Best of British Special Educational Needs Forum

In March of this year we were EXTREMELY lucky to have been invited by Flo Longhorn to present at the Best of British Special Educational Needs Forum in memory of the late, great Penny Lacey. By 'Best of British', it truly was, the names of presenters were authors of books we have read and creators of programmes we know of and then there was us… Hannah Underwood and Lucy Allen, practitioners really new to the world of PMLD. It was beyond an honour, it is something I’m not sure we will ever top!

This blog post will be a journey through our experience, briefly talking about the other presenters we had the pleasure of listening to but it will more be about the learning curve for us. We will write further blog posts next month to share what we learnt in more detail. There were many wonderful speakers who we will be writing about including Dr Jean Ware, Andrew Colley, Peter Imray, Chailey Heritage School, Castlewood School, Hilary Wainer (founder of TACPAC), Carol Allen, and the amazing Professor Barry Carpenter CBE who took us under his wing.

On Wednesday evening Hannah and I rushed to leave school hoping we had organised everything for our teams whilst we were away. We frantically got ourselves to Peterborough train station for the journey down to London. However, nothing is ever that simple for Hannah and I. We walked for a good half an hour to our hotel, dragging along our suitcases, and me not wearing sensible shoes, to find that our hotel had changed its name and was in fact another half an hours walk. Well it was time to call an Uber! We eventually arrived at our hotel just gone 11 o’clock at night and were hungry. We contemplated ordering take away to the hotel room but weren’t sure if we’d get away with that, so we ventured down the road. But nowhere was open. We hopped back in an Uber to kings cross to eat at Prezzo’s – familiar territory.

The morning of the forum came and we couldn’t contain our excitement. We wanted to get there early to see if we could help out in anyway. On arrival we were asked to sign in and told the lady we were presenting so we collected our presenter badges. We sat at the back of the room extremely overwhelmed by all of these faces and names we recognised, too nervous to speak to anybody. We were relieved to find Jo Grace, a familiar face who managed to reassure us! Then Flo who greeted us with a great big hug.

The first day was incredible, Hannah’s hands ached from the notes she was writing and my fingers ached from all of my tweeting. Jo Grace and I were tweeting using the hashtag BOBSEN to keep those who couldn’t be there up to date. The first presenter was Yvonne McCall, the head teacher of Castlewood school in Coventry, the school Penny worked with. Hannah and I had extensively read through the curriculum models on Castlewood’s website as they were our original inspiration for our curriculum model. It was a real privilege to listen to Yvonne speak of her schools journey with such passion. Yvonne invited Hannah and I to Castlewood. During the Easter holidays this year, Hannah and I went on a road trip to visit schools across the country and were overwhelmed by the hospitality and support we received by the staff at Castlewood, it truly is a fantastic school. But importantly we felt it was a school with a heart which is sometimes rare to find in a current climate with increasing pressure on school outcomes and performance. Casltewood is also a teaching school, delivering courses and offering bespoke packages. You can find more information on their website. 

Up next was Peter Imray who discussed the recent Rochford review. He discussed the opportunity for schools to look beyond the National Curriculum’s subject specific learning and think more about having a clear pedagogy that meets the needs of their pupils. It was great to listen to Peter having read his book on 'Curricula for Teaching Children and Young People with Severe or Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties' which we filled with post it notes. We were going through the process of proposing a new curriculum model to our management at the time which wasn't being well received. He gave us hope and reassurance that we were on the right path. Peter has written a book with Andrew Colley from the University of East London. Colley presented on the second day and posed many thought provoking questions about the true meaning of inclusion. He debated the impact of 'full inclusion', why we strive for it and how it is often not full inclusion at all. Their book is called 'Inclusion is dead: Long live inclusion' and is available from amazon. We have it here waiting for a chance to read it. We will post our thoughts on the book hopefully by October half term. It's bound to be a good read as another of Colley's books is full of our post it notes too. 

Jo Grace explored the area of sensory stories in her earlier session. It was interesting to hear her discuss personal stories we are told and how they can form our identity. We have the opportunity to share such stories with our pupils and sensory stories are a great way to make them accessible. She also explored the 7 senses (though she did add that some suggest there are as many as 33 senses!) and how to incorporate them into stories. Jo’s later workshop session was focused on the particularly pertinent topic of mental health and wellbeing. This is often overlooked for those with learning disabilities but is no less applicable, in fact recent research into this put prevalence rates as higher in those with learning disabilities than those from the wider population. 

Jo spoke very movingly about how an individual with profound and multiple learning disabilities (Jo uses the term Sensory beings) may not have the ability to lift one’s head to look at the world around them or the words to interact with it and those in it despite being able to hear the melee of its goings on. She explained how this may lead an individual to become disconnected from the world around them and begin to feel that it is not something for them to experience; their world is reduced to the area from the small space between their face and the grey tray attached to their wheelchair. 

Jo had a wealth of resources to share with us that would show those special ‘Sensory beings’ that we work with that, “this world is for you- you may not be able to get to it but I will bring it to you” (Jo Grace’s own words at the BoB SEN forum 2nd March 2017). These included existing affordable resources that are easily attainable such as wrist bells together with some creative original ideas such as smell tubes (created by using a Pringles tube with holes in the lid, tumbles dried ball and dried herbs). Resources such as these allow independent exploration and allow the sensory beings we work with to begin to understand that they can effect change and something is different because they are there. 

If you would like to learn more about this I highly recommend that you attend one of Jo’s training sessions where she speaks in much greater detail and offers numerous resource ideas. I am also currently reading Jo’s new book ‘Sensory-Being for Sensory Beings: Creating Entrancing Sensory Experiences’ which offers greater detail about these topics together with resource ideas and is a great read for parents and practitioners alike.

At lunch time, as well as the very enjoyable lunch provided, we were fortunate to be presented with an array of chocolate sensory experiences by the Willows Sensory Service. Of course being PMLD teaches we got stuck in playing with the chocolate squirty cream (we were really disappointed when Sainsbury’s didn’t sell it when we looked that evening), chocolate playdough and even chocolate smash. Sarah was lovely and runs sessions with people with PMLD such as sensory drama, aromatherapy, reflexology and has her own sensory room. She also delivers training. You can find her on Facebook or email her at sarah.hall73@virgin.net for more information.

Another incredible speaker on day 1 was Dr Jean Ware the creator of routes for learning. Jean discussed how routes for learning came about and the purpose of it. She had some great videos for us to analyse and assess to highlight the true meaning of some of the more ambiguous milestones. We found this presentation really helpful as we have only ever explored the route-map for ourselves and it is often quite difficult to decipher without direction.

Flo came to talk to us at the end of the day and asked us if we’d brought any of our sensory goodies along that she’d seen us use in our training at school. A bit flummoxed, Hannah and I looked at each other and replied yes. Our topic for the forum was ‘Planning a PMLD Curriculum’. When Hannah and I received it, we thought, well this is a serious topic, we will need case studies and facts and figures.

That evening after the forum Hannah and I dashed out into Camden, not a clue where we were going to redesign our whole presentation. First, of course we went to Tiger and bought half of the shop. We then used our google maps to find a supermarket! We found Sainsbury’s to our relief. We filled our baskets with shaving foam, smash instant mash, corn flour, food colouring and mouldable soap foam.

(a couple of my purchases from Tiger, not for the training but because I got a little over excited filling my basket. I have since used them a lot with my SLD group doing my version of tricky words rapping based on Shonette Bason-Wood)

The time ran away with us and it was time to meet some lovely amazing people for dinner. 

Unfortunately, we hadn’t had time to go back to our hotel to change or leave our shopping. We went to meet up with Flo, Roger, Jo, Carol Allen, Sarah Hall and Professor Barry Carpenter CBE OBE looking very hot and flustered with 3 huge bags of shopping and 2 giant umbrellas! Well we were rather embarrassed. But I can say we had a truly amazing evening. The food was great but the conversation was even better. We had the chance to discuss the engagement scales we had read about with the man who created them. There were many great debates that evening and Hannah and I felt like we had an incredibly special, probably once in a life time evening sat amongst our heroes.

We had to excuse ourselves early to get back to our hotel, after all we had a presentation to re-write! There we were at 1 in the morning making pink instant smash in the kettle covering the  bathroom in cornflour (we realised how suspicious that could have looked after we checked out that morning!) and re-writing our PowerPoint.

Morning quickly came. We ventured down stairs for breakfast, neither of us hungry (not at all like us), contemplating why on earth we signed ourselves up to stand up and speak in front of so many people! 

We will discuss our presentation in our next blog post.

We will leave you with our favourite quotes from the Forum:

Children look into your eyes and search for empathetic connection. Teaching is a relationship based profession - Carpenter

The world is for you, you may not be able to get to it but i will bring it to you - Jo Grace

We need dynamic curriculum models and flexible teaching that goes where the child needs you to go - Carpenter

Initiatives to include all have largely failed to include those with complex needs - Carpenter

Many people who favour full inclusion have exclusion clauses - Andrew Colley

We're talking about 50,000 young people, working with them is a very significant job - Andrew Colley

All children should experience the outdoors - Yvonne McCall

We need to enable children to realise they are effecting change - Jo Grace

If somebody touches you then can send you a whole host of emotions - Dr Maria Robinson

Penny wasn't in it to make a name for herself she did it for you the teachers and the learners - Dr Jean ware

Insisting that all children must follow the steps in the same order is a barrier to learners with PMLD - Ware

Waiting for communication initiation is a good thing not a waste of time - Dr Lila Kossyvaki

I worry about how much time you spend on assessment and how much time you spend being a great teacher - Imray

We're all performers at the end of the day to engage our learners, we need to have energy - Imray about the time we spend on assessment

Assessment is not just to pass Ofsted, it needs to give useful information - Imray

It is not possible to say what is acceptable progress. If Rochford can't work it out how the hell can we? - Imray

I've not met a child with SLD or PMLD in 20 years that succeeded with the National Curriculum - Imray

Does learning have to take place around a table? - Yvonne McCall

I want my students to have fun. I want my staff to have fun - Yvonne McCall

Our focus is putting life in the days of pupils with PMLD - Jo Grace 

http://www.peterimray.co.uk/ - Peter Imray 

http://flopublications.com/index.php - Flo Longhorn 

https://www.bangor.ac.uk/addysg/Staffpages/Jeanware.php.en - Dr Jean Ware

https://barrycarpentereducation.com/ - Professor Barry Carpenter OBE CBE

http://www.castlewood.coventry.sch.uk/ - Castlewood School

https://www.facebook.com/WillowsSensory/ - Willows Sensory Service

http://www.thesensoryprojects.co.uk/home - Joanna Grace. There is currently a sale on Jo's sensory stories