Grace Houston

[Sophie Killingley @PrettySophieK]

As I’m dragging myself through the first draft of my book, I’m struck again by just how much parents of neurodivergent kids are holding. It feels impossible. And modern life took the village and swapped it for a smart phone.

Parents I want you to know, you are seen.

[Grace Houston @Gralizabeth]

Part of a digital detox/reorganisation involves evacuating this place. I’ll be over at @graciehou.bsky.social mainly for staying in the loop professionally (I can probably guarantee I’ll be just as active over there as I was over here 😆)

[Grace Houston @Gralizabeth]

@DrSdeG This is what a properly resourced health visiting service could provide - such a shame!

[Naomi Fisher @naomicfisher]

I was talking to a grandmother last week about schooling. ‘I can see the difference’ she said. ‘When my children were young, primary school was relaxed. If the weather was good, they went outside and ran around. If they were sick, they stayed at home. Now with my grandchildren they are seated in desks for more of the day and if they are ill, they are worried that they’ll lose their 100% attendance for the term. The pressure is on to pass their phonics test when they are six and then to learn their times tables at speed by the time they are nine. They feel it and their parents feel it too’.

There’s lots of talk about SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) at the moment, and how increasing numbers of children are being identified as SEND. It’s less common to ask questions about what SEND really means, and whether the education system creates more children ‘with SEND’ as it becomes more pressured and rigid.

For what SEND really means is that a child cannot learn in the way which mainstream education expects. They cannot keep up with expectations, either for academic work or for behaviour. SEND is something which happens in the interaction between a child and the education system. In a system where no 6-year-old is expected to sit still and learn to write their name, then a 6-year-old who just wants to run around outside isn't a problem. In a system where everyone is meant to be able to read by age 6, then they are.

We know from research that if a child is young in their year, they are more likely to be identified as ‘having SEND’. We know that summer born boys are far more likely to be identified as ‘having SEND’ than autumn born girls. We know that the impact of this immaturity resonates through the years, with the youngest in the year doing less well at GCSE. We know that the number of children ‘with SEND’ is going up year on year.

It's not really plausible that more children each year have difficulties in learning, nor that being born in August makes you more likely to have learning problems than if you are born a few weeks later in September.

It’s far more likely that in the push to ‘drive up standards’ the education system is becomes less, not more, suited to how children develop and learn. It’s more likely that the system is penalising immaturity – and children are inherently immature. That isn’t a lack or a defect, it’s a defining part of childhood.

As the education system becomes more rigid and pressured, we’d expect more children not to be able to manage without adaptations. This is exactly what we see. Those children are holding up the flag for all the others, saying that this system is not child-friendly and doesn’t take account of developmental needs and differences.

What if, instead of having higher expectations of the children, we had higher expectations of the education system? What if those expectations were of flexibility, reducing pressure and prioritising lifelong learning and wellbeing instead of short-term testing?

What if we saw the increasing number of children ‘with SEND’ as a sign that the system isn’t working for the many ways in which children develop, rather than a sign that more and more children have learning difficulties? We’ll never sort the ‘SEND crisis’ until we start looking at SEND as an interaction between children and the education system. The more rigid the system is, the more children it will fail.

Illustration by @_MissingTheMark from the book A Different Way to Learn.

[Maternal OCD @maternalocd]

Please share for #OCDAwarenessWeek mums with perinatal OCD do NOT act on their OCD thoughts, for more insights - check out our co-created infographic https://t.co/vceMixzLLj @ocdaction @MMHAlliance

[First Steps Nutrition Trust @1stepsnutrition]

UK nutrition experts have many ties to food companies: conflicted interests, anyone? https://t.co/cyG8apDsWH

[Naomi Fisher @naomicfisher]

Whenever I write about keeping children’s curiosity alive through more choices and more play, someone says something like ‘well I’m glad my doctor learnt how to follow instructions’. Or ‘Naomi would like to see a world where people choose how to drive and don’t bother about following the Highway Code’.

This is why an understanding of child development is so important in education. When adults learn a specific skill (like medicine or driving) they use mastery learning. This is the type of learning which enables us to become experts. Deliberate practice. Goal-oriented exercises which aren’t about the here and now. Intentionally practicing your French verbs so that you’ll be able to speak French when you go to France next year.

It is often quite narrow in scope - learning to be a doctor won’t qualify you to work as a lawyer. It enables us to develop specialist skills.

This isn’t how young children learn. Their brains are literally structured differently. They are discovery learners. This type of learning enables them to explore and find out about the world. It is wide in scope. When they learn a language, there is no deliberate practice of verbs going on. They watch, they listen, and they give it a go.

To adults, it often looks frustratingly unfocused. That’s because discovery learning is about widening children’s experience of the world, not about becoming a specialist or an expert. They flit from thing to thing and lose interest fast. The results can be hard to measure.

The capacity for mastery learning starts to develop as children approach adolescence. It improves gradually over time. By age 17 or 18 they are approaching learning in a very different way. This takes longer for some of them - the brain changes of adolescence continue until at least the age of 25.

As adults, we tend to overvalue mastery learning and dismiss discovery learning as ‘just play’. We want to hurry children onto learning measurable knowledge and skills. We try to sit them in desks and give them worksheets to do, whilst they often fight us to be allowed to run around and pretend to be superheroes instead.

Discovery learning lays the foundations for everything that is to come. It is a special and unique time of life. Following instructions and colouring in the lines can come later, but once you are grown, you can never go back and learn like a 6-year-old (or an 8 or 10-year-old) again.

Humans are pure discovery learners for a short and intense period of our lives. We have our whole adult lives to specialise, but you’ll never again have quite the same drive to play.

(For more about discovery learning, I recommend Professor @AlisonGopnik's book The Gardener and the Carpenter)

[Missing The Mark @_MissingTheMark]

For those who are celebrating bigger things than exam results..

[Sue Clarke 💙 @suejclarke1]

@BBCBreakfast We used to have a functional health visitor team who were responsible for ensuring kids were ready for school, but the Tories destroyed that.

[Grace Houston @Gralizabeth]

@hollylburton UPF is consumed most by the poorest in society. When people have true choice (money, resources, time) they tend to choose healthier food. However, simply raising prices is less messy than actually tackling inequality, so I guess that’s what we will get!

[Hollie McNish @holliepoetry]

Today's scribbles watching people cheer a man promoting murder, to cries of 'we will win'.

[Mollie Goodfellow @hansmollman]

Are women ‘leaving it too late’ or is society and the government withholding resources that make motherhood more accessible

[UK Prime Minister @10DowningStreet]

James Timpson OBE @JamesTCobbler has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation) in the Ministry of Justice @MoJGovUK.

[Stephanie deGiorgio @DrSdeG]

Can Labour bring back Surestart ASAP. Please.
I don’t want to keep seeing hungry kids and vulnerable families with so little support, at work, and around the country.

[Grace Houston @Gralizabeth]

@clhubes @NoContextBrits If we did install them for the handful of hot days we have in the year, we wouldn’t be able to complain about the heat, which would be a shame

[Grace Houston @Gralizabeth]

@tjd5900_tom Yeah, I feel insulted. Unfortunately so often insufficient funding for services is papered over with an app or something similar. Not saying there isn’t a place for all that but honestly I don’t see how anyone thought an AI bot is the answer…?

[Grace Houston @Gralizabeth]

@hannahmary8890 I’m in Kent and the dentist situation is awful! If you haven’t already scroll through the NHS “find a dentist” page. I found one nearish for my 5yo and one 40 miles away for me 😬. My 7mo is yet to sprout a tooth but I’m dreading the search for him! https://t.co/ywhkLoN0TL

[Grace Houston @Gralizabeth]

@DrSdeG @fhussain73 Khaza in the Coachworks in Ashford! They do gorgeous panipuri plus samosa chaat and momo 😁