- Spellcheck: Things to remember – is it set to UK or US spellings?
- Smartphones: Things to remember- Blackberry set to UK are very accurate, Android and IPhone can learn your bad spelling and mistakes but you can change this in settings.
- Google: typing words into Google and letting Google (or other search engines) and looking at suggestions.
- Writing words out several times and seeing which one looks correct. You can cross check this using a…
- Dictionary
- Spelling rules: these take a lot of criticisms but are there because they usually work.
- Words within words: guidance, library, separate.
- Similarities with other words: circumference, circumnavigate, circumlocutions.
- Shape: remembering the shape of words. This uses working physical memory and works best with cursive.
- Fake it: this also works well with cursive, slightly scruffy handwriting which can hide little errors.
- Practise: repetition and more repetition.
- Mnemonics: Necessary – 1 coffee, 2 sugars (1 x c, 2 x s)
- Learning a range of prefixes and suffixes
- Counting syllables.
And finally…
- Phonics: phonics are good, they work with approximately 70% of words. This means that they don’t work with 30% of words. They can also clash with regional accents and dialects.
The Actual Toffee!
Our journey home from holiday
Set expectations – Be sure to let children know what to expect. Clearly tell children, “We are going to the doctor. We will wait in the aiting room and then Dr Sultan will see you. I will be with you if you are afraid or have any questions.” If you are doing more than one thing, let the child know, “We are going to the shops, the post office, and then the park.”
Provide support for the child to be successful – Some children benefit from having information in writing or in a drawing format. Reading stories in advance that discuss what is going to happen can reduce anxiety. Images from stories including Success Stories provide a way for children to see what is expected of them. Use illustrations and/or words during an event to reassure them.
Involve children in planning the day – Often children are told what to do and have little ownership in decisions. Letting children make a few choices in an outing helps them feel they are a part of the process. For example, let the child pick which errand the family does first.
Praise children for a job well done – As you go through the day, be sure to reinforce children for listening, following directions, and being kind to others. This shows children they get more attention for following the rules and routines than for breaking them.
Update children regarding timetable changes – changes are likely to happen on a regular basis. When changes occur, let children know what the change is and how it will affect their plans. For example, “James, the library is not open. We will still go to Aunt Jen’s but we will go to the library tomorrow.”
Plan for delays – Rarely do things go exactly as planned. Prepare for basic concerns such as hunger, boredom, and delays by packing snacks and portable activities like games or books. Make sure to have a back up plan if restaurants or shops are busy.
Let children be involved – Children are less likely to break rules if they are busy. When you are shopping get the children to help locate items from shopping lists. If you are at the doctor’s get the child to help you fill out the forms by eliciting their responses to simple questions like name, address, etc.
Be consistent – If you create a reward system where the child earns something for doing X, Y, and Z or a promise is made for the child to get something after going to the shops, be consistent. If you say, “You get to play your game when we get home if ….” be sure to reinforce them only if they actually accomplished their goal. When children are given mixed messages about rewards, the inconsistency can lead them to expect rewards when they have not met their end of the deal. Although it may be difficult at first, children will quickly learn you mean what you say if you hold your ground.
Get it touch, I would love to hear from you
Andrew
Bedtime is difficult for virtually every child at some point. Children can get upset, protest, or create distractions (e.g. wanting to use the toilet again). A routine that is positive and consistent can make bedtime more pleasant and less stressful for everyone.
1. Be Consistent – Keep a consistent bedtime and bedtime routine. When children know bedtime is at 8:00 every night they are not caught off guard when their activities are interrupted. By sticking to a routine even on weekends you avoid nightly discussions about the time or requests to stay up a little later.
2. Plan – Plan ahead for bedtime. If you know it takes your son or daughter 30 minutes to get into their pyjamas, brush their teeth, and read three bedtime stories, always start the routine at 7:30 for an 8:00 bedtime. If children use a visual timetable include all of the activities leading up to bedtime in the schedule. Some children also need a reminder before they start their bedtime routine. Setting an alarm and saying, ‘You have five minutes before it is time to brush your teeth,’ is a way to prepare children and it creates a system that depends on the alarm not just you returning in five minutes and saying, ‘Time to go brush your teeth.’ Reading stories about a bedtime routine also can be helpful for reviewing expectations.
3. Make Bedtime Something To Look Forward To – Change bedtime from a time to dread into an enjoyable part of the day. Create a routine that includes quiet and enjoyable activities and use this as a time to devote your attention fully to your children. Reading to children is wonderful for their education and is a great way to relax. Other activities children can look forward to at bedtime are turning on a fun nightlight, singing a few songs together, or getting to snuggle in bed with their favourite teddy. As with bedtime, make these activities consistent rituals in your evening. By making parts of bedtime unique and special, this time can become an enjoyable part of both your child’s day and your day.
4. Be Positive – Children gather information from our tone and how we react to situations. Although you may have had a long day and are frustrated, keep an overall positive tone and attitude to keep overall stress down.
5. Follow Through – An 8:00 bedtime means 8:00. Although activities sometimes run late and parents have things that distract them, planning in advance to be home and ready for bed ensures children have consistency and know what is expected of them. Changing times, routines, and expectations can lead to unnecessary stress for children who depend on routines. Setting a schedule and enforcing it may be difficult at first, but following through with the set bedtime and routine is essential for success.
6. Recognise Bedtime Benefits everyone – Everyone benefits from a consistent and positive bedtime routine! Research about the benefits of a consistent sleep regime for children is plentiful, but a sleep routine benefits all family members. When children follow a bedtime routine without protest it is less stressful for parents and children. When children are in bed at a reasonable time, parents can relax or get things done before they go to bed.
Sounds good to me
WDT Observation Report (O1)
To be completed and returned to trainer by WDO
| Course Title
|
Social Story Training |
| Name of Trainer
|
Andrew Whitehouse – People First Education |
| Date of Observation
|
6/5/15 |
| Name of Observer
|
Leanne Crossley |
| Aim of Session
|
The training will enable staff to develop social stories to use in different situations with the children and young people they work with.
|
| Length of Session
|
1 day, 9.30-4.30 |
| Length of Observation
|
9.15 – 4.45 |
| PREPARATION
|
||
| Did the trainer:- | Y/N | Comments |
| Check the environment and resources beforehand?
|
Y | Environment and resources set up well in advance of course starting. Trainer had checked whereabouts of resources, toilets etc beforehand. |
| Take into account any health & safety issues?
|
Y | Trainer ensured all learners signed register. Trainer regularly checked that learners could see screen, flipchart etc and advised learners to take care around screen stand. Didn’t discuss fire procedure with learners. |
| Ensure there were enough resources for all learners?
|
Y | As trainer hadn’t checked beforehand whether the venue had wifi and had planned to download resources electronically due to wifi being unavailable he took learners e mail addresses to send out resources afterward. Trainer had brought a wide range of reference books for learners to look at. |
| Have a session plan with aim/objectives?
|
Y | Trainer had a session plan and outlined what would be covered throughout the day although didn’t discuss the aims and objectives with learners. |
| DELIVERY
|
||
| Did the trainer:- | Y/N | Comments |
| Deliver an introduction, main content and summary?
|
Y | Introduced the course and the content that would be covered as well as break times etc. Trainer delivered main content as discussed with learners at the beginning of the course. Summarised and carried out group evaluation exercise at the end of the day. |
| Establish and maintain a rapport with the individual/group?
|
Y | Trainer spoke to learners as they arrived and thoroughly introduced himself at the beginning of the course. Asked learners to introduce themselves (name and place of work), may have further helped develop rapport by asking learners a bit more about their work and relevant experience. Rapport was built by using humour appropriately throughout the course and the trainer used many examples of using social stories from his family life. |
| Demonstrate knowledge of their subject?
|
Y | Trainer appeared very knowledgeable and was able to use anecdotes from his own family experience as well as professional experience as well as referencing legislation and useful reading. |
| Take into account different learning styles e.g. VARK?
|
Y | V – notes made on flipchart, power point, film clips, A – discussion as a whole group and smaller group discussion, R – recording ideas K – sharing experience, books for learners to look at. |
| Use a range of assessment methods (Initial, Formative and Summative) | Y | Trainer didn’t initially ask learners about their experience but did assess through formative methods including group discussion and feedback, regularly checked groups learning and invited questions. Learning was summarised by checking what learners had gained at the end of the day. |
| Use a range of activities?
|
Y | A range of activities were used including discussion as a group, small group discussion, and power point.
|
| Communicate appropriately and effectively?
|
Y | The trainer communicated clearly and confidently and listened to comments and questions. |
| Manage the session appropriately and effectively, e.g. dealing with disputes?
|
Y | The session was managed appropriately and there were no disputes throughout the day. The trainer occasionally asked learners to listen and to stop swinging on chairs in an appropriate way. May have been useful to establish some ground rules at the outset to help manage any disputes should they have arisen. |
| Appear confident and professional?
|
Y | Trainer was confident, professional and approachable. |
| Take into account, equality, differentiation, inclusivity and diversity?
|
Y | Used appropriate language throughout and made the session inclusive. Trainer specifically talked about language and what terms are appropriate to use such as using the terms ‘special interests’ rather than ‘obsessions’. |
| MONITORING
|
||
| Did the trainer:- | Y/N | Comments |
| Ask questions and involve the group where appropriate?
|
Y | Group were kept fully involved and their feedback was regularly sought. The trainer invited questions and encouraged group discussion. |
| Give positive feedback where relevant?
|
Y | The trainer gave positive feedback whenever individuals/groups made contributions. |
| Summarise the session?
|
Y | Trainer checked learning at regular intervals and gave opportunities to ask questions. The session was summarised by carrying out the Workforce Development group evaluation exercise. |
| Achieve their aim/objective/learning outcomes?
|
Y | All learning outcomes were covered. |
| Clear up the area afterwards?
|
Y | The trainer cleared up all resources. |
| Complete relevant records?
|
Y | Learners were asked to sign register. Certificates were given out and the group evaluation exercise was carried out. |
| Evaluate their session?
(Including Part B of the Session Plan)
|
N/A | Trainer to send Part B to Workforce Development Team. |
| Observer Signature:
|
Leanne Crossley |
| Contact Details of Observer (for feedback purposes):
|
leannecrossley@wakefield.gov.uk |
Marking Guidelines and Suggestions for Making Marking More Effective
Praise and target
Marking is about gaining a balance of setting and guiding future progress and building self-esteem based on children’s achievements. A good marking policy should reflect this. Children should be made aware of what they have done well, any achievements or successes they have made. However, more importantly, to facilitate their future progress they need to be given targets on where to go next with their learning. In some cases they need to be sensitively told they are getting things wrong.
Only praise
Like all things, in marking there are exceptions to the rule of praise and target. If a child is particularly proud of a piece of writing for example, it may not be helpful to set a target or point out any errors as this may be counterproductive. It may be better to praise only, ignore any areas for development until the next time that child is working on a similar piece. In this instance the target could be set at the beginning of the piece, based on the areas for development in the previous piece and addressed in a very positive way such as “You remember that lovely piece of writing you did? Wasn’t it great? Now you’re older I bet you could do an even more amazing one if you …….”
Only target
Sometimes children (and adults) don’t do their best, other times they do very little. In general, children like to know where they stand when it comes to expectations. If you are marking a piece of children’s work and you can’t find anything good to say about it, that is probably because there is nothing good to say about it. So be honest with the child, set their targets and then, instead of scrambling around trying to refer to something good in the piece in front of you, use the praise element to refer to some previous submission i.e. “You are usually really good at extended writing, perhaps we should have another look at the recount you wrote about the school trip last week, that was very well written” (personal retrospective praise).
Is the marking focussed to the objective?
Have a balance of focussed and unfocussed marking. It is often helpful for the child if they are aware of what is being marked, for instance; using apostrophes. Indeed, it is useful for a teacher to have a clear focus and can make marking a lot quicker. However, we are back to the magic f word in education; flexibility. If you notice any glaring errors, particularly repeated, don’t be afraid to break the rules and mention them. Even more importantly, if you notice that a child is attempting something to extend their learning i.e. using colons in sentences, mention it.
Don’t over mark,
Are the teachers writing too much? Are the teachers up all night marking? Praise and target marking is hard work. If there are three pieces of work in a day per child in a class of 30, that is 90 pieces of marking. At two minutes each (conservative estimate), that is three hours’ work Consider how much written marking that a teacher is doing in a day. Even two pieces would take two hours. Marking is a crucial part of a teacher’s role, but should only be a part of the role. Maybe we should only thoroughly mark one piece in a day. Furthermore, some marking should be done with the learner during the day, allowing them to address their targets immediately.
Have the children read it? Have you made time for the children to read it? Do they understand your feedback?
Make time to analyse the marking with the children. Just because you have marked and annotated a piece doesn’t mean that they will read it. In a busy curricular ethos here may not be time to read it in class. Sometimes, they may read the feedback but not understand it. A good marking policy is an essential part of the overall academic plan. Therefore time to reflect should be integrated into the timetable, this can be done sensitively as a whole class activity, in small groups or in certain circumstances one to one. Just because we set a target, doesn’t mean it will be acted upon. Under these circumstances provision is made for next steps.
What does the child think?
Ask the child what they would do if they were the teacher. “Imagine that you are the teacher. What would you say about this piece of writing? What is good about it? What needs improving next time? You will be astounded at how insightful many children can be given the opportunity.
Best wishes to you all
Andrew
SEN Consultant
0794 383 8819
Our unique relationship with Andrew Whitehouse began when I attended one
Nicola James
Head Teacher
of his fantastic courses about ADHD, Autism. Following the course Andrew gave me his undivided attention to talk to me about specific pupils in our school and I later booked a date for him to visit our school for a day.
During this visit Andrew observed the children, teachers, the environment and school routines and pin pointed key areas to improve the behaviour and social development of children in our school. He gave us many tools to use when faced with conflicts between children such as the hugely successful social stories technique and simple changes for our classrooms like visual timetables. The advice he gave about specific “problem” children was invaluable and has proved to be successful. These children are no longer struggling with the day to day routines of school life. Andrew also worked with our staff team to help create a water tight behaviour policy and reward and sanction programme which helped to create a robust and consistent approach to behaviour right across the school from reception to year 6. This has resulted in the staff working together, using the same approach and the children having a clear understanding of what is expected of them.
Andrew returned for a second visit to observe key children who were identified by the class teacher as concerns: perhaps with queries about ADHD or autism. Andrew’s expert eye and wealth of specialist knowledge supported the teachers concerns or pointed out areas where these children needed special attention to help them manage in the classroom. Sometimes quick fixes such as classroom layout or removal of noisy distractions was all we needed but it took someone with a fresh pair of eyes, who knew what to look for, to help us see the wood for the trees.
Since these visits, Andrew has become a good friend of the school and is always at the end of the phone or an email away if we ever have any problems or need someone to talk to regarding behaviour – quite frankly if you just need cheering up, Andrew will oblige!
Because schools have staffing changes, Andrew is keen to pass on the messages that existing staff have had to new appointments. NQTs have had 1:1 meetings and phone calls with him to discuss strategies and individual children. I know these meetings have inspired the staff to try new things and tackle behaviour and special needs head on and with confidence.
I would say that our school has never looked back since our initial meeting with Andrew and feel we have a friend and confidant in our constant drive to support our children to be the best that they can be.
Nicola James
Head Teacher
St Andrew’s Primary School, Bishop Auckland
On the 6th may 2015 a Social Story Training event took place for Wakefield Council.
The course was observed by a member of HR. Here are a few of their observations:
“Rapport was quickly built by using humour appropriately throughout the course and the trainer used many examples of using social stories from his family life.”
“Trainer appeared very knowledgeable and was able to use anecdotes from his own family experience as well as professional experience as well as referencing legislation and useful reading.”
“Group were kept fully involved and their feedback was regularly sought.”
“The trainer invited questions and encouraged group discussion.”
“The trainer gave positive feedback whenever individuals/groups made contributions”
“Trainer checked learning at regular intervals and gave opportunities to ask questions. The session was summarised by carrying out the Workforce Development group evaluation exercise.”
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Discover all the courses available this year on our SEND training events page.
We really have been busy this week booking venues so I guess we ought to let you know what we’re up to. Here are all the up to date training events:
Various dates (as required)
People First Education SEN INSET training
Effective, personalised, in-house training delivered by experienced, qualified and approachable trainers.
Contact for availability.
Various October, November and December 2013
People First Education: ADHD Day
1 October: Holiday Inn, Hull Marina
3 October: Premier Inn, Albert Dock, Liverpool
12November: Premier Inn, High Fishergate, Doncaster
14 November: Premier Inn, Albert Dock, Liverpool
20 November: Swallow Hotel, Gateshead
5 December: Latton Bush Centre, Harlow
Effective inclusion of learners with ADHD: A day course to enable successful inclusion of learners with ADHD.
£145 + VAT
Various October , November and December 2013
People First Education: Dyslexia Day
15 October: Swallow Hotel, Gateshead
16 October: College of St Hilde and St Bede, Durham
13 November: Premier Inn, Albert Dock, Liverpool
19 November: Swallow Hotel, Gateshead
21 November: National College for School Leadership, Nottingham
26 November: Regency Hotel, Cheltenham
27 November: Holiday Inn, Hull
3 December: Latton Bush Centre, Harlow
4 December: Holiday Inn, Croydon
Effective inclusion of learners with dyslexia: A day course to enhance the literacy skills of learners with dyslexia. £145 + VAT.
Various October 2013
People First Education: Promoting Positive Behaviour for ASD and ADHD
8 October: Swallow Hotel, Gateshead
10 October: The Meeting Room at Ashford Market
For learners with a range of needs including autism, Asperger syndrome and ADHD:
£175 + VAT.
October 2013
People First Education: Visual Interventions and Social Stories Day
11 October: Holiday Inn, Maidstone-Sevenoaks
Visual and auditory social and behavioural strategies for learners with ASDs, ADHD and related. £225 + VAT.
Lots of new exciting things happening!!!
Well, it really is all change here at the moment. Firstly (as you may have gathered from the title of this post), we are on Facebook. Here we will be posting all sorts of important information including: relevant news from the world of Special Educational Needs, up to date course information and strategies and interventions.
Find us at:
www.facebook.com/PeopleFirstEducation
And for the lovely tweetsters out there, we are still her
@pfeducation
See you in cyberspace…