Teaching, Supporting and Managing the Neurodiverse classroom

Hey,

When I attended the Education show for 2017, I went to the talk Teaching, Supporting and Managing the Neurodiverse classroom by Victoria Honey Bourne.

What is Neurodiversity?

Neurodiversity is a different way of thinking and the idea that not one way is better to the other. Also, that you don’t need to conform to the way that everyone else is learning as that method may not work for you. We are all different in learning, like we all have different genes from each other; such as, someone might have blue eyes but another person has brown eyes. We all learn differently and that is ok!

What is meant by Normal?

When looking are this question you find that you will discover more questions, such as; what happens when we expect more out of one child than the other, how does this help in defining what normal is. In teaching, you find yourself focusing on labels more than the actual person and therefore are not focusing on what that child needs. How can there be a definition of ‘normal’ if we expect more from one than the other and when we are focusing on labels more than the child themselves.

Neurodiversity is still considered a problem as when teaching a class of 30 pupils you can really only teach in a certain way. When thinking about how not one person is less than the other, there are some benefits such as society and understanding of each other.

We also need to remember that some people think differently and therefore it is only natural to believe that they would also learn differently. To identify those who need extra help a teacher must first use the resources accessible to them to teach and from there they will be able to recognise those who are behind or struggle in the knowledge being taught. There are than resources that can give and extra hand in learning which could be: technologies to help them once they had learnt how to use them; pencil grips to help with handwriting; talking dictionaries to help with both reading and spelling and finally help make children more aware of things around them.

Environments have strong effects on learning so creating a physical learning environment is important in education. This could be: using the resources available; creating routines; creating displays with not too much information that have a visual appearance; communication friendly which is not just for those with speech & language issues and quiet areas.

Now let’s talk about the different teaching habits and what can be improved to benefit those who need a bit more help than the average pupil. Teachers could design worksheets and presentations that show there objectives clearly so that the pupil knows what they need to do and therefore may have a greater understanding of what needs to be done. They should have visual instructions and use clear language in explaining what the pupil needs to do and while doing this make sure to clearly explain new vocabulary that you may come across. Before asking the pupils to do the task give extra processing time so that those with difficulties can fully understand what they need to do.

Now following on from teaching habits I will talk about organisation skills and how being a teacher, you should use them. A big part of organisational skills is about being visual and therefore a teacher should create visual as well as clear instructions and then go through the work needed to be done so that the pupils understand what is needed of them, it helps to break down the work. It is recommended that the teacher writes down the outline of the lesson so that the children know what is to come. It is also good to have a visual timetable in the classroom which you can refer back to during the day as well as breaking down the day with: task boards, tick lists, pictures and writing. Not only should a teacher be organised so that they know what they are doing, but they should also be teaching self – management techniques to their students such as to do lists or using reminders on phones.

Finally, let’s discuss the idea of accepting individuals as this is what I feel is probably one of the most important elements in teaching, as recognising pupils’ strengths gives a way to help the students learn the confidence to make mistakes and learn from them. It is also important to recognise strengths as it creates a different kind of learning that can be creative as we need to remember that strengths are not just found in English and Maths and to not always focus on these subjects so strongly even though they are an important part of learning. You should set meaningful targets for your pupils and have person to person talks with them to help them improve as well as to understand that pupil. A teacher needs to remember that there is no right way of being and therefore no wrong way of learning. Being who you are is what makes you human and different from others as no one is the same.

These are just some of the ways that you could help gifted children engage in the classroom.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post

Any comments or questions please use the contact box

Amy x

The troubled child

Hey,

I know I am really late with these coming post as they are from the ‘Education Show’ that I went to in March and I know I said that I would post the rest months ago but here they are.

 

I went to listen to the talk ‘The Troubled Child – education for all’ by Joanne Gray. She started by talking about what teaching is about and the misconception that are made in thinking about head teachers and teachers. For example, a head teachers job is not just to fill out paper work and organise what happens in the school but also to deal with the issues that arise with the children that are in the care of the school. There are many things that teaching includes and many jobs that a teacher must do and be, such as: a nurse; a social worker and of course a teacher.

The current education system isn’t working for everyone! We need to be thinking about school is a different way and think of it as part of the community. We also need to start working around the children as education is mainly about that and I feel it is easy to forget.

We need to identify with the children that need something extra to break down a barrier and help enable them to learn. A team would observe the children that the teachers have identified and therefore if the teacher doesn’t identify them than they are missed out by the team and cannot offer support that would help that child. The method for this is for the teacher to build a profile of the child with the school and then bring in professional help (the team).

They need professionals to help gifted children as a teacher’s job is to teach not to deal and help those who need a bit of extra help. They are taken out of timetable to work with the team for about 6 weeks and then they are gradually put back so that there are then zero problems.

Bringing parents in can help so that the parents know what their child is doing in school as well as the teachers being able to talk to them about how their kid is outside of school and what could be done to solve the issues that their child might have.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it,

Any comments or questions please use the contact box

Amy x

Wise Man

Hey,

The church service from before I went on holiday to Yorkshire was about building a house on rock or sand?

Matthew 7:24-28

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house on the rock; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and it fell with a great crash.”

 

Paul from small groups did a demonstration of this by having 2 houses made of wooden blocks; 1 on rock and the other on sand. He then turned a fan on for wind and poured water on the houses, and you could probably guess what happened? The one on rock stayed whereas the one on sand slowly began to fall apart.

One of them showed listening and following through actions, whereas the other one listened but forgot, not putting what he had learnt into practice. We need to be like the guy who listened and then followed by acting on what he had learnt.

Philippians 2:14-16

“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved verse as you hold out the word of life – in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labour for nothing.”

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

Any questions please use the contact box

Amy x

Descendants 2

Hey,

On the 22^nd of July, the day after it was released, I watched Descendants 2 which I am absolutely in love with. Before I start to talk about this movie, I give you fair warning that this post will include spoilers.

The music for this film was great and I actually ended up buying the main songs: ‘Going down’ and ‘You and Me’. I found ‘You and Me’ to be a very inspirational song that portrays the message that finding yourself takes time but it is totally worth it and that you should be true to who you are, but also that there will always be someone there for you. The dance for the music was choreographed well as there was always something going on and you just couldn’t stop watching. I feel that the choreography for ‘You and Me’ worked in collaboration with the music well, as the was a period in the dance when each individual had their own part to perform in the middle of everyone which therefore linked to the message of finding yourself with people surrounding you and being there for you.

This film is really all about finding yourself and how you identify yourself. This is shown by Mal going back to the Isle, and the journey she goes on to find who she really is and that it doesn’t matter if you feel like you don’t fit in, you should be proud of who you are. This movie also portrays the message of loving someone for who they are, that is represented by the stained-glass window Ben made for Mal showing her true self with him by her side. I think that this film has showed the evolution of the main characters well. For Carlos, he has gone from having a fear of dogs to having a dog, Dude as a best friend and has started to develop feelings for Jane. Jay has gone from starting on a team for games to being the captain of the fencing team and being quite popular. Evie has developed into this fashion designer who is designing loads of people’s outfits for the Cotillion. She has also evolved in her relationship with Doug because she no longer believes that she needs a prince, but that she can be independent. Evie is probably the one who has evolved most from the first movie to this one.

Even Jane has evolved; she has gone from shy and not proud of who she is to confident and is organising the Royal Cotillion where Mal becomes a lady of the court. This also links well to what I feel is the message of the film, as she has learnt to be true to herself and proud of where she comes from. Finally, there is Mal who’s appearance has changed the most as at the beginning of the film her hair is blonde and she is getting ready to become a lady of the court. However, in this film you follow her on her journey as she becomes stressed about not fitting in and goes back to the Isle, but ends up returning to Auradon where she finds out that Ben knew who she was and loved her because of it. This demonstrates a good message about how everyone stresses about fitting in but that you just need to be yourself and stay true to who you are.

The CGI used in this film is amazing as they made Mal turn into a dragon with the scene playing smoothly. Uma was also changed into a Cecelia like her mother, Ursula. The thing I found great was how they created Uma and Mal in their dragon and Cecelia form to be 4 times bigger then Ben, and to create this scene in the water with a tiny Ben in the middle was just incredible. I also found the use of purple smoke to change Mal back to her human form spectacular and an amazing way to represent Mal being true to where she comes from as Maleficent could turn into a dragon, but also by using purple they show who Mal is, as through both the Descendants movies purple has been created as Mal’s colour like Evie and dark blue, which continues into the second movie as Evie wears a dark blue dress to the Cotillion.

The lighting used in this movie connotes good and evil as this movie start in Auradon that is portrayed use light lighting whereas when they travel to the Isle of the lost dim lighting is used. The outfits for the Isle and Auradon differed from each other which also connotes evil and good, as in the Isle it was dark clothing with leather jackets whereas in Auradon was smart clothing and dresses made of bright and light colours. Auradon had more technologies such as 3D printer and a smart TV’s which connotes that choosing to side with good is more rewarding.

This film kept to the traditional ideology of a fairytale by having the kiss of true love between Ben and Mal which breaks the spell that Uma had him under. I feel that it is clever how the writers and director has presented their inheritance of Mal, Ben and Uma in the ending: as Mal turns into a dragon like her mother, Maleficent; Uma turning into a Cecelia like her mother, Ursula and Ben roaring like his father, the beast. Ben’s roar also refers back to the first film as he roared before jumping into the lake on his first date with Mal.

I recommend watching both the first and second Descendants. I absolutely love them.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my post,

Any comments or questions please use the contact box

Amy x

Camping

Hey,

On the 15^th of July, my mum came back from her camping trip with friends as she wasn’t feeling that well, but she planned on going back and asked me if I wanted to come, so I ended up going camping for a night in a Tepee.

This trip started off with trying to find her friends who had gone for a walk but made a wrong turn and ended up somewhere completely different so there were lost. Luckily, they all had their phones and therefore we could communicate and find them so that we could take them back to the camp site in the car. Once we arrived, we put the stuff in the tepee and then sat outside talking and eating snacks before cooking dinning which was: bacon, fried eggs, beans, with bread rolls.

After eating, I started to make a camp fire as doing it in guides obviously means I can make a fire, but to be fare I made a pretty good one.

 It was pretty big so it kept us warm but it also meant that I ended up using my creative side and photography skills to take a photo where it looks like I set the Tepee on fire, don’t worry I didn’t.

 

When we woke up in the morning we found that we add gained a little friend who had decided to sleep under out tepee and give us a wakeup call. I don’t know how Liz slept as the cockerel was sleeping under the tepee near to her bed.

Here are some more photos of my trip to Welbourne where I spent the night in a tepee.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about my camping adventure

Any comments or questions please use the contact box

Amy x

Passing the QTS

Hey,

So, I am going to start by saying that I have finally managed to pass the professional skills tests, on my last attempt which believe me was very stressful, especially when you don’t have a plan B.

I would recommend getting a tutor even if it is just for a week, as I improve by 12% in maths and 10% in English which for me was the difference between a fail and a pass. I had a tutor for 2 weeks. However, I understand that some of you would not be able to afford this, so I will go over what I suggest that you should look at, from my personal experience.

Numeracy:

When looking at maths I suggest you focus on making sure you know your times tables as that could be the difference from a mark or not as I found them very helpful for the mental part of the test. I also found that practicing mental questions to make sure you knew how to do them and if not then find out how to helped. Make sure not to do all the questions as you will then need to time yourself to make sure you can answer them in the 90 seconds as that is the amount of time you are given to answer the question once you have listened to the question. Once you have done this it is then just practice. This is the same for the written arithmetic and data, it is all just practice.

I would recommend getting the passing the numeracy book as they included how to answer questions as well as examples. I found that this helped me, I would also use the practice papers given online. Click on the online tests and once you have completed that test it would give you the percentage you got as well as the percentage for each area. This means you could see by how much you need to improve and where, as you need 63% to pass, however don’t worry if you are a few percent off as the practice tests are stricter than the actual test. Using these online tests, it would also give you the answers so that you could see where you went wrong

Another resource is the website called ‘Numeracy ready’ which has about 20 practices whereas the professional skills website only has 4. However, this didn’t help me as my problem was mainly timing and although it does time how long you take, it doesn’t stop after 90 seconds with the mental area which was what I needed it to do, but you might be different to me.

Literacy:

There is not much revision you can do with spellings; I just went over when to use double lettering in spelling as that’s what I found I was struggling with after doing a test (do practice test to find out where you need to improve). This rule was basically that you are putting the words together via sounds like commit – ting = committing or prefer – ed = preferred.

It is the same with grammar; there isn’t much you can do in preparation for this area. After doing my first 2 attempts I found some things that I needed to remember when going into the test. As I am dyslexic I found that when returning to go over what I had already put that I was correcting a write answer into a wrong answer so once I had put an answer in I left it alone. I also found that I kept on choosing ‘should of’ which doesn’t make sense and the reason I was choosing it is because it sounds like ‘should’ve’ but this is the abbreviated version of ‘should have’ and therefore it is always ‘should have’. Another thing I found that I needed to remember was that when looking at: me and the head teacher, the head teacher and myself and the head teacher and I, it should always be ‘The head teacher and I’.  I also looked at when to use either who or whom which I found a bit confusing so really it is either you know or you don’t but I will explain what I found anyway, and that is that if the answer to the phase is a ‘him’ it will be whom and if a ‘he’ it will be who.

With punctuation, I found that it was just practice so I went online, on google and found images of paragraphs without punctuation so that I could practice adding the punctuation where it was needed. I also went over the rules of commas with clauses, you know, how you need a comma of both ends for additional information unless it is at the end on a sentence and then it ends with a full stop.

Finally, Comprehension, this is probably the one I struggled with the most due to the wording and therefore it is just practice so I recommend practicing it the best you can and find the answer to see if you got it right. If not, I recommend reading the text again to try and understand why you got it wrong before looking at what it says in the answers for the reasons for why those certain ones were chosen.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helps anyone taking the professional skills tests,

Any questions or comments don’t be afraid to use the contact box

Amy x

Family Fun Day

Hey,

So, as I posted last week, I am catching up on my blog and I am sorry for the wait but I have been away in Yorkshire for the past week and had no Wi-Fi so was unable to update my blog.

Anyway . . .

 

On the 15^th of July, I went to Kenilworth Guy Road Park, where the Family Fun Day was being held. I, along with my sister went to help with the face painting stool, but not before looking around. There were many things to participate in: Hunk a duck; Art & Craft; Cream Tea; Tea & Cake; free Burger and of course face painting.

During face painting, I ended up painting: about 5 butterflies, blue, pink & purple; about 4 flowery patterns; 1 or 2 snakes and 1 rainbow. Once I had finished face painting, both my sister and I had our faces painted; I have a flowery pattern while my sister got a red crown with a pink heart in it to represent the queen of hearts from Alice in Wonderland.

While I was having my face painted, the guy who was in charge of the water kindly offered to get me a burger which I accepted and then ended up getting the last burger, which meant my sister didn’t get one as she was in the line behind the guy. I did give her a bite though.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it,

Any comments or questions please use the contact box.

Amy x