The Inclusive Collective

Good morning, Gold Coast. ☀️🌊

📚 Including Children with Disability or Developmental Delay 📚

This Everyday Learning Series by Jane Warren and Blake Stewart, is an essential guide to support educators in creating inclusive environments for children with diverse learning needs. With practical ideas and case studies, the book helps ensure all children can participate fully, while fostering a culture of respect and equity. Grab your copy now: https://bit.ly/3Qmdq9l

Key takeaways:

👉Embracing the rights of all children and their diverse communication styles
👉Building a shared vision for inclusivity within your service
👉Engaging in meaningful conversations with families
👉Embedding high expectations and equity in practice

🌟 Full Circle Moment at the University of Wollongong 🌟

Sitting at UOW today, under Building 67 where I used to have lunch as a student, brings back a flood of memories from 2012 when I embarked on my university journey. It’s incredible to think about the feelings of uncertainty and excitement I had as I navigated those early days, making huge life decisions about my future and the degree I should pursue.

Today, I had the privilege of completing my first session as a Subject Coordinator for the Early Years Accelerated Degree.

Today, watching year 11 and 12 students tour the UOW campus, I can’t help but feel proud of where my choices have led me.

To all the students out there grappling with decisions about their future—embrace the uncertainty, trust your journey, and know that every choice you make is a step toward your dreams.

Here’s to new beginnings and the paths we create! 🎓✨

🌟 Starting 2025 on a high note! 📚✨ This book has truly set me up for success as I prepare for some new and exciting times ahead.

Watkins’ insights on navigating transitions and strategies for building relationships and establishing credibility early on are exactly what I need to tackle the challenges that lie ahead. I’m feeling inspired to approach each new opportunity with confidence and a clear plan.

I’m ready to embrace the changes and make the most of what 2025 has in store!

Stay tuned for what’s coming next.

What a throwback!

I loved reading this story when I was a new graduate early childhood teacher.

Mrs Honey’s Hat by Pam Adams 👒🌸

It was such a joy leading a literacy based group time with my pre service teachers today.

☀️ Daylight Savings ☀️
6th October 2024

See these handy tips from Pregnancy, Birth and Baby to help your child adjust to daylight savings.

A new addition to the wall above my desk in my home office.

—> Graduate Diploma in Health Studies (Occupational Therapy) 🎓✨

Here’s a quick little thought/frustration of mine: Please, please, let kindergarteners (and first graders) (and I’d even say second graders!) use half-pencils instead of full pencils.

I say “let” because I keep having to write it into IEPs as an accommodation. I wish it was just the normal!

Children’s hands are 4-5 inches in circumference. Adult hands are 7-8 inches in circumference. And yet adults and very small children alike are expected to use 7.5 inch long pencils.

The equivalent ratio for an adult (using some averages) would be using a 12.5 inch long pencil about as wide as a thick marker! Imagine how unwieldy that would be. Add an eraser to the end of it and now you’ve got even more weight counterbalancing all of the fine motor control you’re trying to do at the pencil end.

And all of that with muscles that are brand-new to fine motor control at all and not very coordinated at it…so imagine, really, trying to write with a 12.5 inch long pencil with your non-dominant hand.

You might very well get referred to me for OT when all you needed in the first place was a writing utensil the right size for your hand, from the beginning (not as a special accommodation)!

You can buy full-size pencils and cut or break them in half; you can buy golf pencils (though those typically don't have erasers); you can buy "Handwriting Without Tears" half-size pencils (though those can be expensive). Whatever you do, it's a solvable problem!

[Image description: A simple photograph of a regular-sized pencil and a half-sized, shortened pencil side by side. End description.]

We are told to standardise our children. We compare and contrast, from the off. We buy books of expectations which tell us when they are meant to first smile (6 weeks) and roll (4 months). And when they don’t do it on time, we fret. We worry about what that might mean, and what we could do about it – can you compel a baby to smile? What if they are just feeling serious?

We’re told about the standards everywhere, the developmental milestones. Do they have a pincer grip yet? Are they showing an interest in letters? Can they button their coat themselves? Childhood becomes a long list of things they should be doing now – and therefore things they aren’t doing yet.

Is that handwriting good enough, for a 9-year-old? Should an 11-year-old be able to pack their own lunch? We compare, and as we do so, we panic and we rush. For no one wants their child to ‘fall behind’. No one wants their child to be the one who can’t do what the others do, and so we worry, and then we push. We try to get them ready for each new stage, and so we make them doing things before they see the need.

What’s lost in all of this is how different children are. We don’t hear enough stories of varied developmental trajectories. Of children who learn to talk late, and then just can’t stop talking. Or those who have no interest in letters at all, until they are ten and see that reading an instruction manual might be useful. We don’t hear about the children who only eat noodles and nuggets for the first twelve years of their life, and then widen their pallet to include pretty well everything. The ones who don’t join in, until suddenly they want to do it all.

We don’t tell enough stories about how children change in unexpected ways. We’re encouraged to think that child development is a straight road or flight of steps, when really it’s a meandering path. We think there’s only one way to adulthood, when in fact there are many.

Our task as the grown ups is to hold their options open for them, to give them the space to change when they are ready. Our job is to make sure they are allowed to travel their path. Not to lock them down to how they are now, not to hem them in with evaluations like ‘not good enough’ or ‘behind’. Not to compare them to others their age and find that they are wanting.

Our task is to show them that many ways can be the right way, and that we’re right alongside them as they find their own.

New Study Suggests Higher Amounts of Intervention May Not Be More Helpful for Children on the Autism Spectrum | Newsroom After a thorough systematic analysis, Micheal Sandbank, PhD, at the UNC School of Medicine and other researchers across the United States found that evidence was lacking that higher intensity interventions provided increased benefits for young autistic children.

👏🏻🫶🏻 I am beyond proud of myself 🫶🏻👏🏻

I started a Masters of Occupational Therapy back in 2021 with the aim to be an Occupational Therapist, whilst I was leading a Start-Up allied health business.

Amongst mid covid I moved intestate to Canberra, hotel quarantine for 2 weeks, could not cross the ACT/NSW border for 5 months and then proceeded to travel back and forth on a weekly basis.

Fast forward 2 years, I found my passion and spark for inclusive education and early childhood supports (intervention). I knew I wanted to continue to stay in the education sector. So I took the early exit opportunity and I am now graduating with a Graduate Diploma in Health Studies (Occupational Therapy). 🎓👏🏻

This is just the beginning and I am beyond excited for this next chapter….

Watch this space 👀