Choice is a big part of people’s lives. We decide daily what to wear, what to do, and how to treat people.  Teaching children how to make good choices is critical for independence and self-control.  This post focuses on a variety of strategies for teaching choice making.

1. Allow Children to Make Choices –Often it is easier to choose for children than allow them to decide for themselves.  Unfortunately, lessons learned by making good and bad choices help children become responsible, independent adults.  Choice also gives children a sense of ownership in activities.  Take time to offer choices, create situations for choice, and reinforce the importance of good choices in your day.

2. Limit Choices –Keep the number and types of choices within reasonable limits.  For example, if you let a child pick a snack, give them two or three healthy choices.  By providing only allowable choices you reduce opportunities for conflict and create a situation where they succeed at making a good choice.

3. Discuss Options –When faced with decisions, think through and discuss the options to help children understand why one choice is better than another.  Discuss possible choices, consequences, and why one option is better.  For example, when leaving the house look outside and discuss the weather.  Is it cold? Is it raining? Which coat is the better choice? What happens if you pick a cardie and it rains?  By guiding children through choices you teach them how to make decisions for themselves.

4. Consider Other People –When decisions involve other people, discuss the implications of the choice for the other people.  For example, if a child wants to use the swing for the whole of playtime discuss: Have other people asked to use the swing? Are other children waiting for the swing? How would you feel if you didn’t have a chance to use the swing? Are there other places you can play for part of playtime?   This helps children realise that their choices affect people other than themselves.

6. Use Past Choices as Opportunities –When a child makes a bad choice such as pushing in, saying something unkind, or playing rather than finishing homework, use the opportunity to discuss why the choice was bad, consequences, and better choices for the future.  Ask the child what other choices they could have made and what may have happened.  Additionally, use past decisions and consequences as reminders.  For example, “Malcolm, remember how you played video games rather than sort your room yesterday and had to miss your favourite program and clean up? What do you think you should do today?”

7. Praise Good Choices –When children make good decisions let them know what they did and why it was a good choice.  For example, “Jason, I like the way you moved over to make room for Ella on the bus.  It was nice of you to share your seat.  That was a very good choice.”

Interested in finding out more?  Visit me at http://www.peoplefirsteducation.com

Stay out of trouble

Andrew

Our very good friends at PAACT Lincoln will be holding these funded workshops throughout 2017 – PLACES ARE EXTREMELY LIMITED

21st April 2017
An Introduction to ASD and ADHD
What does it mean to have an ASD? What does it mean to have ADHD? A journey through the impairments affecting both conditions and a look at where the two meet.

That’s right…

I’ve had a few calls from schools where budget is getting a bit tight. No problem, I am more than happy to defer invoicing until the new financial year.

Andrew Whitehouse MSpEd CPSE (PGCert) BAHons QTS

I am a specialist in Neurological Disorders and provide interventions and training for: Attachment Disorders, ADHD, Autism, Asperger Syndrome, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dyspraxia, Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome and related conditions. I have a number of roles including training education professionals in schools and colleges, observing young people in the learning environment and providing intervention strategies, to help young people achieve their potential.

As well as running networking day courses across the UK for SEN, I provide short courses for Bishop Grosseteste University as well as holding a number of other UK contracts and outreach services including Norfolk, Harlow, Flintshire and Wakefield.

I specialise in working closely with schools to raise standards, including insets, twilights, consultations and observations. Most recently a mainstream school in Durham who had been graded as “requires improvement” by Ofsted. Following 25 months of intensive interventions they achieved “outstanding”.

Andrew

Dyslexia:
https://andrewwhitehouse.co.uk/tr…/dyslexia-training/

FILE: TOP SECRET

Espionage came to Oundle School last Tuesday as Business Language Champions were proud to co-host ‘The Word is not Enough’ with friends from GCHQ. But this was not a normal GCHQ challenge because the messages that the teams were encoding and decoding were in French, German or Spanish.

10 teams took part. Befitting the secretive nature of the task at hand, students were known only by their first names and represented sections from 001 – 010 – no fancy team names today.

Tasked with cracking a drug smuggling ring in about 3 hours(!), the participating students faced encryption and decryption, coded audio messages, an introduction to a new foreign language (Chinese, Korean or Arabic) and the kidnapping of their teachers (some were more bothered by this than others). Perhaps even more stressful was a 4 minute presentation of their findings in front of a panel of judges in their target language.

As one of the GCHQ representatives remarked, the thing he likes best about this challenge is that it truly represents much of the work that a GCHQ linguist would undertake, albeit with a swifter resolution than is usual. It is also yet more proof for those who needed it, that the world of languages is a dynamic and exciting one, opening up careers in many fields beyond the traditionally cited ones of teaching and translation.

All 60 students worked extremely hard, facing the tough challenges that were thrown at them with initiative, persistence and good humour. But every competition must have a victor and the winners of a trip to Bletchley Park, kindly donated by GCHQ, were Birkdale School in Sheffield, with the runners-up coming from Oundle School.

Communication skills rank in the top five skills that employers look for
when recruiting. There are now 60 students who have a better idea of what that really means in the GCHQ world.

A final thought for you…is it pure coincidence that both times we have run this event, the winning team has been Section 007, or does someone out there know something we don’t…???

You can contact Business Language Champions here:

sally@business-language-champions.co.uk

What? No kidding! I’m on the radio. Starting this Friday at 10am I will be a regular special guest on Lincoln City Radio talking about SEN and mental health.

I’d love you to listen in at http://tunein.com/radio/Lincoln-City-Radio-1036-s130866/

I could be the new Frazier!

See you there

During a meeting with Andrew Whitehouse, we managed to make a random link between supporting pupils with ADHD and the Ryan Smith Foundation – don’t ask me how, we just did! (For those of you who know Andrew well, you will fully understand how this can happen.)

Within a week, I was in touch with Mark Smith, Ryan’s father, who promised to send me enough helmets for my upper key stage 2 classes – absolutely free!

I have never spoken to such a humble man in my life. Mark was over the moon to be able to give us the free helmets and thanked us for supporting his cause. When actually, it should be us thanking him!

It was important to me that the children fully understood why they were receiving a free helmet. Handing them out and saying “wear them,” was not good enough. We have many children in our school who come to school on their bikes but I have only ever seen one child wearing a helmet, even though I have harped on about it in newsletters many times. I had to make the children understand.

We gathered the whole school together for assembly, and as the children entered the hall they were met by a great wall of helmets.

Cries of, “What’s in those boxes?” “What are they for, miss?” “Who are they for, miss?” were heard from pupils young and old.

I asked Brooks, an 11 year old boy, to come to the front of the hall.

“What would happen if I touched Brooks’ hair?” I asked the pupils. A gasp resonated around the hall.

“Don’t touch his hair miss!” they cried.

Brooks is well known for having his hair just right and woe betide if anyone messes it! I opened one of the helmet boxes and took one out and handed it to Brooks. I asked him to try it on. He point blank refused. No amount of coaxing could get him to change his mind. He went back to his seat and everyone laughed.

I then showed the children the video clip of Mark Smith on the “This Morning” programme talking about what had happened to his son Ryan. https://youtu.be/Qe7_yQORQBo

The room was met with silence and I stopped the film on an image of young Ryan in his hospital bed – giving the children a few moments to process what they had just seen.

I asked Brooks to come out again and I gave him the helmet again. We didn’t speak to each other; he took the helmet and put it on.  The school gave him a spontaneous round of applause. Brooks grinned from ear to ear.

“How come you’re wearing it now Brooks?” I asked.

“I don’t care what my hair looks like miss – I’d rather be alive!” he said.

I don’t think I have ever made a point so clearly as I did in that assembly that day. Staff said afterwards that they had goosebumps.

There was an electric buzz around the hall as the children collected their helmets, tried them on and  adjusted their straps. They were proud to show off their new helmets and talked about when they were going to wear them.

That night I posted some pictures on the school website with pictures of the children in their helmets and  a link to the film the children had watched in assembly. I invited parents to leave a comment and these two in particular warmed my heart;

Just watched video and my son Kailum come in with his helmet today. I think it’s really good they are spreading the word… the law needs to relook at health and safety rules and make it by law you have to wear helmets like seatbelts in cars… I will definitely be putting my strong head on and making my kids wear helmets while riding bikes/scooter etc I will put my hands up and admit I have let my son out without a helmet in the street playing with his friends- thinking oh he will be fine but it only takes that one second like this poor man’s son … respect to Mark Smith and his family, us Oxley family hope Ryan gets better xx

A huge thankyou for raising awareness – we will definitely be wearing ours to stay safe. From Alisha and Elliot Burnside ps our hairs may be flat but our lives are for living #wearyourhelmet#havefun#behealthyandsafe

Mark Smith is a hero. I can’t say any more than that.

Not only has he inspired a school full of children, potentially saved their lives, he also reminded me just why I love my job so much!

Thank you Mark.

Contact Nicola at

n.james201@durhamlearning.net

Now here’s a thing…

I’ve just been writing my application to speak at the Daily Telegraph Festival of Education and for obvious reasons, they wanted some evidence to prove that I have a tongue in my head and can make noises.  So, I went through my diary to look at the activity for 2016 and I absolutely could not believe what had happened throughout the year.  To quote another beautiful John Lennon song “life is what happens to you whilst your busy making other plans”.  Too true!

So, I thought I might like to share this quite incredible list of achievements with you all, after all without you supporting our events none of this would have happened!

I am and continue to be a regular visiting speaker and training provider for:
Bishop Grosseteste University Lincoln,
Harlow Education Consortium,
KLA Cluster Kings Lynn,
Flintshire Council
PAACT Autism Support

Chaired the panel “Tackling Mental Health – Setting a Strategy” at Educated Yorkshire (2016)
Presented “Getting it Right for Learners with Dyslexia” at TeachFest Lincoln (2016)
Presented “ADHD: Effective Strategies” at Purleigh Education Conference (2016)
Presented “Implementing the SEND Reform Bill” at Sheffield College Annual Conference (2016)

And just this week, I’ve been booked as Keynote Speaker at SEN conference for DSPL 6 (Developing Special Provision Locally) in Potters Bar and Borehamwood

Presented “SEND Lincolnshire Breakfast Showcase” at Bishop Grosseteste University sponsored by Russell Payne Chartered Accountants

In addition to these, I have been running small workshops and seminars for SEN at least twice a week for 10 years now and will continue to do so.  Oh, and we also made this fabulous 3 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKszLiBays

However, my proudest moment had to be arranging the allocation of 80 free cycle helmets to be shared between St Andrew’s Primary School in Bishop Auckland and Lache Primary School in Cheshire. My eternal gratitude goes out to The Ryan Smith Foundation for their generosity.

I’m sure you will agree that it really has been quite a year.  For those of you who have worked with me, you will know that you are always welcome to give me a call on 0794 383 8819 or email me at andrew@peoplefirsteducation.com and if you don’t know me… the same applies.

So please do get in touch,

Let’s have a cup of coffee sometime.

Your friend in SEN

Andrew

Please see up and coming events at www.peoplefirsteducation.com

Dear friends and colleagues,

I’ve been meaning to share this for some time now… I travel all over and everywhere and I see everybody and everything.  Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall in my world!  I’ve been in:

• Pupil Referral Units,

• many and varied faith schools,

• universities,

• land based colleges,

• nurseries,

• restorative schools,

• international schools,

• cluster events,

• conferences,

• corporate events,

• chairing panels and loads more.

Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall in my world!  Well, here is my list of inset training courses for the next few months.

https://andrewwhitehouse.co.uk/training/bespoke-inset-days/

As you can see, there are some really interesting and varied events on the horizon.  Do you need some high quality SEN training?  Then get in touch…  you’ll be in good company.

My very best to you all

Andrew

0794 3838819