Helping carers and disabled children with Qigong
We are all living in stressful times. World events, both near and far, can leave us feeling anxious, fearful and on edge. When you are also dealing with illness and …
Irlen syndrome: a screener’s perspective
Back in 2012, we ran a parent story about her son’s difficulties, “When the words move by themselves – it could be Visual Stress.” It’s also known as Irlen syndrome and …
![How do you help a disadvantaged child build confidence and find success? [Conference]](https://i1.wp.com/www.specialneedsjungle.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/how-do-you-help-disadvantaged-child.jpg?resize=512%2C200&ssl=1)
How do you help a disadvantaged child build confidence and find success? [Conference]
Aside from having a special educational need or disability, one of the biggest barriers to success at school is your family living in poverty or being otherwise disadvantaged. Children and young …
SEND 2017, the state of the special educational needs system revealed
The annual figures for special educational needs came out yesterday and I spent the day poring over them and making another nice infographic to go alongs with it. 2016 saw a 12% …
The SNJ #GE2017 Manifesto for Special Educational Needs and Disability
You can’t have failed to notice that, here in the UK, we’re hurtling towards the snap general election called for next month. The political parties have been sallying forth with …
Tackling the lack of diversity in books for deaf children
It’s Deaf Awareness Week and a new book has been published, written to boost deaf awareness and tackle the lack of diversity in children’s book characters. The book, an inspiring adventure …
The frustration and heartbreak of Pathological Demand Avoidance
We’ve covered Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), which is a condition on the autistic spectrum, a few times on SNJ and it’s always very popular so we know it’s something that …
Good mental health support needs one thing: proper funding
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Depression is the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide. According to the latest estimates from the World Health Organisation, more than 300 million …
SEND, support staff and challenging behaviour in schools.
You may remember that we had Tess Philbert on the site not so long ago, talking about person-centred planning. Tess is a parental supporter for SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disability Information …
Your views invited to help set the agenda for Whole School SEND
Last month Barney and I participated in the Whole School SEND Summit, spreading our message in a roundtable at the conference about working with parents. More than 200 parents (many …
Explaining new funding rules for early years children with SEND
Funding is always a hot topic in local authorities and schools and nowhere more so than in special educational needs. From this month, April 2017, the Department for Education is requiring …
Tilly’s “tried on” lots of diagnoses, but none fit her mystery ultra-rare condition
Happy Undiagnosed Children’s Day! Did you know that around 6,000 children are born in the UK each year with a syndrome without a name – a genetic condition so rare …
Who’s writing your child’s EHCP? Your outsourcing questions answered
About six months ago, SNJ began looking into something that local authorities have become increasingly keen on – outsourcing the producing of draft Education, Health & Care Plans (EHCPs) to …
Special needs lawyer calls for election pledge to solve SEND disarray
A young lawyer specialising in special educational needs, who himself has SpLD, has warned the parties in the upcoming election urgent action is needed to fix the disarray in the current state …
A young autistic campaigner asks, What’s ‘normal’ anyway?
I’ve always found normal to be rather dull. But I have children with autism and a diagnosis myself, so maybe I would say that. But what is normal, anyway? And …
Inclusion and putting the ‘Disability’ back into SEND
A leading advocate for inclusive education, Richard Reiser, says he is increasingly concerned about the direction of inclusion in the Children and Families Act. For many parents, special schools are …
Holly’s autism film starring role helped raise her classmates’ awareness
Last week, I said Autism Awareness had graduated from a day to a week. Dear reader, I was wrong. It’s a month. Look, if Ehlers Danlos syndrome, a rare disease …
To medicate my anxious child or not. It’s an emotive question
My son, Monty, has autism as well as many other, co-morbid conditions. Co-morbidities are conditions which overlap with the ASD diagnosis; for example he has chronic anxiety, ADHD, Tics, Dyslexia …
Wanted: Occupational Therapist AND two Speech and Language Therapists for outstanding Surrey school
This is something we haven’t done before – a job advert. It’s not a regular thing, but my sons’ old school More House School in Frensham, Surrey is urgently looking …
Speech, language and communication needs: have your say and help change the future
We’ve covered the Bercow: Ten Years On review last year, when Barney looked at its recommendations a decade ago and what became of them. Today, we are really pleased to have …
