The power of social media

Well what a busy week. We apologise that our social media accounts have been quite quiet and we have been rather slow replying to people. Getting back to work has been a juggling act and unfortunately I was off work ill last week meaning this week has felt like the beginning of term all over again. It feels like I have run a marathon this week. Those of you that follow my personal twitter account will also know that I’m rehearsing for Annie in November so it’s been a bit chaotic.

Anyway, today’s blog post will be about the value of social media. Many schools are wary of Facebook and other networking sites due to unprofessionalism, pupils or parents finding you and I can totally understand that. When we became teachers or chose to work in a school we agreed to adopt a level of professionalim when we signed up. However, there is a breadth of knowledge that is being shared across social media if you haven’t yet have a look.

Firstly, there’s Facebook. Facebook is slightly quieter in the world of SEN which is surprising as it’s a lot less annoying than being restricted to 140 characters on twitter. If you look wide enough to find the groups and pages there are a few great ones. I have recently joined a few of the SEN groups primarily as a way of networking to promote the blog, however I have found that people are sharing some great resources and support. Recently, a teacher posted about a child with proprioceptive difficulties and she must have had over 20 responses, including one from me which I think is great. People across the web do not know your child or have any pre-conceived ideas or the one we sadly hear a lot – but we’ve already tried that – they purely look at the behaviours, trigger points and other useful information and give ideas based from their own experience which is great. Obviously no names both child or school are ever mentioned! Here are a few groups I really like.

• Early Years KS1 and SEN teachers - ideas, resources and displays
• Special Needs and Sensory Play Ideas 
• Intensive Interaction Users - really great as it's world wide
• Special Needs Equipment - Buy Sell Swap UK ONLY - This is great as you can get some fab 2nd hand and sometimes new items. Check your schools policy about 2nd hand items and whether or not you can claim back the cost. We often spend a lot of our own money, like many other teachers. However, this year we are making an effort not to. Well that is until we run out of class budget which we likely will if we keep happening upon a Tiger!

On Facebook there are many support groups for particular diagnoses, many for ASD but also Rett, Global Development Delay, Cerebral Palsy and many more. In one of our previous posts which was guest written by a parent of a child with Cockayne Syndrome, she spoke about the support she had received from a Facebook page and how valuable it had been to speak to other parents going through the same situation. You can find that blog post here.


Here are a few of my favourite pages with great information and ideas posted regularly.

• Parallel London
• PMLD Sensory teaching 
• 2010 Inclusion for ALL
• The SEND Parent's Handbook
• Notanurse_but is a group set up to raise awareness of parents of critically ill children and those with complex needs. 

There are so many more.

If you work in the world of SEN or have a child with additional needs, add Joanna Grace to Facebook or find her photo albums as they are filled with so many wonderful ideas and she has a wealth of knowledge. She often says she has many long train journeys and she enjoys filling the time by replying to people, she will always offer advice where she can or at least point you in the right direction with her many SEND contacts.


Right, in my opinion if you are a SEND parent or teacher twitter is the place to be. I have been on twitter for quite a while, embarrassingly since my teenage years when I fell into the trap as many do, of tweeting embarrassing things that no one would ever be interested in such as what I was having for tea! Thankfully, I have over 12k tweets now so I don’t think anyone would have the tolerance to scroll back that far, phew! Over the last few years twitter has seen an influx in users, especially tweeting about SEND which is great. I can put a post up asking for advice or commenting on something and I will always get a reply from someone which is lovely. Twitter can be very confusing as Hannah is the first to say, I am slowly getting her up to speed! A simple retweet (sharing in Facebook terms) can really help get the word out there and help you make links with others. The SEND twitter world is a really friendly place to be, I would say I have lots of virtual colleagues now who have widened my knowledge and my perspectives.

On Twitter there are many chats at various times during the week. My favourites are PMLD chat which takes place on the first Monday of every month and SENexchange who host chats every Wednesday evening. Each chat has a theme and puts up questions during the session. Anyone can reply with their thoughts, experiences, ideas etc using the hashtag. Many of the hosts then create a story thread displaying all of the tweets during the chat. I was fortunate enough to be asked to host one of the PMLD chats by Jo Grace back in March. My topic I think was supporting people with PMLD to engage in their community or something like that, it was quite a while ago now. It definitely tested how quickly I could tweet as so many people got involved which was lovely. However, we could always do with more people getting involved. It acts as great CPD as well as networking. There is always something to be learned from others and I really think twitter is the place for that!

You just have to get used to commenting using only 140 characters!

I recently saw a display board someone had made for their staff room which was a ‘who to follow’ board which I thought was amazing. I loved that a school had recognised how much there is to networking via twitter. I really hope if you are not on twitter you consider setting up an account. In your Bio put that you are a SEN/ PMLD teacher or a parent then you can easily be identified and people will include you in their discussions and follow you. 

Here is my list of who to follow ( I am sure I have missed many off but I will say it is your challenge to search for yourselves and find many more wonderful people)

Now of course, the first step is you should be following us on Facebook and twitter!

· @sensorydispense

· @littlevoicelucy – me

· @HannahMarieU – Hannah

· @douggs64 – Founder of Parallel

· @TheLaceys17 – PMLD department at castlewood school

· @Point5PMLD

· @SensorySP – Sensory Spectacle

· @PatelVijita – Principle of Swiss Cottage

· @CP_Consortium – Chancing Places, if you can get involved with campaigning, please do!

· @SENexchange

· @caroljallen

· @Keithpark1park

· @lesstaves

· @PMLDchat

· @HirstwoodT

· @PMLDlink

· @SoundTracks16

· @jo3grace


That’s just a very short list of who to follow first, from there you will be able to find many more!

If you have set up a twitter account as a result of this post, please let us know and we will definitely give you a follow and welcome you to the twittersphere! 

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has shared our blog across social media. We are really grateful for everyone's support and lovely words of encouragement, it means a lot to us. It also shows you the power of social media!