and writing.

* Punishments and sanctions are ineffective, and restorative approaches work best.

Knowing that these young people are at high risk of exclusion, shouldn't we be using a restorative approach to support them towards better outcomes?

Back at the Iffley Academy, the outcomes for the two families are clear. The behaviour has been officially recorded by the police and it is clearly understood that an arrest is likely in the event of a reoccurrence. The school has challenged the behaviour and it is clear that it will not be accepted.

The student has heard about the impact on others and how it has affected both families. The mother of the boy with the bruised face has recounted her highly anxious trip to A&E, the sickness in her stomach at receiving the phone call from the school, and how confronting the wrongdoer has changed the way she is feeling. The opportunity for her and her child to face up to him has led her to understand his behaviour was a form of communication.

This acceptance and understanding draws the offending boy to tears; at the end, his apology is sincere, his body language passive and he gets up from his chair to embrace her and her son.

Will it ever happen again? Possibly. Is it less likely to happen again owing to the restorative approach? Evidence suggests so, and that the future actions of those children involved will be significantly affected by the work we have done.
Tom Procter-Legg is assistant headteacher at the Iffley Academy, Oxfordshire Next week: We unpack the whole-school approach to restorative justice and ask the question: what does it take to become a restorative school?

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How to become a restorative school - Part 1: The case for embracing it

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In the first of a three-part series, Tom Procter-Legg sets out how the process is changing challenging behaviour for good at his school. Here, he offers the theory behind why restorative justice works, ahead of advice on how to put it into practice

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This is often discussed within schools...

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I walk across the playground at lunchtime and eight-year-old Lily runs up and hugs me. Her friend Sampson follows her and throws himself around me, too. A third, fourth and fifth child do the same. I only wanted to go out to get some lunch and now I have a strangler fig tree of arms around my waist.

My reaction is to helicopter - lift my arms out by my side and put my hands in the air. I look around to try and meet the eyes of other teachers, particularly female teachers. I want it to be seen that I'm not touching the children that are clinging to me.

'Safe' touch

A few weeks later, I receive safeguarding training from a person I'll call Claudia. I tell Claudia about my helicopter reaction, expecting her full approval.

"I don't think you're doing the right thing," she says. "Children need touch in order to learn what counts as healthy and unhealthy physical boundaries. A zero-touch policy is going to confuse children more than educate them about how to negotiate personal space and how to be aware of when it is or isn't OK to touch someone. Touch can be fine, provided that it is obviously not too intimate and done out of an awareness of the child's needs."

I totally agree with Claudia. Which isn't to say I was signed up to the zero-touch policy and then I met her and she changed my mind. I've always agreed with her view. Claudia saying what she said just gave me permission to claim my own thoughts. I feel annoyed for needing her permission like this. Much in the same way that I feel annoyed when Lily hugs me and I seek the pardoning eyes of female colleagues across the playground.

A male dilemma?

Of course, since becoming a teacher, I've often noticed the comparative ease with which female colleagues will rest their hand on a child's shoulder when the child is shy in order to encourage them to express themselves, or stroke a child's head when the child is emotional in order to calm them down.

Almost all male colleagues I speak to say they would never do this, that "it's not worth the risk". A mere accusation of inappropriate touching would mean game over.

Some women have said the same to me, albeit far fewer.

I guess I just did my job and assumed that the difference between male and female practices around touch in the classroom was just the way it was. Though I'm grateful to have had that assumption challenged, the idea that it is only women who can fully and truly inhabit the role of primary school teacher is an idea that both men and women should resent.

Divided state

And yet: the day after I train with Claudia, I walk across the playground at lunch time and three children run up and hug me. I put my arms out by my side, repeating my helicopter gesture.

So, although I believe it should be no big deal to touch a child on the head or shoulder in this situation, and although that belief has been validated by experts like Claudia, it still feels dangerously inappropriate to do so.

I don't like working in this divided state.

One of the reasons I became a teacher is because I didn't want a job where how I act is alienated from what I believe. Perhaps this "it's-not-worth-the-risk" thinking is entrenched in me, too. But consciously avoiding those risks every day is starting to incur its own cost.

Cost to the children's learning about their own and other bodies and to my sense of connection to the job.
Andy West is a teacher and senior specialist and training officer for the Philosophy Foundation. He tweets @AndyWPhilosophy

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Touch: the dangerous dilemma for men in primary

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I walk across the playground at lunchtime and eight-year-old Lily runs up and hugs me. Her friend Sampson follows her and throws himself around me, too. A third, fourth and fifth child do the same. I only wanted to go out to get some lunch and now I have a strangler fig tree of arms around my waist.

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The first child to be diagnosed with autism

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Donald Grey Triplett was the first person to be diagnosed with autism. The fulfilling life he has led offers an important lesson for today, John Donvan and Caren Zucker write.

After Rain Man, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, the next great autism portrayal the stage or screen might want to consider taking on is the life of one Donald Grey Triplett, an 82-year-old man living today in a small town in the southern United States, who was there at the very beginning, when the story of autism began.

The scholarly paper which first put autism on the map as a recognisable diagnosis listed Donald as "Case 1" among 11 children who - studied by Baltimore psychiatrist Leo Kanner - crystallised for him the idea that he was seeing a kind of disorder not previously listed in the medical textbooks. He called it "infantile autism", which was later shortened to just autism.

Born in 1933 in Forest, Mississippi, to Beamon and Mary Triplett, a lawyer and a school teacher, Donald was a profoundly withdrawn child, who never met his mother's smile, or answered to her voice, but appeared at all times tuned into a separate world with its own logic, and its own way of using the English language.

Donald could speak and mimic words, but the mimicry appeared to overtake meaning. Most often, he merely echoed what he had heard someone else say. For a time, for example, he went about pronouncing the words "trumpet vine" and "chrysanthemum" over and over, as well as the phrase: "I could put a little comma."

His parents tried to break through to him, but got nowhere. Donald was not interested in the other children they brought to play with him, and he did not look up when a fully-costumed Santa Claus was brought to surprise him. And yet, they knew he was listening, and intelligent. Two-and-a-half years old at Christmas time, he sang back carols he had heard his mother sing only once, while performing with perfect pitch. His phenomenal memory let him recall the order of a set of beads his father had randomly laced on to a string.

But his intellectual gifts did not save him from being put in an institution. It was the doctors' order. It was always that way, in that era, for children who strayed as far from "normal" as Donald did. The routine prescription for parents was to try to forget the child, and move forward with their lives. In mid-1937, Beamon and Mary complied with the order. Donald, three years old, was sent away. But they did not forget him. They visited monthly, probably debating each time they began the long drive home to Forest whether they should just take him back with them after one of these visits.

In late 1938, that is what they did. And that is when they brought him to see Dr Kanner in Baltimore. Kanner was stymied at first. He was not sure what psychiatric "box" to fit Donald into, because none of the ready-made ones seemed to fit. But after several more visits from Donald, and seeing more children with overlapping presentations in behaviour, he published his groundbreaking paper establishing the terms for a new diagnosis.

From there, the history of autism would unfold across decades, playing out in many and varied dramatic episodes, bizarre twists, and star turns, both heroic and villainous, by researchers, educators, activists and autistic people themselves. Donald, however, had no part in this. Instead, after Baltimore, he had gone back to Mississippi, where he spent the rest of his life, unremarked upon.

Well, not exactly. Donald is still alive today, healthy at 82, and a major figure in our new book. When we first tracked him down, in 2007, we were astonished to learn how his life had turned out.

He lives in his own house (the house he grew up in) within a safe community, where everyone knows him, with friends he sees regularly, a Cadillac to get around in, and a hobby he pursues daily (golf). That's when he is not enjoying his other hobby, travel. Donald, on his own, has travelled all over the United States and to a few dozen countries abroad. He has a closet full of albums packed with photos taken during his journeys.

His is the picture of the perfectly content retiree - not the life sentence in an institution which was nearly his lot - where he surely would have wilted, and never done any of those things. For that, his mother deserves enormous credit. In addition to bringing her boy home, she worked tirelessly to help him connect to the world around him, to give him language, to help him learn to take care of himself.

Something took in all this, because, by the time he was a teenager, Donald was able to attend a regular high school, and then college, where he came out with passing grades in French and mathematics.

Credit for these outcomes must also go to Donald himself. It was, after all, his innate intelligence and his own capacity for learning which led to this blooming into full potential.

But we saw something else when we went to Forest - and this is where we think the movie of Donald's life would get interesting. The town itself played a part in Donald's excellent outcome - the roughly 3,000 people of Forest, Mississippi, who made a probably unconscious but clear decision in how they were going to treat this strange boy, then man, who lived among them. They decided, in short, to accept him - to count him as "one of their own" and to protect him.

We know this because when we first visited Forest and began asking questions about Donald, at least three people warned us they would track us down and get even if we did anything to hurt Donald. That certainly told us something about how they saw him.

Autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a condition that affects social interaction, communication, interests and behaviour

In children with ASD, the symptoms are present before three years of age, although a diagnosis can sometimes be made after the age of three

It's estimated that about one in every 100 people in the UK has ASD - more boys are diagnosed with the condition than girls

There's no "cure" for ASD, but speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, educational support, plus a number of other interventions are available to help children and parents

Sources: SourceNHS Choices - Autism spectrum disorder; NHS Choices - Living With Autism

In time, however, as we gained more people's trust, more details came out about how, throughout the years, Donald was embraced. His school yearbook is full of scribbled notes from classmates talking about what a great friend he is. A few of the girls even seemed a little sweet on him.

We learned that he got cheered for his part in a school play, that people regarded his obsessive interest in numbers not as odd, but as evidence that he must be some kind of genius. We met a man Donald knew in college, now an ordained minister, who tried to teach him to swim in a nearby river. When that failed, he tried to give Donald lessons in how to speak more fluidly, which was also something of a lost cause.

That is because Donald still has autism. It did not go away. Rather, its power to limit his life was gradually overcome, even though he still has obsessions, and talks rather mechanically, and cannot really hold a conversation beyond one or two rounds of exchanged pleasantries. Even with all that, though, he is a fully fledged personality, a pleasure to hang out with, and a friend.

What Donald's story suggests is that parents hearing for the first time that a child is autistic should understand that, with this particular diagnosis, the die is never cast. Each individual has unique capacity to grow and learn, as Donald did, even if he hit most of his milestones rather later than most people. For example, he learned to drive only in late twenties. But now, the road is still his. Literally.

That is something of a perfect ending. And if the movie of Donald's life gets made, we hope, when the credits roll, that a line on screen will say something like: "The producers would like to thank the town of Forest, Mississippi, for making this story possible." But also, we would like to add, by making all the difference, by doing the right thing.
John Donvan and Caren Zucker are the authors of In A Different Key: The Story of Autism
More from the BBC

Saga Noren from the Scandinavian TV crime drama The Bridge has become an unlikely hero. Widely diagnosed by viewers as being on the autistic spectrum, she is lauded not just because she is a leading character with the condition, but - more unusually - because she is a woman with it.
How The Bridge's heroine became a role model for women with autism (December 2015) Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

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The surprising story of the first boy diagnosed as autistic

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Donald Grey Triplett was the first person to be diagnosed with autism. The fulfilling life he has led offers an important lesson for today, John Donvan and Caren Zucker write.

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BBC 1 - Children’s Mental Health Crisis
Also worth a look on Twitter with #bbcsml for wider discussion and links.

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Introduction of Suicide Prevention Minister as part of a new strategy to support wellbeing. 

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Introduction of Suicide Prevention Minister as part of a new strategy to support wellbeing. 

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Will this solve the problems or simply put a plaster over them for now?

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Schools to carry out 'wellbeing' assessments on pupils to spot potential issues

Theresa May says only one three mental health problems get right treatment

Prime Minister announced £1.8million to keep the Samaritans helpline free

Pupils are to be given routine mental health checks, Theresa May said tonight.

Primary and secondary schools will carry out 'wellbeing' assessments to spot potential issues.

Mental health problems among the young have increased six-fold over the past two decades and one in ten children now has a diagnosable condition.

Girls are most at risk, with self-harming reported among a fifth of those aged 14.

Mrs May said half of all mental health problems arise by the age of 14 yet only one in three get the right treatment.

The new checks are part of a £1.9billion plan to transform mental health services in schools.

The Prime Minister also announced:

The appointment of the world's first minister for suicide prevention;

£1.8million to allow the Samaritans' helpline to remain free for the next four years;

At least mental health specialists are to be trained to work in schools for the first time, with the first intake to start by the end of next year and a 8,000 to be recruited long-term;

Every school is to have a senior staff member responsible for mental health;

The Government will publish an annual 'state of the nation' report on child mental health from next year.

Mrs May said: 'We can end the stigma that has forced too many to suffer in silence. We can prevent the tragedy of suicide taking too many lives.

'And we can give the mental wellbeing of our children the priority it so profoundly deserves.'

The new mental health assessments are to be made available to all schools as part of new classes on 'mental resilience' which will be part of the curriculum from 2020.

Downing Street stressed that although the classes will be mandatory, it will be up to each school whether they use the assessments.

But all teachers will be 'encouraged' to use the tests in order to highlight any issues so they can better target their teaching.

Officials envisage that most pupils will be assessed every year from the age of four.

They expect the assessments to be in a similar form to the 'wellbeing' surveys currently used by the Office of National Statistics to gauge the nation's mood, adjusted for the age of the child.

Those surveys ask people how happy they are out of 10, how they rate their 'satisfaction with life', and how 'worthwhile' they believe their daily activities are.

If issues with particular children arise as a result of the assessments, it will be up to each teacher whether they flag it with parents, officials said.

The assessments are new element of a £1.9billion plan to transform mental health services in schools, outlined in a green paper published by the Government earlier this year.

Ministers expect the overall plan to bring savings of £6.4billion by spotting mental illness much earlier in life.

Health experts last night welcomed the announcement as a crucial step for the one in ten under-16s suffer from a mental health condition.

But they pointed out there is a huge way to go until mental health is given the same priority as physical health.

A report by the National Audit Office yesterday said the Government is 'further away than it thought' from achieving its goal of equal access to physical and mental health services for young people.

The Government aims 70,000 additional children and young people will receive treatment every year by 2020/21.

But the NAO said even if Ministers deliver on their plans they are unlikely to hit the target.

A separate report published in the Lancet medical journal last night found mental health disorders will drain £12 trillion per year from the global economy by 2030.

Mrs May said: 'There are few greater examples than the injustices facing those with mental health conditions. But together we can change that.

'Our record investment in the NHS will mean record investment in mental health.

'We are not looking after our health if we are not looking after our mental health.

'So we need true parity between physical and mental health - and not just in our health systems - but in our classrooms, workplaces and communities too.'

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who yesterday hosted a mental health summit in London, attended by ministers from 50 countries and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, said: 'We need to do more to challenge the stigma that people with mental ill-health face and make sure they feel they can reach out for help.'

Dr Marc Bush, policy director at the YoungMinds charity, said: 'While there are still big questions to be answered on future funding for NHS children's mental health services, it's good news that the government is committing to further support for schools.

'The wellbeing of children should be every bit as important as academic performance, and schools need the tools and resources to make this a priority.

'Mental health support teams could make a real difference, though the programme needs to be expanded so that it reaches all schools and students.

'New state of the nation reports and student wellbeing measures will help to provide robust evidence about which mental health initiatives are most effective. Only by having up-to-date insights about the experience of young people can we hope to address the current crisis.'

A spokesman for the NSPCC added: 'Increasing mental health support and awareness in schools is an important step to ensure children who need help get it as soon as possible.

'But we know children don't just experience mental health problems during the school day, with two thirds of contacts to Childline about mental health issues coming outside school hours.

'Early intervention is vital to support young people before they reach this sort of crisis point.'

Theresa May appoints world's first Minister for Suicide Prevention in bid to number of people taking their own lives

By Ben Spencer Medical Correspondent

Theresa May has appointed the world's first Minister for Suicide Prevention in a bid to cut the number of people taking their own lives.

Health Minister Jackie Doyle-Price will lead the national effort and try to end the stigma which stops people from seeking help, the Prime Minister said.

Around 4,500 people take their lives every year in England and suicide remains the leading cause of death among men under the age of 45.

Mrs Doyle-Price, whose title is now Minister for Mental Health, Inequalities and Suicide Prevention, said: 'I understand how tragic, devastating and long-lasting the effect of suicide can be on families and communities.

'In my time as health minister I have met many people who have been bereaved by suicide and their stories of pain and loss will stay with me for a long time.

'It's these people who need to be at the heart of what we do and I welcome this opportunity to work closely with them, as well as experts, to oversee a cross-Government suicide prevention plan, making their sure their views are always heard.'

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: 'We're already making progress when it comes to suicide prevention, the suicide rate is at its lowest for seven years.

'But we need to do more to challenge the stigma that people with mental ill-health face and make sure they feel they can reach out for help.

'I am delighted we are appointing Jackie Doyle-Price as our dedicated Minister for Suicide Prevention, and I know she will make a real difference.

'Every suicide is a preventable death and we are determined to do everything we can to tackle the tragedy of suicide.'

Mrs Doyle-Price, 49, was elected MP for Thurrock in Essex in 2010 and given her first government job following the 2017 election, as junior health minister.

Originally from Sheffield, she sparked a row last year when she said many elderly people are 'sitting in homes that really are too big for their needs' - and should not expect to pass them on to their children.

She had one of the smallest majorities in Parliament - just 92 votes - when elected in 2010, but has since increased the margin to 351.

For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch. See www.samaritans.org for details.

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EVERY schoolchild in Britain will get routine mental health checks

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Schools to carry out 'wellbeing' assessments on pupils to spot potential issues Theresa May says only one three mental health problems get right treatment Prime Minister announced £1.8million to keep the Samaritans helpline free Pupils are to be given routine mental health checks, Theresa May said tonight.

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Going beyond certainty and encouraging confusion in the classroom 

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Going beyond certainty and encouraging confusion in the classroom 

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"I wasn't sure the students knew the answers to your questions," I was once told in lesson-observation feedback. "It was like they were... grappling."

"Isn't the word 'grapple' literally in the Ofsted descriptor for outstanding?" I asked.

It was. And it still is there in the handbook; a brilliant image. I imagine a student hanging from a rockface by his fingertips, flailing for another handhold.

For me, alarm bells are triggered when I see a classroom full of confident hands thrust up into the air. At that point, you have found the lowest common denominator, removed all challenge, and reinforced that certainty is desirable. But I have a fantasy... I imagine a classroom full of hands raised with thirty different questions; of a culture where curiosity and uncertainty have been kindled into a blaze.

Certainty isn't desirable

It's always assumed that the responsibility for questioning lies with the teacher, but wouldn't it be great if we trained our students to use questions more effectively? Picture the moment as you explain a concept and you're interrupted by a barrage:

"What is the counter argument?"

"Can you give me an example?"

"How do you feel about this?"

Teaching A-level politics a few years ago, I began the very first lesson by providing my students with a painting of Magna Carta being sealed and asking them what questions it made them want to ask. Some were straightforward: "What's written down?" Some showed empathy: "Why is the king depressed?"

One student wrote: "Is this an English thing?" Possibly questioning the international relevance of Magna Carta, or possibly because he knew I was an English teacher by trade, and wondered if I had become confused about what I was teaching.

Greater investment in learning

I was able to link those questions to what I was to cover that term: codified and uncodified constitutions. The role of the monarch. The differences between our own constitution and that of our French neighbours. I would have been covering that stuff anyway, because it was on the curriculum, but generating the questions themselves gave the students more investment in the answers.

If we nurture curiosity and reinforce that not knowing the answer is valuable, we will encourage further questioning. Soon our learners won't be able to make a cup of tea without wondering how many economic relationships it took to get the tea from leaf to cup, or what happens to the chemistry of water that's re-boiled, or how they would mathematically express the relationship between the volume in the pot and the angle of pouring.

Leave students clamouring for more

Our students should be unselfconscious about the deeper questions that motivate their learning: What can I do to make the world a better place? Will we achieve interstellar travel? Can stories help explain how I feel? If our learners don't have those questions, then something has gone very wrong because somewhere in their past they did. No child stares up at the stars and thinks about Snapchat.

They need smaller questions too. After every lesson, they should find they have new things they want to ask. It's a good exercise in reflection for them to write those questions down; it means they actively think about their learning. It's common for lessons to slowly warm up with a check on prior learning, but our students could force us to hit the ground running if they have already identified what they want to know next and they enter our classroom clamouring for it.
Andrew Otty leads 16-19 English in an FE college. He is an ambassador for education charity SHINE

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'Embrace uncertainty: leave students grappling'

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"I wasn't sure the students knew the answers to your questions," I was once told in lesson-observation feedback. "It was like they were... grappling." "Isn't the word 'grapple' literally in the Ofsted descriptor for outstanding?" I asked. It was. And it still is there in the handbook; a brilliant image.

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What would you do if you were a school teacher and your students started misbehaving? Traditionally school teachers would give detention or suspension depending on the situation.

Most people wouldn't discipline a misbehaving student by telling them to sit down and meditate, but this new strategy is happening at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore Maryland.

Since the beginning of last year, the primary school has not suspended a single student. Their new method of serving consequences is definitely working.

The school decided to focus on meditation as a new way to serve detention for misbehaving students.

Instead of sending children to stand outside the classroom, or go to the principal's office every time they misbehave, they get sent to the 'Mindful Moment Room'.

The school has also been seeing a nice tangible benefit from this program as well.

Philips said that at Robert W. Coleman Elementary, there have been exactly zero suspensions last year and so far this year.

Meanwhile, nearby Patterson Park High School, which also uses the mindfulness programs, said suspension rates dropped and attendance increased! Ever since this new method, kids are wanting to come to school!

I hope all schools can use this new method of giving consequences to misbehaving children!

Source: Via higher perspectives, video Upworthy

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This School Replaced Detention With Meditation And The Results Are Mind-Blowing

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What would you do if you were a school teacher and your students started misbehaving? Traditionally school teachers would give detention or suspension depending on the situation. Most people wouldn't discipline a misbehaving student by telling them to sit down and meditate, but this new strategy is happening at Robert W.

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'They have been failed': first UK school to address early-life trauma planned

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Hopes that Norwich school would help youngsters recover from abuse or bereavement and rejoin mainstream education

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Some shocking stats linked to child abuse and neglect 

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Some shocking stats linked to child abuse and neglect 

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Child abuse and neglect: understanding the scale of the problem, and how to tackle it

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High-profile cases make the headlines, but a study of the statistics relating to child abuse and neglect reveals the extent of a problem that continues to harm children and young people all over the UK.

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The difficulties faced by care leavers who want to go to university 

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The difficulties faced by care leavers who want to go to university 

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'I wish I had a family to go back home to'

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Only 6% of young people leaving care go on to university. Tolu and Amy share their stories.

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New research suggests the boy / girl / social and race class divide continues.. 

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New research suggests the boy / girl / social and race class divide continues.. 

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Disadvantaged white boys lag behind peers in UK phonics test

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Primary school literacy check has been criticised by teachers for including nonsense words

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Interesting article supporting our Level 5 discussions for social pedagogy..

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Beware the 'quick' playground chat | Tes News

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Having a word with a parent in public can be risky, warns Lisa Jarmin, who sets out the common missteps to guard against

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The GCSE gap widens for disadvantaged pupils...

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The GCSE gap widens for disadvantaged pupils...

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New GCSEs 'widened gap' for disadvantaged pupils | Tes News

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Widening attainment gap in a number of subjects is likely to be 'a consequence of the change to reformed GCSEs'

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Not enough support for children’s mental health 

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Not enough support for children’s mental health 

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Is the system failing children with mental health issues?

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Children referred for mental health treatment are being turned away and clinical commissioning groups are under fire - the NSPCC provides vital support but a more holistic solution is needed

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I get a few quizzical looks from other parents when they hear that I'm teaching my four-year-old son to meditate. I'm not sure why it's so surprising. Although the concepts of mindfulness and meditation have become almost ubiquitous in adult society as a means of managing stress, the use of mindfulness meditation with children, particularly with little ones, has received less attention. Perhaps that's why my fellow parents look a bit confused. Or perhaps it's the stereotype that those who meditate are beacons of calm and serenity; something which my children could never be confused with being.

Teaching children to be emotionally aware and resilient is incredibly important. Currently, children in primary schools are at higher risk than ever of experiencing stress or anxiety. In 2017, the House of Commons cross-party education committee concluded that Sats tests were placing children and teachers in a "high-stakes" system of testing damaging their mental health and wellbeing. Let's take stock of that for a moment: the system of education that we're placing our children into is systematically placing them under the sort of stresses comparable to adults who work in high-pressure environments. The difference is that adults are emotionally savvy enough to manage such stress, and when this is not the case, at least there are clear and definable pathways and opportunities for help.

Anxiety in primary schools

Does anyone really expect primary schools to be high-stakes hothouses of the sink or swim mentality? Are we blind to the pressures they're under, or do we simply not want to contemplate the stresses that they must face in the name of primary education? Either way, those pressures are real; a survey by The Key showed that in a two-year period, instances of stress, anxiety, and panic attacks rose in 78 per cent of primary schools, with a 76 per cent increase in fear of academic failure, and 55 per cent increase in depression. Looking at these figures, my feelings are simultaneously opposed. Aren't I doing a great thing by teaching my kids ways of noticing when they are stressed, and training them in ways to respond to those feelings in a healthy way? But then, what am I doing sending them to an environment in which they may feel like academic failures? The answer to this second point is fairly straightforward; I really value what schools can offer, and the positives benefits that my children can gain from being there are many. But we must address the costs and harms that Sats testing, in particular, contribute towards.

I have seen the early signs already in my kids. My eldest, who's 6, worries about his handwriting and spellings to such an extent that on school nights, he just couldn't switch off. My youngest worries that his friends won't want to play with him; he's a boy who loves nothing better than witches and princesses, and even at 4, he is well aware of the playground politics. Be in no doubt, primary school can be a petri dish for stress, as well as for experiencing the joys of learning. Kids of primary school age are like sponges; that's how they can learn the variety of complex foundations of knowledge such as reading, writing, and arithmetic relatively quickly. But these sponge-like super-absorbency powers can be both a positive and negative trait; they don't just apply to what children learn about the world around them, they apply to what children learn about themselves. If school is causing them stress, this is how they will forever relate to learning or testing. If they feel inadequate during such processes, those feelings may be there to stay. If they experience stress and have no positive or healthy response to it, then neurologically speaking, the stress pathways in their emerging brains are becoming more and more prominent and engrained. For their future health and wellbeing, this isn't good.

The benefits of mindfulness meditation

There's a plethora of evidence about the benefits of mindfulness meditation, including compelling neurological evidence that stress pathways in the brain can be rewired in just a matter of weeks, ensuring that when stressed, the go-to response is not that of anxiety, but one of calm. But of course, you can't introduce meditation to kids in the same way as because, well, kids aren't adults. There are a number of resources that you can try to introduce child-friendly mindfulness techniques. The most accessible in my experience is the range of books devised by "Relax Kids", a company who specialises in just this area. With my boys, we've been using 'A Monster Handbook', which we use every night, after their bedtime story. The effects have taken some time to manifest, but on the return to school after the holidays this month, my eldest was able to recognise that churning in his stomach as nerves, was able to breathe deeply to relax, and was able to affirm out loud in the car that "I am brave". These are huge steps. Teaching kids to be mindful is not about reducing their exposure to stress, but rather improving their response to it.

So, our routine. As mentioned, we use the Monster Handbook, which is great because it separates all the negative emotions out and names them: the Stress Monster, the Anxiety Monster, the Lonely Monster. Each monster has their own meditation, a single page which gets kids to identify how these feelings may manifest, and outline ways of addressing them. There's a focus on breathing, on visualisation, just as with "adult" meditation, but it's made fun, accessible, and calming. The use of positive affirmations encourages little ones to outwardly express their positive attributes - "I am imaginative, I am kind" and so on. This bit may sound a bit saccharine for the hard-nosed of us, but hearing your little one say such affirmations out loud is always a highlight of the day. Following the meditation, we talk about the last time they felt that monster, which may initiate a conversation about something they've been worried about.

Increasing focus and concentration

These techniques work just as well in groups as in one to ones, and can be easily adapted to the classroom. A few-minute read-through of a meditation once a class has returned from break time can increase focus, enhance calm, and foster concentration. Morning affirmations in which each child can say out loud what they are good at can increase self-esteem and encourage discussion. Such additions to the school day take next to no time to do, and can significantly calm the class and get them ready for learning. Relax Kids also have a host of qualified coaches available to deliver classes in schools, which could be used in PE time, as there are games, stretches and meditations and more to be delivered. Another great resource is the Cosmic Kids yoga channel on YouTube, which also serves the dual role of physical activity with a mindful tilt to it.

If you needed any more convincing about the benefits of introducing mindfulness into the day, think of the teachers. Even delivering a meditation can be relaxing, and certainly teaching a class of children who are a little calmer than normal will alleviate the pressures of teaching day to day. And when we're all a little calmer, then who knows what may be possible?
Dr Richard Sly is a psychologist and freelance writer

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Why we need to teach four-year-olds mindfulness

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I get a few quizzical looks from other parents when they hear that I'm teaching my four-year-old son to meditate. I'm not sure why it's so surprising. Although the concepts of mindfulness and meditation have become almost ubiquitous in adult society as a means of managing stress, the use of mindfulness meditation with children, particularly with little ones, has received less attention.

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'All must curtsy before the king that is data' | Tes News

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As his grandson starts school, veteran headteacher Colin Harris reflects on what kind of education he will receive

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All over the news today - Headteachers March to stop the funding cuts

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All over the news today - Headteachers March to stop the funding cuts

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About 2,000 headteachers marched on Downing Street today - twice the number expected - in a protest over school funding.

Some travelled six hours from Cumbria, while others flew in from Northern Ireland for what was a non-unionised event calling for a reversal of the real-terms cuts from the past eight years.

A petition was handed in at Downing Street, along with a letter to chancellor Philip Hammond, which highlights "rising costs, school budgets on the edge of viability and an inability to recruit and then afford adequate numbers of teaching and support staff".

Headteacher Jules White, coordinator of the Worth Less? campaign, which organised the action, said school budgets had been cut by 8 per cent in real terms since 2010.

He said "After three years of relentlessly reasonable campaigning, we remain extremely concerned that we are unable to lead and serve our schools and local communities in the way that we all wish to.

"We are fundamentally hamstrung by an overall lack of funding, and a chronic shortage of teachers and support staff.

"Despite a newly introduced national funding formula, the Treasury and Department for Education has failed to meaningfully address these two crucial issues."

Earlier this year, figures from the Education Policy Institute revealed that the number of secondary schools in England running at a loss had nearly trebled.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT headteachers' union, said: "It's a fantastic turnout and although it's supported by the unions, it's not arranged by them.

"This is an organic experience of school-leader frustration and anger."

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has voiced support for the protest.

She said: "This unprecedented action by headteachers is a clear sign of the desperate struggle they now face to provide a decent education while balancing the books."

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Two-thousand heads march 'in anger and frustration'

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About 2,000 headteachers marched on Downing Street today - twice the number expected - in a protest over school funding. Some travelled six hours from Cumbria, while others flew in from Northern Ireland for what was a non-unionised event calling for a reversal of the real-terms cuts from the past eight years.

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BFFs and secondary school transition... interesting read ;)

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BFFs and secondary school transition... interesting read ;)

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https://www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/bffs-make-transition-secondary-school-easier

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'We need to teach pupils the importance of sleep' | Tes News

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A bad night's sleep impacts on learning - we must teach pupils about healthy sleeping patterns, writes Ryan Deakin

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This bbc report - is CAMHS rationing care....?

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Children with mental health problems are not receiving treatment until they are in crisis and sometimes suicidal, doctors have told the BBC.

A letter leaked to Panorama reveals at least one area's child and adolescent mental health service (Camhs) to be rationing care.

Leading psychiatrist Jon Goldin described the service as "not fit for purpose".

The government said it was investing an extra £1.4bn in child mental health.

An 'awful' two years

Jess, 14, first began feeling anxious three years ago, shortly after she went to secondary school.

"I felt like everyone was judging me all the time... you start to get just horrible, horrible feelings of more and more and more worthlessness."

Her mum, Claire, tried to get help from Camhs, but was refused and Jess's health got worse. Claire began sleeping next to her daughter to try to keep her safe.

"I was woken by Jess saying, 'I love you mummy'... I knew that was alarm bells and I ran out of my bedroom door [and] she was standing with the noose around her neck."

Jess was taken to A&E for treatment and was finally seen by a Camhs crisis team. But by this time her health was very bad. Her mother took videos of her having psychotic episodes to show doctors, to prove how ill her daughter was.

Jess tries to describe how these episodes felt, saying it was like "all your negative thoughts and all your awful things that have happened over the last week all just collapsing into one hour, almost like putting you in a bottle and shaking you up and then letting you out again".

Eventually, Jess was detained at Chalk Hill, a specialist child mental health hospital in Sussex, for her own safety. She spent nine months as an inpatient, and says she was assaulted by a staff member.

"I was having a psychotic episode so I was like running on the floor, he grabbed my legs, pulled me back, did that and shook me upside down."

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, says concerns about treatment are taken "extremely seriously" and investigated "as a matter of urgency".

Earlier this year, Jess was released and is now recovering back at home. She was told by the hospital that she had autism.

"I feel like if it had been diagnosed ages ago I probably would never even have had this journey. I would've just gone, 'OK, I need to do some therapy for Asperger's because it'll help me control my thoughts.'"

Her mum agrees. "We were crying out for help and support for a very, very long time and she shouldn't have deteriorated to this level."

Children 'having to attempt suicide'

The number of under-18s seeking help for mental health problems is rising, with at least one in 10 children thought to have a diagnosable condition.

Demand for Camhs services is up and some areas are struggling to meet demand.

A leaked letter from Waltham Forest service in London, obtained by Panorama, states that for six months earlier this year it raised its threshold for treatment, so that only the most seriously ill children - such as those with psychosis - were treated.

North East London Foundation Trust, which runs Waltham Forest Camhs, says it has now lowered the threshold again, saying: "We do not underestimate the level of challenge we are facing."

Panorama heard similar stories from staff working in other services. Only one in four children with a mental health condition currently receives treatment.

One woman interviewed worked in Camhs for decades but recently left because of her concerns about the quality of care she was able to offer.

"My experience in the past eight to 10 years has been a real deterioration in children and adolescents' ability to access services - the thresholds have changed considerably."

The Association of Child Psychotherapists says it has heard of cases of children having to make multiple suicide attempts in order access care.

Nick Waggett told Panorama: "We do hear stories of children and young people having to have attempted suicide on a number of occasions actually before they are seen within the service.

"The problem is that then they're very ill and it actually becomes increasingly difficult to offer them an effective treatment."

The government says it is investing an extra £1.4bn in child mental health services, and "transforming" the service "so that 70,000 more children a year have access to specialist mental health care by 2020-21".

But Labour's MP Luciana Berger, who sits on the health and social care committee, believes NHS services are spending the extra money elsewhere.

"In too many cases that money just isn't reaching the front line. I believe urgently we need to see those monies protected and ring-fenced."

According to the Care Quality Commission, evidence suggests the number of children visiting A&E for mental health treatment has more than doubled since 2010. Many services are failing to meet NHS guidelines for an out-of-hours crisis service.

A Freedom of Information request from BBC Panorama has revealed that at least 1.5 million under-18s in England live in areas without 24/7 child mental health crisis care.

Dr Jon Goldin, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the system was unable to meet the demand: "I have colleagues working all over the country who are... doing excellent work, the trouble is the services are very stretched. We're not meeting the need so in that sense it's not fit for purpose."
BBC Panorama, Kids in Crisis is on Monday 24 September at 20:30 BST on BBC One.

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Children with mental health problems are not receiving treatment until they are in crisis and sometimes suicidal, doctors have told the BBC. A letter leaked to Panorama reveals at least one area's child and adolescent mental health service (Camhs) to be rationing care. Leading psychiatrist Jon Goldin described the service as "not fit for purpose".

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Attendance has often been linked to achievement, this brings a different perspective to consider...

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Attendance has often been linked to achievement, this brings a different perspective to consider...

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It had taken a month but I was finally getting over a horrific event in my life.

It was meant to have been a dream holiday celebrating the birthday of my parents. It had been booked for a year and we were going as a family. The first three days were magical but on day three, the worst happened: my mum was taken to hospital with gallstones that had caused pancreatitis and for 48 hours things were touch and go with her life.

Long story short, our plans had to change and I and my children were a week late home and we had to leave my mother and father at the airport. It meant my eldest son and I missed one week of school.

School attendance

We both informed our school of the events and had medical papers to back it up, and both schools seemed extremely supportive.

That was until a month later. In my son's book bag came a brown envelope. Inside this was the notification that my eldest son was being put on intervention for attendance.

Now, what follows is not at attempt to dictate whether 100 per cent attendance awards at the end of the year are right or wrong (I teach religious studies, I spend most of my days playing devil's advocate and being neutral on the fence) or if it is better to adapt for individual needs. I see the merit in both sides of the argument.

What I do want to discuss is what it tells us (and, in turn, our pupils) about what is important in life and the damage I feel it may (depending on how it's managed) cause.

Mixed messages

Rewards can work well for some students and good attendance has been proven to aid grades. In fact, the Department for Education published a report on the link between absence and attainment in key stage 2 and KS4 in March 2016 and found that "pupils with no absence are 1.3 times more likely to achieve level 4 or above, and 3.1 times more likely to achieve level 5 or above, than pupils that missed 10-15 per cent of all sessions".

So pupil's attendance seems to have some correlation with attainment, and wanting the best for our pupils means we need to monitor, act and react when pupils are missing a considerable amount of school.

Also, external motivation, though not as long-lasting as intrinsic motivation, can be a way of changing behaviour in a number of students who may not have reached a developed level to self-regulate unwanted behaviour.

Is work more important than wellbeing?

But I believe attendance is only really an issue at the extremes. I would prefer to see good interventions and aid for those who struggle rather than an iPhone given as a prize at the end for 100 per cent attendance for one pupil picked out of a hat (I worked in a school that did this).

My son had seen and experienced such a bad thing at his age, so to be responsible for a class not gaining a prize would have devastated him and aided nothing.

And my concern is that it teaches pupils that work is more important than wellbeing. When we only celebrate those at the top (and at times only one of those at the top whose name happened to be drawn from a hat), we are saying that if you took a day off because you were sick then you have done something negative.

That attitude continues in schools when it comes to the teachers. I find so often now that work gets prioritised over the important things in life. I just worry that we are keeping this unrealistic focus on work being more important than anything else, and I don't think it's healthy.

Get your priorities right

If you are ill and need to recover/be ill, then stay at home. If you are struggling mentally, seek help and take time off. If you have a sick child, look after them. If your child has a one-off important play at school and they will be looking out for you in the crowd, go.

I have worked in schools that also did the 100 per cent award for staff and it did not go down very well with those who had different, valid reasons for not having the 100 per cent. If we, as adults, can feel this, then imagine the pupils that might be in this case, too (especially if it were a parent/doctor who said they had to stay home).

So celebrate good attendance, even perfect attendance. But maybe also celebrate those who look after themselves and promote wellbeing, too. It is about the ability to strive for the best but to know when to quit and when that is better for mind and body.
Laura George is a teacher of 10 years who has worked in both the state comprehensive and grammar school sector and is now working at an independent prep school. She tweets @Mrs_Educate

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Why rewarding 100% attendance can be damaging

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It had taken a month but I was finally getting over a horrific event in my life. It was meant to have been a dream holiday celebrating the birthday of my parents. It had been booked for a year and we were going as a family.

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For those working in FE....what do you think?

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For those working in FE....what do you think?

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Labour: Make FE free to offer 'second chances' | Tes News

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Through its National Education Service Labour plan to fund education "from the cradle to the grave"

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Youngminds the perfect school design...

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WISE UP AND DOODLE What would your perfect school look like? On 17th October, we're hosting a live-doodle event in which some incredible artists will take your ideas about school wellbeing and...

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The learning environment debate continues..

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The learning environment debate continues..

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Association for Psychological Science - APS

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Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, too much of a good thing may end up disrupting attention and learning in young children, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Psychology researchers Anna V. Fisher, Karrie E. Godwin and Howard Seltman of Carnegie Mellon University looked at whether classroom displays affected children's ability to maintain focus during instruction and to learn the lesson content. They found that children in highly decorated classrooms were more distracted, spent more time off-task and demonstrated smaller learning gains than when the decorations were removed.

"Young children spend a lot of time - usually the whole day - in the same classroom, and we have shown that a classroom's visual environment can affect how much children learn," said Fisher, lead author and associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Should teachers take down their visual displays based on the findings of this study?

"We do not suggest by any means that this is the answer to all educational problems. Furthermore, additional research is needed to know what effect the classroom visual environment has on children's attention and learning in real classrooms," Fisher said.

"Therefore, I would suggest that instead of removing all decorations, teachers should consider whether some of their visual displays may be distracting to young children."

For the study, 24 kindergarten students were placed in laboratory classrooms for six introductory science lessons on topics they were unfamiliar with.

Three lessons were taught in a heavily decorated classroom, and three lessons were given in a sparse classroom.

The results showed that while children learned in both classroom types, they learned more when the room was not heavily decorated.

Specifically, children's accuracy on the test questions was higher in the sparse classroom (55% correct) than in the decorated classroom (42% correct).

"We were also interested in finding out if the visual displays were removed, whether the children's attention would shift to another distraction, such as talking to their peers, and if the total amount of time they were distracted would remain the same," said Godwin, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology and fellow of the Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research (PIER).

However, when the researchers tallied all of the time children spent off-task in both types of classrooms, the rate of off-task behavior was higher in the decorated classroom (38.6% time spent off-task) than in the sparse classroom (28.4% time spent off-task).

The researchers hope these findings lead to further studies into developing guidelines to help teachers optimally design classrooms.

This work was supported by Grant R305A110444 from the Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, and by Graduate Training Grant R305B090023, awarded to Carnegie Mellon University by the Department of Education.

To learn more, watch this interview with researchers Anna V. Fisher and Karrie E. Godwin from Carnegie Mellon University:

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Heavily Decorated Classrooms Disrupt Attention and Learning In Young Children

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Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, too much of a good thing may end up disrupting attention and learning in young children, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Psychology researchers Anna V.

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Sean Fletcher investigates failures in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

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From a different perspective but again discussing the impact that assessments may have on the curriculum

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From a different perspective but again discussing the impact that assessments may have on the curriculum

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Curriculum 'skewed by tables and targets' | Tes News

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School league tables and targets are not working in the interests of pupils, parents or politicians, experts warn

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When we over support to ‘help’ and ‘fix’ yet loose sight of praising and celebrating existing skills

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When we over support to ‘help’ and ‘fix’ yet loose sight of praising and celebrating existing skills

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AEN

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Otto was from a disadvantaged family. He often turned up in dirty clothes and wore glasses that were rarely cleaned and rarely checked. He didn't speak English as his first language, and what English he did have was poor and broken. He had difficulty with reading, writing and maths, and difficulty with friendships, too.

If there ever was a "target child", he was it. He attended a range of intervention groups. In fact, he was in so many that he was hardly in class at all. It was difficult to get to know him because he just wasn't there. He was in Year 6 so the race was on to catch him up.

One day, something rather wonderful happened to Otto. He got (along with his younger sister, a nice little thing, I used to teach her as well) a place at our breakfast club. The club used to move around the school - one year it was in my classroom and the children used to arrive for lessons and be tortured by the smell of toast - and that year it was in the Small Hall.

There, tucked in the corner, was the piano. And Otto got his hands on it.

Hidden talent

I used to hear him when I was rushing around getting ready for the day ahead, playing long, improvised pieces - some I recognised, some that must have been his own. He'd sit, absorbed in the music, a small, still figure at the edge of the whirlwind that is a school first thing in the morning. It was beautiful and uplifting.

We talked about it one day after school at a staff meeting. We were discussing the More Able. Someone mentioned Otto and the piano and, for a moment, we fell quiet.

Because, you see, we didn't know. We didn't know that hidden behind the (special educational needs), the pupil premium and the EAL (English as an additional language), the dirty clothes and the friendship problems, was a musical talent, just waiting to be nurtured. He'd been so busy in all those interventions that no one had had a chance to know, to find out. We'd been so busy that the person who did the nurturing was himself.

Missed opportunity

Because, if they're never in your music lesson, or your PE or art, drama or design and technology, how would any of us know if that child, the one whose levels we are struggling to raise, was good at music or dancing, running or drawing?

How would they gain those very things that the arts can teach?

The knowledge that with dedicated practice you can get better at things, the relationship with a specialist teacher and, perhaps most importantly, the knowledge and understanding of success - these things, so easily learned in the right context, would be lost to them, too.

And frankly, if they don't develop the habit of participation in the cultural activities of their communities - the sorts of things that enrich all our lives, like music and dancing, sport and art - when they are young, then when will they?

Nancy Gedge is Tes SEND columnist, coordinator of the Ormerod Resource Base at the Marlborough School, Woodstock, and author of Inclusion for Primary Teachers

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'We were so busy "fixing" Otto, we missed what he was good at'

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Otto was from a disadvantaged family. He often turned up in dirty clothes and wore glasses that were rarely cleaned and rarely checked. He didn't speak English as his first language , and what English he did have was poor and broken. He had difficulty with reading, writing and maths, and difficulty with friendships, too.

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Inclusive classrooms for learners with additional needs

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Inclusive classrooms for learners with additional needs

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Pupils with traumatic pasts need an inclusive classroom | Tes News

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To meet the needs of adopted and looked-after children we must rebalance the relationship between inclusion and attainment

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Ofsted begin to research how SATs and GCSEs impact the curriculum being taught

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Ofsted begin to research how SATs and GCSEs impact the curriculum being taught

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Amanda Spielman has said she is not advocating a "pub-quiz approach to education" as part of Ofsted plans for a new framework which focuses on how well schools deliver their curriculum.

Ofsted has published the findings of new research which shows that some schools take a knowledge-led approach to their curriculum while others design the curriculum around the development of skills.

In a new post published by Ofsted today, Ms Spielman says the inspectorate has found strengths and weaknesses in all of these approaches and that both knowledge and skills are important.

"There are some who have suggested that because I have spoken about knowledge in the curriculum, I am advocating a pub-quiz approach to education, perhaps at the expense of developing skills or deeper understanding," she writes. "This is just not true.

"Without doubt, schools need to have a strong relationship with knowledge, particularly around what they want their pupils to know and know how to do.

Ofsted wants 'a rich web of knowledge'

"However, school leaders should recognise and understand that this does not mean that the curriculum should be formed from isolated chunks of knowledge, identified as necessary for passing a test. A rich web of knowledge is what provides the capacity for pupils to learn even more and develop their understanding.

"This does not preclude the importance of skill. Knowledge and skill are intrinsically linked: skill is a performance built on what a person knows. That performance might be physical or cognitive, but skills matter and they cannot be separated from knowledge."

Ofsted's new framework is expected to put an increased focus on how well a school delivers its curriculum as part of a move towards a broader measure of how well schools are performing - giving less weight to schools' exam and test results.

Last year, as part of its work on the curriculum, the inspectorate warned that a focus on results was leading to some schools narrowing the curriculum at primary school for key stage 2 Sats and at GCSE.

Now it has published the findings of its latest research examining how "good" and "outstanding" schools design their curriculum.

It has identified some schools that take a knowledge-led approach, others that it describes as "knowledge engaged," balancing the importance of skills and knowledge, and some schools that it describes as using a skills-led approach.

Ofsted is now carrying out research into how well schools implement their curriculum. Its findings will be used as it consults on plans for a new framework, which will be used to inspect schools from September 2019.

Ofsted's plan for a new framework has been a source of controversy this summer with education secretary Damian Hinds warning that it could increase teacher workload.

Last week Tes revealed that the NAHT had urged Ofsted to pause the launch of the new framework because of concerns about whether there is enough time to deliver a major change to the way schools are inspected.

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Spielman: I don't want a 'pub quiz' curriculum

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Amanda Spielman has said she is not advocating a "pub-quiz approach to education" as part of Ofsted plans for a new framework which focuses on how well schools deliver their curriculum. Ofsted has published the findings of new research which shows that some schools take a knowledge-led approach to their curriculum while others design the curriculum around the development of skills.

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I'll lay my cards out straight away: as far as I am concerned, there is no place for physical violence within schools. Adults generally enter the profession to educate and inspire the young, and hopefully to enjoy a rewarding career. Children go to school to learn a range of knowledge and skills, ideally within a safe and happy environment.

But following a recent court case in which the parents of an autistic child challenged the exclusion of their child from school, based on behaviour linked to the child's diagnosis, my position on this has been challenged.

Many have jumped on this case to suggest that headteachers like me who uphold standards are trigger-happy with exclusions, and insensitive to the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). They suggest we may be excluding children with SEND for behaviours that are no fault of their own.

Skewed debate

This is simply not the case. And the debate has become skewed to be of no benefit to the children themselves, let alone the school.

This is because we are in danger of excusing - and legitimising - behaviour that has nothing to do with a diagnosis of autism. Physical violence is not a trait of autism. Some autistic people can become physically aggressive as a result of increased anxiety levels, but this is potentially the case for anyone.

Of course, reasonable adjustments need to be made within schools for children with autism and permanent exclusion must always be taken as a last resort. But the current debate misses the nuances of the issue.

Failing the child

Potentially, a child could be mildly autistic, but with poor behaviour, and decide to hit their teacher. What does a headteacher now do in this situation?

We need to be preparing children for adult life when, autistic or not, physical violence is a criminal offence. Who are we really helping if we do not enforce the rules of society and do so at an early age when the repercussions are much less than they would be in the adult world, and where we have the time to coach acceptable behaviour?

We are in danger of making it acceptable to be physically violent in a school setting. If we have exhausted our adjustments, if we have coached the child all we can, then the safest and fairest thing for all involved is for that child to get the help they need in a specialist setting. If we make this impossible, we are doing harm to the child and opening our teachers up to the huge risk of physical attack.
Mike Fairclough is headteacher of West Rise primary in East Sussex

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'The polarised exclusion debate is putting teachers at risk'

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I'll lay my cards out straight away: as far as I am concerned, there is no place for physical violence within schools. Adults generally enter the profession to educate and inspire the young, and hopefully to enjoy a rewarding career. Children go to school to learn a range of knowledge and skills, ideally within a safe and happy environment.

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Standardised assessments in Scotland - not to improve the Government statistics...will England follow?

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Standardised assessments in Scotland - not to improve the Government statistics...will England follow?

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David Leng - the Scottish government official with a key role in the development of new national literacy and numeracy assessments - was clearly concerned about the reception he would get when he stepped up to deliver a seminar about the tests this morning.

Yesterday, MSPs voted to halt the Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSAs) in P1. Education secretary John Swinney is expected to make a statement to Parliament "in due course" about next steps, but in the meantime, schools and teachers have been told to continue delivering the tests.

However, Mr Leng - whose official title is "SNSA product owner" - revealed at the Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow that new national tests in Gaelic, which were expected to be introduced last month, have been put on hold until more is known about the future of the English version.

Mr Leng told the seminar that his biggest frustration, given the negative attention the tests were attracting, was with the "misunderstanding" of the purpose of the assessments. He said he wanted to "demythologise some of the stuff that has been said both publicly and in Parliament". He started by reiterating the point of the tests - or rather, stating what they were not intended for.

"People are still misunderstanding what the standardised assessments are about," said Mr Leng. "They are still assuming that they are some sort of high-stakes national tests to create some sort of big data for government that is then going to be used, in a sense, to judge the education system.

"That's what people still think. That's not what they are about.

"The point of the SNSAs is that the teachers on the ground in schools get information that helps them understand pupil progress and next steps."

The data that would be collected nationally in June and published every December were the teacher judgements about whether pupils were hitting the expected level for their age and stage, he said.

According to Mr Leng, despite negative media coverage, the first year of the tests was "very successful" with 570,000 pupils sitting them, amounting to 94 per cent of the potential cohort of P1, P4, P7 and S3 pupils.

However, he highlighted some of the issues that have been preoccupying teachers, including the difficulties P1 children had in navigating the tests, given their lack of digital skills, and the perception that they were simply too hard.

The notorious "hummingbird question" - a multiple-choice question that involved P1 children having to pick out a synonym for "beak" - had been removed this year, said Mr Leng, and 30 per cent of the questions were replenished. Other steps taken to address concerns included reordering questions so that "children have a more positive start", as well as redesigning questions to reduce the amount of scrolling and click-and-drop that P1 pupils would have to do.

He said a P1 practitioner-improvement forum would be up and running by next month, chaired by an academic, and that pupils would soon be able to rate the tests using smiley faces - in a system he likened to that used by aeroplane passengers to quickly rate their experience going through security checks.

One of the major worries, however, was the impact of the tests on children. Some schools have reported pupils crying and shaking as a result of having to sit the assessments; one primary depute head even said a child had "soiled themselves due to the extreme distress".

Mr Leng said he had been very concerned by the stories coming out of schools. But "a key part of that" was how "the classroom environment" was managed and case studies were being drawn up so that schools could learn from each other. But he did acknowledge that access to technology could be a problem for schools, and that in the worst-case scenario pupils could end up doing the assessments on the only school computer, situated outside the classroom, with Wi-Fi that did not work well.

Mr Leng conceded that no product typically starts off being perfect, before ending the seminar by reiterating that the focus of the tests was on providing high-quality data for teachers - not for government.

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National tests 'not about big data for government'

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David Leng - the Scottish government official with a key role in the development of new national literacy and numeracy assessments - was clearly concerned about the reception he would get when he stepped up to deliver a seminar about the tests this morning.

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Ofsted has lost the equivalent of more than two-thirds of its current school HMI workforce in just three years, Tes can reveal.

As the most senior and experienced staff, HMIs (Her Majesty's Inspectors) are key to the schools watchdog.

But figures obtained by Tes show that since September 2015, 125 school HMIs have left, from an inspectorate that currently employs a total of 175 school HMIs.

Another 154 new school HMIs have been recruited since 2015 but former staff warn that the "high turnover" of senior inspectors means Ofsted is losing valuable experience and knowledge.

Mark Williams, who left the inspectorate in 2015, said that the creation of the shorter inspections had made the HMI's job "a treadmill" and was contributing to people leaving.

"After the shorter inspection came in, the volume of inspections that Ofsted was looking to do meant HMI were expected to do two inspections a week," he said.

"You would be planning for a visit on one day, doing the inspection and writing the report and then planning for the next inspection. It became a treadmill of inspection activity."

Mr Williams said the shorter inspections also gave inspectors less chance to use their expertise. He said it was difficult writing shorter inspection reports in a shorter space of time that were not "generic and anodyne".

The figures obtained by Tes follow a recommendation from the National Audit Office that Ofsted needed to develop a strategy to stop shedding staff.

An NAO report into Ofsted in May warned that the inspectorate had found it challenging to retain its HMI and that by March it had 15 per cent fewer people than it had budgeted for.

Ofsted 'struggling to recruit'

The report also said that in 2016-17 workload was cited by nine of the 12 HMI with two years' or less service who completed exit interviews or questionnaires.

The new figures show that 39 HMI left Ofsted between September 2017 and last month, while 47 were recruited in the same time period.

In 2016-17, a total of 41 school HMI left and 66 were recruited, and in 2015-16, 45 left and 41 were recruited.

Mr Williams said that Ofsted faces a constant challenge recruiting staff as HMI is no longer seen as a long-term job before retirement.

"In the past, there was a sense that becoming a HMI was the pinnacle of your career and it was something people would retire from," added Mr Williams, now education director for the Co-op Academies Trust..

"Now people come into it thinking they will do it for a period of time and then move on to something else."

However, he said he was more confident that Ofsted was aware of the challenges facing HMI under the current chief schools inspector, Amanda Spielman, than under previous regimes.

The NAO recommended that Ofsted produce a recruitment and retention plan that showed what it was aiming to achieve and by when, the interventions it will use, how much it expected them to cost, and how it will measure progress.

An Ofsted spokeswoman said: "It is a marker of the high esteem in which Ofsted is held that we lose a relatively high proportion of staff back to senior positions in MAT chains. Again, this helps with the exchange of experience in the system that can only be to the good.

"It's important that the HMI role is attractive, and we are working with stakeholders to make sure that it is. This is ongoing, and includes some of the ideas mentioned in the NAO report, though it's too early to report any outcomes."

She added: "The education landscape has clearly changed, with wider career opportunities for school leaders and inspectors. Given this, we encourage senior teachers to see working as an inspector as a potential mid-career role, rather than only something for the end of their career."

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Exclusive: Ofsted's experience is draining away

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Ofsted has lost the equivalent of more than two-thirds of its current school HMI workforce in just three years, Tes can reveal. As the most senior and experienced staff, HMIs (Her Majesty's Inspectors) are key to the schools watchdog.

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Is linking schools to farms and trees beneficial to learners or only to the environment?

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Is linking schools to farms and trees beneficial to learners or only to the environment?

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Every primary school in Britain should be twinned with a farm to give schoolchildren a clear understanding of how food is produced, says TV naturalist Chris Packham.

The idea is one of almost 200 proposals made by Packham and 17 other independent wildlife experts in the newly launched People's Manifesto for Wildlife, aimed at halting a British "ecological apocalypse".

The manifesto states: "Children who grow their own fruit and veg and cook it are more likely to eat it: they will understand where it comes from, will feel a sense of achievement and will be excited to eventually see it on their plate."

There are currently 116 school farms in the UK, according to 2017 data held by the Royal Agricultural University.

Educational charity the Country Trust said farm visits allow children "to make informed decisions about the food that they eat" and "feel more responsible for their own and the wider environment".

The People's Manifesto for Wildlife also argues that trees in urban areas should be "named and owned by primary school classes in perpetuity to form lifelong bonds between people and trees".

Mr Packham said the destruction of British wildlife had accelerated in recent years, which he blamed on intensive farming and the destruction of habitats. Farmland bird numbers have more than halved since 1970, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

A raft of other, more radical measures in the manifesto include replanting 180,000 miles of hedgerows and banning dogs from nature reserves.

Michael Gove, secretary of state for the environment, promised to consider the report.

He said: "Chris Packham and his colleagues have successfully motivated the public to get behind many of these issues. Through our schools we can develop the next generation of environmentally aware citizens, and ensure wildlife and the natural world is protected."

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Chris Packham: Twin primary schools with farms

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Every primary school in Britain should be twinned with a farm to give schoolchildren a clear understanding of how food is produced, says TV naturalist Chris Packham. The idea is one of almost 200 proposals made by Packham and 17 other independent wildlife experts in the newly launched People's Manifesto for Wildlife, aimed at halting a British "ecological apocalypse".

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https://www.boredteachers.com/classroom-ideas/16-awesome-flexible-seating-classrooms-thatll-blow-your-teacher-mind

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Psych books for the Alternative Provision School (ASP) Library!

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Psych books for the Alternative Provision School (ASP) Library!

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https://edpsy.org.uk/blog/2018/books-for-an-alternative-provision-library/

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https://www.tes.com/news/educating-manchester-head-quits-over-rolling-probe

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Leadership & management - things to think about!

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Leadership & management - things to think about!

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https://www.tes.com/news/what-car-park-tells-you-about-headteacher

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http://www.imaginationmatters.org/index.php/2018/09/13/green-space-schoolyard-plan-cool-paris/

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https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/50960/how-being-part-of-a-house-within-a-school-helps-students-gain-a-sense-of-belonging

# data[].attributes.headline
Mental Health/ Creativity Row Continues!

# data[].attributes.subject
Mental Health/ Creativity Row Continues!

# data[].attributes.body
Check out a suggested link here:
https://theconversation.com/mental-health-crisis-in-teens-is-being-magnified-by-demise-of-creative-subjects-in-school-102383

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/how-truthful-ethnographic-research

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-arts-slashed-core-subjects-take-over

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-45341734

# data[].attributes.body
https://england.magazine.tes.com/editions/edition_edition_edition_5310.england/data/383715/index.html

# data[].attributes.headline
Better research starts with better questions...

# data[].attributes.subject
Better research starts with better questions...

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.tes.com/news/better-research-starts-better-questions

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/49130/tips-to-help-kids-with-back-to-school-anxiety

# data[].attributes.headline
Action Research in the classroom.... a handy guide!

# data[].attributes.subject
Action Research in the classroom.... a handy guide!

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.tes.com/news/action-research-classroom-quick-guide