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West Sussex EPS good practice guidance for schools and support agencies

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West Sussex EPS good practice guidance for schools and support agencies

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Somerset EPS information and guidance for schools and education settings

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Somerset EPS information and guidance for schools and education settings

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Babcock and Devon CC guidance on anxiety based school avoidance

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Babcock and Devon CC guidance on anxiety based school avoidance

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West Sussex EBSNA information booklet for young people

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West Sussex EBSNA information booklet for young people

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Courses developed and run by Harry Thompson, an autistic PDA adult who provides invaluable insights into neurodivergent experience.

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Neurodivergent Education Support and Training

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Our range of course give you a comprehensive insight into managing challenging aspects of autism and PDA. We have a course to suit everyone, whether in eduction, parent or carer, or just want to learn more.

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Courses - Neurodivergent Education Support and Training

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Our range of course give you a comprehensive insight into managing challenging aspects of autism and PDA. We have a course to suit everyone, whether in eduction, parent or carer, or just want to learn more.

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A super helpful website with loads of resources and information about Developmental Trauma and more! They also provide training on many topics.

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Beacon House is passionate about developing freely available resources so that knowledge about the repair of trauma and adversity is in the hands of those who need it. Please feel free to use our resources in your home or work setting.
All we ask is that you credit our team for the information and design using this credit: Image or information courtesy of Beacon House Therapeutic Services & Trauma Team | 2022 | www.beaconhouse.org.uk
As a specialist trauma service, our resources are written using a 'trauma lens' and offer information, ideas and strategies from this perspective. We know that there are other perspectives and overlapping experiences, meaning that 'one size doesn't fit all'. We are working to be as inclusive as possible and alongside this acknowledge that not everything we produce will be relevant for everyone.

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Beacon House is passionate about developing freely available resources so that knowledge about the repair of trauma and adversity is in the hands of those who need it. Please feel free to use our resources in your home or work setting.

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The ADHD Foundation: Neurodiversity Charity providing training sessions for educational professionals, and also lots of helpful resources.

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The ADHD Foundation: Neurodiversity Charity is running a series of live-streamed training sessions for educational professionals. The webinars are applicable to all key stages and phases of education and sessions that are specific to Early Years, Primary or Secondary settings as well as sessions designed for new entrants to the profession and Teaching Assistants.
All of the sessions will begin at 3:45pm and finish at 5:15pm and will include an opportunity for Q&A.

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Live Streamed Training 2022/2023 - ADHD Foundation

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The ADHD Foundation: Neurodiversity Charity is running a series of live-streamed training sessions for educational professionals. The webinars are applicable to all key stages and phases of education and sessions that are specific to Early Years, Primary or Secondary settings as well as sessions designed for new entrants to the profession and Teaching Assistants.

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An interesting article about ableism. It prompts us to ask ‘what is different?’ rather than ‘what is wrong?’

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Children's self-esteem is boosted when their special interests are catered for

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EYFS Best Practice - All about ... ableism

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Thank you for visiting Nursery World and making use of our archive of more than 35,000 expert features, subject guides, case studies and policy updates.

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Discussing meritocracy and social class.

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If you work hard enough, you can achieve anything.

This is the foundation of the concept of meritocracy, the belief that people get what they deserve: that, in our society, effort and ability are rewarded with status and prestige (and, of course, money).

Meritocracy is an attractive concept. It gives the powerful reason to feel that they deserve their status, and it gives those without power the hope that they can achieve it if they work hard. Politicians agree. Tony Blair, in 2001, described his vision of the higher education sector as being a "strictly meritocratic programme". More recently, Theresa May, in a speech as Prime Minister, said "I want Britain to be the world's great meritocracy - a country where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will allow." If you have ability and work hard, then you can reach the top.

If we dig into the history of the term meritocracy, we find it has roots that may be surprising to Mr Blair and Mrs May. It was coined by sociologist and politician Michael Young in his book " The rise of the meritocracy", published in 1958. Young was not, however, hailing meritocracy as the hallmark of a successful, progressive society. In fact, his book is a satire, written to warn against adopting meritocratic ideals. He saw great danger in a widespread endorsement of meritocracy creating an established elite whose status is accepted as legitimate, giving them leave to consolidate and wield their power, and a down and out underclass of people believed not to have the ability and/or not to have tried hard enough to rise up the social ranks.

Meritocracy legitimises those at the top and stigmatises those at the bottom. Young wrote that "the eminent know that success is a just reward for their own capacity, their own efforts", and that the poor " are tested again and again ... If they have been labelled 'dunce' repeatedly they cannot any longer pretend; their image of themselves is more nearly a true, unflattering reflection".

Educationism: the last taboo

"Tested again and again...". Something our education system does very well. Couple that with a strong endorsement of meritocracy and you have a society that stigmatises those with low levels of education. This is indeed the case. My colleague Toon Kuppens and his team (Kuppens et al., 2018) have empirically documented high levels of educationism: bias against those with low levels of education.

Across several studies, less educated people were liked less than poor people, obese people, blind people, and a low-status ethnic minority immigrant group. They were also rated as more responsible and blameworthy for their low status than poor people or working class people, especially by respondents who more strongly endorsed meritocracy.

This is worrying because people do vehemently endorse the idea of meritocracy. Victoria Beckham - a high profile figure and prominent role model for some - believes that "you can achieve anything if you work hard enough to get it": a perfect meritocratic statement. Social media influencer Molly-Mae Hague claimed, "we all have the same 24 hours in a day", implying that those who haven't achieved the same high-status as her just haven't used their time well.

But a true meritocracy requires equality of opportunities. That everyone-regardless of ethnicity, gender, social class, sexuality, physical ability-can, if they work hard, rise to the top. And we are far, far away from that.

Who fails at school and why?

Those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds do worse in education. Children eligible for free school meals-who are from families that are financially disadvantaged-have, on average, much lower levels of academic attainment than their peers. It is estimated that it would take at least an extra 18 months' worth of learning for them to catch up to the level of their peers.

They are also:

much more likely to be suspended and excluded from school

41% less likely to go to university

70% less likely to go to a prestigious university (see Rickett et al., 2022)

Educational inequalities by social class have many causes, from differences in access to technology (known as the "digital divide") to the varying quality of schools, housing, and healthcare available to them in practice (Rickett et al., 2022). Yet, negative stereotypes, fuelled by strong meritocratic beliefs and an education system geared towards constant assessment, play an important role. This is because such stereotypes fuel stigma and discrimination.

In our society, there is a vast overrepresentation of privately educated people, and an underrepresentation of working class people, in elite and powerful positions. For example, although over half the population identify as working class, just 4% of doctors, 11% of new Oxford undergraduates, and 8% of Labour MPs are from working class backgrounds. The structure of our society - which types of people occupy different social roles and positions - fuels our expectations about who will succeed in certain professions. This is all-too-often reinforced by high-profile figures and through the popular media that laud those with power and money and stigmatise those without.

Biases at schools

We all absorb these tacit messages about whom to expect to do well and whom to do badly. Despite our best intentions, these messages often manifest themselves in unconscious biases and unintended discrimination. For example, in a study recently published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology that Lewis Doyle, Peter Harris and I conducted (Doyle et al., 2022), we gave an identical piece of written work to teachers, varying through subtle cues (such as the student's name, hobbies, and parents' occupations) whether the work was written by a student of either lower or higher socioeconomic background, and whose ethnicity was either White British or Black Caribbean.
Teachers gave significantly lower grades, placed the student in a lower ability set, and rated them as having less potential if they thought the student was from a lower socioeconomic background.
The findings also revealed that the more teachers believed that schooling is meritocratic - that students truly do get what they deserve - the less supportive they were for equity-enhancing initiatives such as the implementation of teaching practices to support a diverse student population. Meritocracy encourages us to blame those at the bottom for their low status and thwarts any initiatives that might help.

This research reflects the messages that teachers absorb unconsciously from our society; that people from economically disadvantaged families deserve their low status positions because they lack the ability and do not put in the effort required to achieve higher status. We therefore expect them to do badly at school. We are all susceptible to these biases; they come from the society we live in. But, within an education system geared towards constant assessment and where teachers are burdened with often unmanageable workloads, these biases can manifest themselves in pernicious ways and they can have real and long-term consequences. Those placed in lower ability sets are likely to have poorer educational experiences that dampen their chances of success further.

It is important to note, however, that we did not find any differences in the grades given to students who were White British or Black Caribbean, despite Black Caribbean students having, on average, lower attainment than White British students and (despite what some may claim) institutional racism being far from a thing of the past. We suspect that this is because unconscious racial biases are a well-known phenomenon and an important focus of diversity training, whereas class biases are not. This may reflect the fact that ethnicity is a legally protected characteristic in the Equalities Act 2010, while social class is not. Perhaps, because of the legal protection and initiatives that this inspires, teachers recognise their unconscious racial biases - which we all have - and consciously work to overcome them.

If this is true, then it is a strong endorsement for making social class a protected characteristic in an update to the Equalities Act 2010, something which my colleagues and I, supported by the British Psychological Society, have been campaigning for under the #MakeIt10 banner. This would raise awareness of socioeconomic and social class biases and mandate training and initiatives that aim to reduce them.

Stereotypes get under the skin

Stereotypes not only fuel our biases and discrimination but also get under the skin of those that are their target.

When someone knows that other people expect them to do badly because of prejudices and stereotypes, they can experience what psychologists term stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is a concern that your behaviour might confirm people's negative expectations about your performance. This concern uses up cognitive resources and induces anxiety, and, over time, can lead students to psychologically disengage from education as a way to protect themselves from this aversive feeling. It therefore hampers academic performance and engagement, as empirical evidence has demonstrated (Croizet & Claire, 1998).

Psychologists can help: a team of colleagues and I, led by Ian Hadden (Hadden et al., 2020), found that a brief targeted intervention that reduces stereotype threat, known as self-affirmation, can reduce the gap in maths attainment between students on free school meals and their peers by over 60%. But such interventions can help only those who complete them. To bring about large-scale change, we need to change the structure of our society and our stereotypes though large-scale, structural initiatives.

We need to #MakeIt10

Discriminating against people because of their social class is not illegal. If an employer decides not to hire an applicant for a job because they are Black, they are breaking the law and could be taken to court for discrimination. If they choose not to hire someone because they are working class or have a regional accent, they are acting within the law. There is no mandate for organisations to document and address social class discrimination or social class inequalities.

Making social class a protected characteristic in an updated Equalities Act 2010 will raise awareness of social class discrimination and ignite initiatives designed to reduce it. It will help to combat some of the pernicious effects that believing we live in a meritocracy can have. It will highlight and remove some of the barriers to educational success that working class and economically disadvantaged students face.

So, what are we waiting for?

Visit the BPS website to find out more about the #MakeIt10 campaign

You can also read the BPS report ' Psychology of social-class based inequalities: policy implications for a revised UK Equality Act '

References

Croizet, J., & Claire, T. (1998). Extending the concept of stereotype threat to social class: The intellectual underperformance of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(6), 588-594. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167298246003

Doyle, L., Easterbrook, M. J., & Harris, P. R. (2022). Roles of socioeconomic status, ethnicity and teacher beliefs in academic grading. British Journal of Educational Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12541

Hadden, I. R., Easterbrook, M. J., Nieuwenhuis, M., Fox, K. J., & Dolan, P. (2020). Self-affirmation reduces the socioeconomic attainment gap in schools in England. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(2), 517-536. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12291

Kuppens, T., Spears, R., Manstead, A. S. R., Spruyt, B., & Easterbrook, M. J. (2018). Educationism and the irony of meritocracy: Negative attitudes of higher educated people towards the less educated. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 429-447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.11.001

Rickett, B., Easterbrook, M. J, Sheehy-Skeffington, J., Reavey, P., & Woolhouse, M. (2022). The psychology of social class-based inequalities: Policy implications for a revised (2010) UK Equality Act. British Psychological Society. https://www.bps.org.uk/news/bps-launches-new-campaign-make-social-class-protected-characteristic

Young, M. (1958). The Rise of the Meritocracy. Thames and Hudson. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315134642

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Monsters of meritocracy and beasts of bias: why social class matters in education, and how #MakeIt10 can help - edpsy.org.uk

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If you work hard enough, you can achieve anything. This is the foundation of the concept of meritocracy, the belief that people get what they deserve: that, in our society, effort and ability are rewarded with status and prestige (and, of course, money). Meritocracy is an attractive concept.

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Guide to supporting autistic young people with meltdowns

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Guide to supporting autistic young people with meltdowns

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Guide to supporting autistic young people with meltdowns. Written by autistic adults, in equal
partnership with autistic young people.

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Spectrum Gaming Autism and Meltdowns.pdf

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short video on teamwork

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Article by Sanah Ahsan, Clinical Psychologist

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e are living, we're told, through a "mental health crisis". Mental health services cannot cope with the explosion of demand over the past two years: 1.6 million people are on waiting lists, while another 8 million need help but can't even get on these lists. Even children are showing up at A&E in despair, wanting to die.

But there is another way to see this crisis - one that doesn't place it firmly in the realm of the medical system. Doesn't it make sense that so many of us are suffering? Of course it does: we are living in a traumatising and uncertain world. The climate is breaking down, we're trying to stay on top of rising living costs, still weighted with grief, contagion and isolation, while revelations about the police murdering women and strip-searching children shatter our faith in those who are supposed to protect us.

As a clinical psychologist who has been working in NHS services for a decade, I've seen first hand how we are failing people by locating their problems within them as some kind of mental disorder or psychological issue, and thereby depoliticising their distress. Will six sessions of CBT, designed to target "unhelpful" thinking styles, really be effective for someone who doesn't know how they're going to feed their family for another week? Antidepressants aren't going to eradicate the relentless racial trauma a black man is surviving in a hostile workplace, and branding people who are enduring sexual violence with a psychiatric disorder (in a world where two women a week are murdered in their own home) does nothing to keep them safe. Unsurprisingly, mindfulness isn't helping children who are navigating poverty, peer pressure and competitive exam-driven school conditions, where bullying and social media harm are rife.

If a plant were wilting we wouldn't diagnose it with "wilting-plant-syndrome" - we would change its conditions. Yet when humans are suffering under unliveable conditions, we're told something is wrong with us, and expected to keep pushing through. To keep working and producing, without acknowledging our hurt.

In efforts to destigmatise mental distress, "mental illness" is framed as an "illness like any other" - rooted in supposedly flawed brain chemistry. In reality, recent research concluded that depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance of the brain. Ironically, suggesting we have a broken brain for life increases stigma and disempowerment. What's most devastating about this myth is that the problem and the solution are positioned in the person, distracting us from the environments that cause our distress.

Individual therapy is brilliant for lots of people, and antidepressants can help some people cope. But I worry that a purely medicalised, individualised understanding of mental health puts plasters over big gaping wounds, without addressing the source of violence. They encourage us to adapt to systems, thereby protecting the status quo. It is here that we fail marginalised people the most: Black people's understandable expressions of hurt at living in a structurally racist society are too often medicalised, labelled dangerous and met with violence under the guise of "care". Black people are more likely to be Tasered, sectioned, restrained and over-medicated than anyone else in our mental health services today.

The UK could learn a lot from liberation psychology. Founded in the 1980s by the Salvadorian activist and psychologist Ignacio Martín Baró, it argues that we cannot isolate "mental health problems" from our broader societal structures. Suffering emerges within people's experiences and histories of oppression. Liberation psychology sees people not as patients, but potential social actors in the project of freedom, valuing their own lineages, creativity and experience, rather than being forced into a white, eurocentric and individualistic idea of therapy. It directly challenges the social, cultural and political causes of distress through collective social action.

This framework makes complete sense when we hear that the pandemic in the UK has affected poor people's mental health most. Does it mean wealthy, privileged white men don't experience suffering? Of course they do. We're still learning about the complicated ways these structural issues affect our everyday lives. For example, how the pressures of individualism and capitalism may lead to isolation and substance abuse, or how colonial violence towards immigrant families plays out within homes and on bodies.

Let me be clear, I'm not saying people in distress should be out there on the picket line. Pain can be debilitating. But those of us who are supporting people in distress, such as mental health workers, have a key role in social transformation. Social action is the medicine that relieves people's personal and collective distress.

Instead of trying to change "mindsets" in therapy, we need to change race- and class-based hierarchies, the housing and economic system. Universal basic income has psychological benefits, and recent studies show how it improves the "crises of anxiety and depression". As a clinical psychologist, some of my most powerful work has been not in the therapy room but in successfully advocating for secure housing for, or working in the community with, queer, black and brown facilitators in organisations such as Beyond Equality, to prevent gender-based violence. The network Psychologists for Social Change shows us a practical imagining of this work. We also need social change that is preventive, such as investing in young people and community-led services such as healing justice london and 4front. They work to shift trauma in marginalised communities through building social connectedness, social action and creativity, towards futures free of violence.

None of this is to dismiss the value of one-on-one therapy (that's part of my job, after all). But therapy must be a place where oppression is examined, where the focus isn't to simply reduce distress, but to see it as a survival response to an oppressive world. And ultimately, I'd like to see a world where we need fewer therapists. A culture that reclaims and embraces each other's madness. Where we take the courageous (and sometimes skin-crawling) risk of turning to each other in our understandable, messy pain.

Meaningful structural transformation won't happen overnight, though the pandemic taught us that big changes can happen pretty quickly. But change won't happen without us: our distress might even be a sign of health - a telling indicator of where we can collectively resist the structures that are hurting so many of us.

To return to the plant analogy - we must look at our conditions. The water might be a universal basic income, the sun safe, affordable housing and easy access to nature and creativity. Food could be loving relationships, community or social support services. The most effective therapy would be transforming the oppressive aspects of society causing our pain. We all need to take whatever support is available to help us survive another day. Life is hard. But if we could transform the soil, access sunlight, nurture our interconnected roots and have room for our leaves to unfurl, wouldn't life be a little more livable?

Dr Sanah Ahsan is a clinical psychologist, poet, writer, presenter and educator

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

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I'm a psychologist - and I believe we've been told devastating lies about mental health | Sanah Ahsan

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e are living, we're told, through a "mental health crisis". Mental health services cannot cope with the explosion of demand over the past two years: 1.6 million people are on waiting lists, while another 8 million need help but can't even get on these lists.

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Social-class based inequalities. BPS Report

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Social-class based inequalities. BPS Report

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Autistic Callum speaks about his autistic experiences

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Autistic Callum speaks about his autistic experiences

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I have found Callum's posts helpful in illuminating where I have been biased by my neurotypical lens.

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Tweets by AutisticCallum_

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An amazing example of a the Neurosequential Model in action!

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An amazing example of a the Neurosequential Model in action!

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We have created an entire classroom based upon the Neurosequential Model of Dr Bruce Perry. The Lighthouse classroom is designed to steer pupils towards emotional and physical safety through Regulate, Relate, Reason. A thread 🧵 @BDPerry

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We have created an entire classroom based upon the Neurosequential Model of Dr Bruce Perry. The Lighthouse classroom is designed to steer pupils towards emotional and physical safety through Regulate, Relate, Reason. A thread 🧵 @BDPerry https://t.co/Hkd2GydGVz

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We have created an entire classroom based upon the Neurosequential Model of Dr Bruce Perry. The Lighthouse classroom is designed to steer pupils towards emotional and physical safety through Regulate, Relate, Reason. A thread 🧵 @BDPerry pic.twitter.com/Hkd2GydGVz
— Lynburn Nurture (@LynburnNurture) October 7, 2022

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We have created an entire classroom based upon the Neurosequential Model of Dr Bruce Perry. The Lighthouse classroom is designed to steer pupils towards emotional and physical safety through Regulate, Relate, Reason. A thread 🧵 @BDPerry https://t.co/Hkd2GydGVz

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We have created an entire classroom based upon the Neurosequential Model of Dr Bruce Perry. The Lighthouse classroom is designed to steer pupils towards emotional and physical safety through Regulate, Relate, Reason. A thread 🧵 @BDPerry https://t.co/Hkd2GydGVz

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We have created an entire classroom based upon the Neurosequential Model of Dr Bruce Perry. The Lighthouse classroom is designed to steer pupils towards emotional and physical safety through Regulate, Relate, Reason. A thread 🧵 @BDPerry

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Helpful guide from the autistic girls network

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Multi-family groups in schools are a systemic intervention that help children and young people with emotional and/or behavioural challenges, by bringing together multiple families and education staff into one group. Anna Freud provide free online training in the approach for anyone who might want to work more with families.

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Multi-family groups in schools e-learning | Training | Anna Freud Centre

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Multi-family groups in schools are a systemic intervention that help children and young people with emotional and/or behavioural challenges, by bringing together multiple families and education staff into one group. This e-learning gives education staff the knowledge needed to set up and run their own multi-family group in their setting.

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Looks like a helpful website with processes templates.

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A one stop (free) shop of all the resources you lovely SENCOs need to get started in your roles.

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To provide LGBTQ+ young people with early mental health support.
The diagram on this website shows the key principles of this support. Click any word or number of the diagram below to find out more. When you click through there is information available for LGBTQ+ young people, commissioners and policy makers and people that support LGBTQ+ young people.

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To provide LGBTQ+ young people with early mental health support.
The diagram below shows the key principles of this support.
Click any word or number of the diagram below to find out more.
When you click through there is information available for LGBTQ+ young people, commissioners and policy makers and people that support LGBTQ+ young people.

Queer Futures 2 Newsletter

Our principles for our What Works? model - you can find further information on all of these at... https://t.co/wYQFFk1nDj 12:39 PM Nov 15th

Study Update

The findings from the study will shortly be available in autumn 2022 - this will include NHS commissioning guidance, a 'what works' model of support for LGBTQ+ young people's mental health and a 'Know your Rights' resource for LGBTQ+ young people.

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To provide LGBTQ+ young people with early mental health support. The diagram below shows the key principles of this support. Click any word or number of the diagram below to find out more. When you click through there is information available for LGBTQ+ young people, commissioners and policy makers and people that support LGBTQ+ young people.

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30-minute self-harm webinar by Dr Pooky Knightsmith

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30-minute self-harm webinar by Dr Pooky Knightsmith

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Helpful 30-minute refreshers for those looking to understand and support self-harm. Page also contains resource links - alternatives to self-harm, self-harm example policy and building resilience workbook.

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Self-harm is an increasing issue in children and young people. This webinar gives practical advice and guidance on identifying and supporting pupils who are self-harming

Self-harm is a common problem: recent mental health statistics* suggest that 1 in 12 young people are deliberately harming themselves, with 25,000 hospitalisations each year as a result. Young people from all walks of life can be affected. It's also a difficult topic to talk about and can be hard for others to understand. So how can we best support pupils who self-harm?

* From Young Minds

In this webinar, Pooky Knightsmith will give practical, accessible guidance on identifying and supporting pupils who self-harm or who are at risk of self-harming and on developing whole-school initiatives.

The webinar will address:

what self-harm is and the types we might encounter

why people turn to self-harm

triggers and warning signs

how to respond to and support pupils who self-harm.

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Webinar: Understanding and supporting self-harm

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Self-harm is a common problem: recent mental health statistics* suggest that 1 in 12 young people are deliberately harming themselves, with 25,000 hospitalisations each year as a result. Young people from all walks of life can be affected. It's also a difficult topic to talk about and can be hard for others to understand.

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Developed by Dr Pooky Knightsmith

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Outlines risk and resilience factors to look out for, support strategies, scripts and example letters.

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NCC119034_Self Harm Booklet WEB Version v2 06 10 14

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Produced by Kirby Woods

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Examples of using visuals to provide more structure to tasks, and making task expectations clearer. I'm afraid I'm not sure the source of this document so can't reference the author.

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Helpful image to consider aspects of culture that are not so easily seen.

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We live in a society where standards and expectations for normality are deeply privileged to Whiteness. Intersectionality provides a framework for understanding how multiple systems of oppression, such as racism, colourism, sexism, classism combine to shape individual’s experiences in unique ways depending on one’s race, gender, class and colour.

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Selective Mutism Training | Services for Schools North East

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A practical introduction to achieving meaningful outcomes for children with Situational Mutism in the school settings

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Friendship Programme | The East Midlands Education Support Service

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Friendship Programme resources by Nottinghamshire EPS

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A helpful document to check your provision, With thanks to East Midland Support Service - I have just saved the strategies section from the full document for ease of use.

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Article contains a graphic illustrating how poverty feels to children which may be helpful when planning ways to support children.

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My niece didn't go on hers [school trip] and she was one of only two children in the whole class of 32 that didn't go and she cried when I picked her up from school because all her friends had been but she hadn't been.
Parent of primary school child

The place where she was happy and thrived was in dance classes and I now can't pay for them and that was the thing she looked forward to every week, she made friends there; she doesn't have friends at school as such but at dance she had friends, yeah, and we've had, we've had to stop all that.
Jessica - single parent, York

I skip meals to share with my mum...for example, I skip my meal to wait for her to come back and at least we can have the same amount of food...[We] starve together through the whole day, so at least we will have had something to eat.
Amara - aged 15, London

Agree that this isn't right?

We asked children in low-income families what they missed

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Poverty can mean children going without basics, and it can also mean missing out on everyday fun and activities that other kids take for granted. Poverty harms children’s health, social and emotional wellbeing, and education. It harms their childhoods and their futures.

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National College | Drive up standards. Stay compliant

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Drive up standards with world-leading experts. Meet statutory training requirements. The only professional development platform you'll ever need.

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The SEND Development Pathways are largely based around free-to-access CPD resources (including those produced by Whole School SEND (WSS), consortium partners and other organisations).

The SEND Development Pathways seek to expand on the SEND Knowledge Tool by supporting staff working in mainstream and specialist settings to identify and secure the knowledge and skills they require to be effective in their current role, or to prepare them for their desired role.

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SEND Development Pathways for the School Workforce

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The SEND Development Pathways are largely based around free-to-access CPD resources (including those produced by Whole School SEND (WSS), consortium partners and other organisations). The SEND Development Pathways seek to expand on the SEND Knowledge Tool by supporting staff working in mainstream and specialist settings to identify and secure the knowledge and skills they require to be effective in their current role, or to prepare them for their desired role.

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Anspear is a technology and educational publishing company. nimbl, our mobile learning platform, powers our school CPD programmes, teacher training and curriculum learning. Our partners use nimbl to deliver distance learning degrees, vocational training and much more. We help people of all ages access flexible, affordable learning.

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Anspear is a technology and educational publishing company. nimbl, our mobile learning platform, powers our school CPD programmes, teacher training and curriculum learning. Our partners use nimbl to deliver distance learning degrees, vocational training and much more. We help people of all ages access flexible, affordable learning.

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Browse Free Online Courses - FutureLearn

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Starting learning for free with a wide range of free online courses covering different subjects. Discover free online learning from top universities and organisations.

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Practical ideas for using strengths with children

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Practical ideas for using strengths with children

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Watch Jenny Fox-Eades, character strengths researcher and educator, share examples of using character strengths with children in a practical and impactful way.

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Jenny Fox-Eades on Children and Strengths

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A powerful article about social skills interventions and neurodiversity for anyone interested in reflecting on the approaches used in their settings.

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Nothing about Social Skills Training is Neurodivergence-Affirming - Absolutely Nothing.

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But, training the autism out of an autistic person is neither ethical nor accepting of neurodiversity. Deficit-driven clinicians continue to attribute any Autistic social difference as "deficient" but flat out ignore the fact that social communication reciprocity is a two-way street. Nothing about Social Skills Training is neurodivergence-affirming therapy. Absolutely nothing.

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Allows you to build a personalised curriculum for a pupil. Each unit results in a certificate that pupils can add to their CVS when they apply to college.

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What is the Unit Award Scheme (UAS)?

UAS allows all students to engage with learning and have their achievements formally recognised.

Students are rewarded with a certificate each time they successfully complete a unit of learning. They can build up a portfolio of certificates to evidence their skills, knowledge and experience.

The scheme boosts confidence, increases engagement and improves motivation, helping students to make progress on their lifelong learning journey.

Why choose UAS

Comprehensive - UAS covers all topics from school curriculum subjects to life skills, outdoor activities, arts and crafts, and work-related learning

Inclusive - students of all ages and abilities can take part in the scheme

Adaptable - teachers can write their own units for tailored, bespoke learning

Flexible - students can achieve an unlimited number of units each academic year, receiving certificates on-demand at any time throughout the year

Versatile - teachers can use UAS in many different ways: SEND/SEMH programmes; enrichment and extracurricular activities; community-based learning projects; professional development.

How UAS works

Teachers select units they want to teach from our extensive library. The units set out clearly what learning outcomes need to be achieved and the evidence required. The teacher is free to deliver this content in the most appropriate way for their students: there are no set specifications, schemes of work or resources.

Each centre has a UAS Coordinator who is trained as part of the UAS registration process. The coordinator submits the claims for certificates, along with the evidence when required. Claims for certificates can be made year round and students can be added to the scheme at any time.

Connect with us

If there's anything you need to know, you can contact us using the online form
Fill in the form

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aqas; aquas; achievement for all; award scheme; uas

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UAS allows all students to engage with learning and have their achievements formally recognised. Students are rewarded with a certificate each time they successfully complete a unit of learning. They can build up a portfolio of certificates to evidence their skills, knowledge and experience.

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A structured programme to work through with a child who is selectively mute.

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WebWellbeing Emotion Themes - Wellbeing Resources & Emotions curriculum | Hamish & Milo A comprehensive wellbeing intervention programme that focuses on 10 key emotional ...

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Supporting refugees and asylum seeking young people 

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Supporting refugees and asylum seeking young people 

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Produced by Gateshead Psychological Services

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Laurie Faith, Carol-Anne Bush, and Peg Dawson
Foreword by Adele Diamond
Published by Guilford Press

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Step-by-step books/guides for identifying children’s strengths and weaknesses, promoting teens, and helping students whose academic performance is suffering due to deficits in executive skills

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A guide to Executive Function by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University

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A guide to Executive Function by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University

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This guide contains a brief summary of EF skills, as well as activities to help develop EF at different ages.

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Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University

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A Guide to Executive Function - Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University

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Executive function and self-regulation skills are like an air traffic control system in the brain—they help us manage information, make decisions, and plan ahead. We need these skills at every stage of life, and while no one is born with them, we are all born with the potential to develop them. But, how do we […]

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Ordinarily available provision document from SCC

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Ordinarily available provision document from SCC