About

In this episode, Claire talks over the internet with Abigail Hawkins: an experienced teacher, special educational needs coordinator and, now, SEN consultant. Abigail talks about her journey to becoming a teacher including how, as a teenager, she herself found being a student challenging and how, initially, she had her heart set on becoming a research scientist rather than a teacher. Abigail also discusses how she became increasingly involved in the special educational needs (SEN) aspect of schoolwork through her experiences with helping A-Level students at college alongside completing her own studies. Following this, she spent many years as the SEN coordinator (SENCO) in a Nottingham secondary school before leaving to work as a consultant for a company which produces software to assist SENCOs. This led to her starting her own consulting business supporting schools and SEN coordinators. Now, alongside her consultancy work, Abigail has also published two books and has her own YouTube channel dedicated to SEN current issues. She also helps to lead and support three schools as a governor and she talks about the beneficial aspects of this work. KEY TAKEAWAYS Support for parents of children with SEN can sometimes be difficult to find. Just as training and information for teachers around SEN issues can, sometimes, be difficult to source, this also applies equally for parents. While teachers have the sometimes challenging task of catering for special educational needs in the classroom among a number of children, parents can find it daunting knowing what they can do at home to help, particularly where behaviours might be extreme. Abigail created and aimed her YouTube channel, initially, towards parents having noticed that there were few good sources of information available. Being a governor can be a very rewarding and informative experience. Although occasionally time-consuming, there are huge benefits (both academic and personal) to becoming a school governor in whatever capacity. Many people who take on this role have found that is has helped with self-development in, usually, unexpected ways and it can also be useful and enlightening gaining an insight into the systems ‘above’ the headteacher. Assistive technology has huge untapped potential. While there are many apps, systems and resources teachers and parents can purchase to support children with special educational needs, the free assistive technology already built-in with common technology is very often overlooked. Nearly all laptops, smart-phones and tablets come with plenty of incredibly useful features to support children with a variety of different special educational needs, and many people don’t know these features exist. Social media can be great for support and educational professional development. Although it does have its faults in some areas, social media has, particularly over the last few years, become a really useful source for professional development for teachers, sharing and discussion of ideas, and support for those in education. Along with messaging and posting sites, many blogs and online journals can also be found which can help those looking for resources. Transitioning SEN children back into their school is an important consideration. As schools begin to return, how we transition students with special educational needs back needs to be carefully considered. How this will happen, along with when, are both aspects schools and teachers will need to think about. Communication with parents and the student is a key part of this along with making sure consistent messages are conveyed. Depending on when students return, some might find that the school they return to is not the one they left. In these cases, having virtual tours of the new school and online group chats such as virtual coffee mornings might help alleviate anxieties. BEST MOMENTS “Now I think my education background meant I haven't had loads and loads of terminology to learn. I think as a SENCO you learn an entirely different language, anyway… all those words. But as a governor there's a whole load more to learn. My education background really helped me with that. I think being a SENCo has helped me with it, because you have to be incredibly patient with some of the governors. I don't know what most people's experience of governors is? Let's go with slightly older in age and a little slower at processing sometimes. Technology is not their friend.” “I'm not confident in front of groups people and being a governor and having to offer that challenge without being abrasive or without being overly negative with somebody when you're talking to them… so their data may be absolute rubbish, but you have to put in some kind of supportive challenge to that. And my governance has really taught me how to do that, and I can now bring that skill into my professional work, because when I now go to do an SEN review in a school, I can walk in and I'm confident enough to shake the headteacher's hand and think 'actually, I'm now on a similar level to you mate. You're not my boss anymore. I can have this conversation with you and actually I can tell you your department is not where it should be and this is what you need to do to improve it.' Whereas, before, I wouldn't have done that, I would have just gone right, OK, fine, I'll go deal with it and hideaway in a corner.” “I'm really passionate about what I do so, for me, my work life balance… if I start to not enjoy something, that is when it is going wrong. If I want to work till midnight tonight, and if I want to work all weekend, provided I am happy doing that and everybody else around me is happy and catered for, if you like, then that's okay because that is me in my happy zone.” “One thing I have noticed is that what is not taught is how to use assistive technology. So our mobile phones have the ability to zoom in on things, they have magnifiers on them. You can turn text into speech so your children who are struggling to read something they can get it read on mobile phone. We have settings within Macs and PC's and laptops and iPads and tablets that will allow them to do that and it really surprises me that children don't use them. I think parents don't necessarily know they exist, but also as teachers we're not teaching them that they exist as well. So for me it isn't about going out and buying an app or something that helps them to do something, but it's about teaching around the things that are available to them within their devices that they've already got.” “I wish that social media had been more active four years ago. I don't think it was. I think it a little bit of a novelty at the time. It was more friends and family that you used it for. Now, I think, social media is very definitely seen as a bit more of a professional forum and I think if I'd had it four years ago, I probably wouldn't have hit the pit bottom that I actually did because I could have reached out and gone this is what's happening in my school guys, give me some advice, and know that somebody would be there to do that.” “OK, well we know that PGCEs and, to be fair, the Bachelor's degrees in education don't particularly prepare individuals for being in a classroom with students who have special educational needs. It's woefully inadequate in most establishments. So, I would say, talk to your SENDCO as soon as you find out who's the SENDCO in your primary school, talk to them. If you're a primary school teacher, talk to the current class teacher and find out about the needs of the children in that class and, if you can, start talking to the parents of the children in that class because the parents are the experts on their child, or should be. They will be able to tell you even more about what that child needs to move forward.” “If you are unsure about anything, reach out and don't expect to be an expert the day that you walk through the door. I've learned over 25 years how to handle, and how to work with, the students I work with but also the adults that we work with because they can be equally as awkward. Learning those skills is not something you learn overnight.” “Make mistakes because children learn from mistakes and you tell them all of the time that it's okay to make a mistake because you're learning. It's okay for us to make a mistake as well because 'a' we are human, 'b' we are showing the children we are human, and 'c' we need to make mistakes to learn.” “I just think it would be really great to really rethink things and to rethink things for our special educational needs students. We know for so many of them attendance isn't great and exclusions are high. Why? Usually it's because the curriculum isn't meeting their needs. So how can we utilise what we've learned? The number of posts I've read where it's 'those boys I can't normally engage in something have produced this this week. It's amazing!' Can we use that? Can we build that back in so that those students don't lose out and keep losing out as they have been doing over the last few years” VALUABLE RESOURCES Sensible SENCO on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sensiblesenco/ SENDCO solutions on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SendcoSolutions SENsible SENCO on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs65LPIrjCurcGUw01WtFkA The SENDCO: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SENDCO-Book-1a-Solutions-Support/dp/198078261X Approach it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Approach-Map-Manage-Graduated-Management/dp/1980890994/ SENCO solutions website: https://www.sendcosolutions.co.uk/ The One Thing: https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Thing-Surprisingly-Extraordinary-bestselling/dp/1848549253/ The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/ ABOUT THE HOST Claire Riley Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide. Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff. Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.