18/06/2024
Super proud teacher moment this morning....
Im working on developing specific strategies for children & teens with dyscalculia. On week 5 of trialing rhymes, actions, games, visual flashcards etc, to help learn number bonds to 20, and today this student got all the questions correct... After originally knowing none!
For someone with dyscalculia, who struggles to add one digit numbers without using fingers, answering all these number bonds correctly without using fingers is so amazing!
Just shows how every child can learn, if taught in a way that works for them. So proud of this young lady! 🥰
11/06/2024
Super proud of this very talented year 10 pupil! I'm sure you'll agree that she's made an amazing start to her descriptive, creative writing task! 🥰
13/05/2024
Happy Monday everyone! We're having a great start to the week!
Today, after working very hard in maths, I set this student a challenge for English. They had to design their own product, as we start a new unit on persuasive writing! We then looked at what makes a good piece of persuasive writing, and started planning!
Excellent work 🎉
13/05/2024
A little reminder for all the children doing SATs, GCSEs and A-Level exams right now ❤️
Thinking of all the children who are sitting their SATS tests next week. ❤️✨ A beautiful poem by Haydee Waldron Jones to share with your children in the morning. 💜
09/05/2024
We've had a fun afternoon doing some phonics!
We had to get across the 'river' (aka from the front door to the kitchen) without getting eaten by sharks (stepping on the carpet)! This could only be done by using sight word bean bags to make magical stepping stones, that could only be stood on after saying the word!
Although according to this one's writing after, I did get eaten 😂
07/05/2024
Thinking of all my lovely year 11s starting their exams this week.
For many students this is a really stressful time and can have a toll on their mental health. For parents it can be really difficult to know how to support your child during exam season. Here are some ideas on how to support your child in this time:
* Help your child create a reasonable revision schedule, that also includes regular short breaks.
* Provide a quiet area for your child to revise, with minimal distractions.
* Encourage your child to eat nutritious food, avoid energy drinks, to spend some time outside in the sun, and to get to bed at a reasonable time the night before exams.
* Remind your child that they are smart and they can do it!
*Remind your child that you are proud of them regardless of how they do. That all they need to do is their best and that is enough! No matter how old kids get, they still need reminders that they are loved, accepted and that all they need to do is their best!
* Remind your child that their value isn't dependent on an exam. One of the best pieces of advice I received many years ago as a stressed GCSE student, was from a teacher who reminded me that exams are simply a passport, a stepping stone, to the next part of your journey. All you need to do is your best. That isn't to encourage laziness or apathy, but to put exams into perspective, which really helped me!
To all my lovely year 11s... you've got this!! 💪💪
02/05/2024
Was so excited last night with my Amazon order! 🤩
Communication cards for students with communication needs, sensory toys to finally make a sensory bag for those with sensory needs, plus some multi-sensory counting & phonics games (not pictured) for my youngest students!
I think 99% of my Amazon orders must be work related! However, I do really like having a range of different resources & activities on hand to meet my students various needs and keep them engaged in their learning!
19/04/2024
Well done everyone for a fantastic first week back! It was so lovely to see so many smiley faces again!
The last few days I've been reading a book on dyslexia (pictured below), and came across some activities designed to help with spelling. I adapted it to help some of my students with memory retention in other subjects. One particularly effective strategy I've trialed this week, is using colours to help memorise information.
I trialed this strategy with a GCSE student who needed to learn the EM wave spectrum for physics (Ive attached a photo below for reference from AQA CGP combined science textbook), along with the uses of each wave. Together we drew the EM wave spectrum using liquid chalk pens on the fridge. Each wave was written in a different colour, and underneath each wave, in the same colour we drew each wavelength & simple pictures to represent the main uses of each wave.
Then, instead of focusing on memorising any of the words or written information, I asked her to memorise the first and last colour she used. Then I asked her to memorise all the colours used in order. The third time, I asked her to close her eyes & say what wave each colour represented and what pictures she had drawn. By the time we reached the last step, she could already visualise the diagram with her eyes closed - and retained all 25 pieces of new information! I forgot to take a picture of the work, but absolutely amazing work from this student!
I then adapted the colour strategy for a primary aged pupil learning times tables. We started with play dough, again initially focusing on remembering the colours, not the numbers, which again was incredibly effective with learning new time tables. I have rather limited amounts of play dough currently, and a student who really liked purple, so we had to reuse some colours - but still worked! 😂 This time I remembered to get a photo!
If your children struggle with memory retention, I would highly recommend trialing the use of colours in learning, especially for visual and kinaesthetic learners. I've been very stunned by the effectiveness of it!
15/04/2024
I hope everyone's had a lovely Easter break! Just a reminder lessons are restarting this week! I'm super excited to see everyone! 😁
Also, this term I am starting my MA research project on how established multi-sensory dyslexia strategies can be applied to help children with dyscalculia learn number bonds to 20. For those who have children participating in my study, thank you so much for agreeing! I will need you to sign some consent forms before your child's lesson this week! Thank you! 😁
25/03/2024
I hope everyone has a lovely Easter break! I know for GCSE students especially, this is often a busy time with revision, but make sure you also take time to rest, have fun and enjoy time with family and friends!
I also want to extend a huge thank you this term to all my students and their families. I've needed to cancel a few lessons over the last 3 weeks to recover from a concussion, then strep throat and a chest infection. I really appreciate all the kindness and understanding whilst I've needed some time off to rest. I really dislike taking any time off!
Just a reminder lessons will be resuming week beginning Mon 15th April! I look forward to seeing you all in a few weeks time.
Also, just to share some exciting personal news, Matt and I are officially engaged! He popped the question over the weekend! 💍
Happy Easter everyone!
25/03/2024
A few weeks ago I received this lovely message from a parent, which I was given permission to share 💕
15/03/2024
My students this week are enjoying using the new resources! We had great fun this afternoon using sand and magnetic numbers to practice times tables! 🎉
13/03/2024
Such a lovely text to receive after one of my GCSE tutoring sessions! Made my day! 🥰
13/03/2024
Super excited about my latest Amazon order! Have some new games & multi-sensory resources ready to use! These will be especially useful for some of my younger students!
12/03/2024
Learning to tell the time can be tricky, especially for children with dyscalculia! Some of my students are really enjoying playing time games! It's so important to make learning fun and engaging! Multi-sensory and kinaesthetic learning is often one of the best ways to tackle tricky topics!
12/03/2024
Happy Tuesday everyone! Tuesdays are typically my academic day focusing on my Masters! 🤓
I have two current on-going MA research projects. My first is looking at dyslexia and dyslexia co-morbidity with ADHD and dyscalculia. I'm exploring whether there are different types of dyslexia, and if so, if different interventions are needed to address barriers to learning. I'm finding twin studies particularly interesting to read!
The other is focused on research on ASD and ADHD, looking at brain studies, genetics, and the environment, to understand different factors contributing to the barriers these individuals face (e.g. emotional dysregulation, sensory overload, etc), and how teaching can be adapted to help!
I enjoy learning and am regularly reading about ways teaching can be adapted to support pupils with SEND!
29/02/2024
The liquid chalk pens are proving very popular with my students! This afternoon another one of my GCSE students used them for a lesson on circle theorems! Excellent work on a tricky topic! 🎉🎉🎉
Highly recommend these pens for anyone looking for a more "interesting" way to help their GCSE aged children revise! They do wipe off easily too!
28/02/2024
One of the GCSE lesson today looking at genetics in science and simultaneous equations and fractions in maths - and yes she did all the drawing too! Excellent job today young lady 🎉🎉
26/02/2024
So grateful for postive reviews! Thanks Allison! 💕
26/02/2024
Learning to use bus stop for division can be tricky, so using concrete resources can really help! So, we rolled dice to create 3 (and later 4) digit numbers. We drew characters on whiteboards to create our "people" to divide the base 10 between. Then we used a number square to help us count out the right amount of cubes, a sticky note to help cover up part of the question, and shared out the cubes. Fantastic work today 🎉🎉🎉
25/02/2024
For anyone with younger children, looking for some activities to do at home, I saw this cute idea on a page I follow! A really good activity especially for children in EYFS and KS1, who are learning about plants! When I taught in mainstream school, my younger students would have loved this!
🌱 https://www.instagram.com/p/BtlU7VNBroA/ You could get the children to design (draw or paint their own) castles/homes in the clouds to attach rather than using printed templates as their creations would be great ✨💥
23/02/2024
Today I found another student who likes using the liquid chalk pens! We started planning a dragon story by thinking about the setting and adjectives to describe the characters! She was very proud of her work! Well done young lady! 🎉
**On a side note, if anyone sees what looks like a stain on the floor, it is in fact a small toy dragon, who was her inspiration for her writing!
20/02/2024
So grateful for such lovely reviews 🥰 I so love my job and the privilege of being able to teach and work with so many amazing children and young people!
20/02/2024
Extremely proud of this talented year 10 student! We found a creative writing past paper question from a previous English Language Exam. We started off discussing what her writing needed to include and then created a mind map on a mini whiteboard to organise her ideas. She then used this to start her creative writing piece. She doesn't always find writing the easiest, but I'm sure you'll agree she has done amazingly! Well done! 🎉🎉
For children with dyslexia, small changes can make a huge, positive impact on writing activities. Often, a child with dyslexia needs to be taught skills on how to break down a written task and plan their writing (e.g., mind maps). This is often age-dependent. For some children, it may be beneficial to have an adult scribe what the child is saying on a whiteboard. This reduces the amount of writing a child needs to do at the planning stage to allow a child to verbalise all their ideas, as often dyslexia creates challenges in turning verbal language into written form.
Most of the time, I find children with dyslexia prefer typing on a laptop instead of writing by hand, because they can easily change their work after writing their sentences. Many students with dyslexia also have visual stress disorder, where white backgrounds can cause words to appear as though they are moving. The use of coloured backgrounds on Word documents and the use of dyslexia fonts can help this. However, it is essential to check which colour background works best for the child, if any, as every child is different! After the child has written a few sentences, it is useful to have either the child, a computer, or an adult read their work aloud to identify missing, repeated, or misspelt words, and missing punctuation. I find it more useful to stop every few sentences than to stop a child mid-sentence where they may lose their writing flow or wait until the very end when the quantity of reading may become overwhelming!
19/02/2024
First tutoring session after half term! 👩🏫
Today we looked at place value and decimals! We started with base 10 equipment to investigate what each place value means, then moved onto written format using multi coloured dice to form numbers & liquid chalk pens! We of course needed to use many as many different colours as possible! 😂
03/01/2023
I hope everyone's had a wonderful break and that the children all have a smooth transition returning to school this week.
I am very excited to announce that later this month I have been accepted to start a part time Masters Degree in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. I will be required to go to university one evening a week, so I will need to rearrange some of the children's sessions for this term, but I will individually get in touch to rearrange new session days/times. I do apologise in advance for the inconvenience.
20/12/2022
I will be off from tomorrow until New Year!
I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas and a truly wonderful New Year. I look forward to seeing you all soon!
25/08/2022
Thinking of all of those getting their GCSE results today! 🎉 I know you've all worked so hard and I hope you've received the grades you wanted!