Join Tooled Up parent Judith Thomas as she shares her experience of parenting a child with a pervasive drive for autonomy (also known as Pathological Demand Avoidance or PDA), helps you to spot PDA and explains how much positive difference low-demand communication will make.
Listen to a heartwarming and inspirational story of how Tabitha Atieno’s experience of ADHD led her to build a school for neurodivergent children in Kenya. Tabitha also shares her journey as a mother advocating for her autistic son in the UK where they now live, and encourages us to nurture our communities.
Join Dr Kate Cooper for a deep dive into the intersection of autism and gender dysphoria. Watch this webinar for an understanding of how challenges with communication, dealing with change, and identity can affect an autistic young person experiencing gender dysphoria. There are lots of practical tips for support: how to approach this with kindness and curiosity, and how to empower parents in helping their children.
Join Dr Mary Hanley for an inspirational look at how the classroom environment can be adapted to reduce anxiety and sensory arousal in autistic children. Watch for details of the excellent (and free!) “Triple A” training that Durham University have created for schools.
Watch this comprehensive summary of good educational practice for schools supporting autistic pupils with Professor Karen Guldberg. Many autistic children are excluded to some extent from learning at school – from official exclusions to unofficial ones such as reduced timetables. Professor Guldberg provides the eight principles of good autism practice in a way that can easily be applied to any educational setting.
In this webinar, Ariana Wells from the Teacher Development Trust speaks to us about the benefits of adaptive teaching, a more helpful and practical model than differentiation. Adaptive teaching involves being responsive to information about learning, adjusting teaching to better match the student, and using a student’s prior knowledge as a foundation for teaching new information. Ariana provides some practical advice for teachers and school staff and how to create the best, most encouraging and accessible learning environment for all students.
When children aren’t offered a place at their first choice school, especially if they’ve worked hard to sit an exam, or gone through an interview process, they can feel disappointed, deflated, and perhaps even rejected. If your child needs some help navigating through some of the discomfort of these emotions, here are our top tips. We’d recommend that you read this advice in advance, so that you can put some pre-emptive steps in place, which will help your child to feel content and hopeful, whatever setting they eventually attend.
Positive, secure, supportive relationships are a cornerstone of child development and indeed crucial ingredients for wellbeing. In this webinar for school staff, Dr Ingrid Obsuth explores the power of the teacher-student relationships for shaping young people’s behaviours and outcomes.
In May 2022, the UK government published guidance on maintaining high levels of school attendance. This checklist, produced by attendance expert Victoria Franklin can be used to create a school policy which meets the new requirements.
In this follow-up to Dr Weston’s interview with educational consultant Victoria Franklin, they meet again to talk in detail about the requirements in the new government guidance on school attendance. Victoria provides schools with some helpful tips on what they can do now to prepare for when the guidance becomes legislation.
