At this time of year many secondary teachers are thinking about the looming GCSE’s for their Y11’s and may also be thinking about what happens next for their students. If a student is autistic then there are additional challenges when leaving school and moving on to the next step in their educational lives. I often […]
image from http://clc2.uniservity.com/ Playtimes can be tricky for autistic children …. It’s unstructured time – which some like (no demands) and others hate (don’t know what to do or how to fill the time). It’s a sensory overload, – which some love because they are sensory seekers and need the movement and sensory stimulation and others […]
I bet anyone whose ever had a specialist in to advise them how to support an autistic pupil has been told to use a visual timetable. I bet it’s written down as a strategy in almost every statement or EHCP for autistic pupils. You might have a visual timetable on your classroom wall. You […]
Hilary works with us and is autistic and a maths teacher (amongst her other talents). She has a great way of explaining what being autistic is like and we often talk about the apparent anomaly between her confidence in speaking to someone 1:1 or to a whole group of students, as opposed to being in […]
I was invited to Cardiff and Vale College to do a workshop about supporting autistic students at 6th Form college. Cardiff and Vale college support students between the ages of 16-18 and beyond, including adult learners and in many different subjects, courses and situations. Obviously, all autistic students are different and telling them all I […]
This guest blog is from Joanna Grace who I first knew through her start up of the Sensory Project in 2010. I liked what she was proposing to do and I pitched in a tenner towards it and watched how (thanks to much more generous people than me) the Sensory Projects have grown. In her […]
I’ve been reluctant to wade into the sea of behaviour debate I see in the news and on social media at the moment, but I would like to share some insights from my practice about how autistic students in secondary school use behaviour to communicate that something is wrong. I want to show you how […]
Christmas and the end of the autumn term was more than likely an extra stressful time for the child or children with autism in your class. As I wrote in this article, there would have been lots of extra changes and sensory overload as well as unpredictable events. Some children with autism do like Christmas […]
My Worry Eater – http://sorgenfresser.com When I was asked to do a two hour presentation on this topic I knew it wouldn’t be straight forward. Mental health is in itself a complex condition, we are all human and all complex in our physical and mental health. But as we want to build up […]
Published Works My books for LDA have been published…”How to support pupils with ASC in primary schools” and “How to support students with ASC in secondary schools”. You can order a copy here or Here Magazine Articles How to Write Social Stories (published January 2016) Social […]