Mumming Around

Regulation first. Then relationship. Then curriculum.

This is not a therapeutic indulgence. It is the most effective sequence for producing the outcomes that education claims to want. The neuroscience is clear.

Full article in the comments. 🌿

If this resonates, please like, share or follow — I am on a mission to change the way we think about educating our children.

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#regulationfirst #nervoussystem #neurodivergentparenting #educationscience #emberfield | Fenella Buchanan Learning cannot happen in a dysregulated body. This is not a therapeutic idea. It is neurobiologically accurate. And the extent to which mainstream educational settings get this sequence backwards has real, measurable consequences for the young people inside them. Dr Stephen Porges spent decades res...

See my article about the Children's Wellbeing Act - which is now law.

And the families it will land on hardest are not the families it claims to protect.

They are the ones who tried everything the system offered. Watched it fail their child. Made a carefully considered decision to leave. And who will now be required to justify that decision to the very institution that failed them.

A register without resource changes nothing for the children it is ostensibly designed to protect. It creates administrative burden for families who were already doing the right thing.

I have written about what this actually means — and what genuine reform would look like.

#childrenswellbeingact #homeeducation #sendreform #educationpolicy #emberfield | Fenella Buchanan The Children's Wellbeing Act received Royal Assent on 30 April 2026. The SEND reform consultation closed on 20 May 2026. The Department for Education's response to the latter was a series of social media videos featuring a reality television personality. I am not going to dwell on that. What I will....

Exciting times. Please come along if what I'm building resonates.

🌿 You are invited.

On the morning of Friday 17th July, I am opening the doors of Emberfield Growth for the first time.

Come and see the space. Walk the woodland. Have a cup of tea and a pastry. And let's talk about all things SEND.

This morning is for everyone — families, parents, SENCOs, and professionals. If you have ever sat across a table from a child who has been failed and thought there has to be another way, come and find it.

Friday 17th July — 10am to 12pm 📍

Buckinghamshire, Bucks/Beds border

To let me know you are coming click the link below, drop me a DM or email [email protected] — I will share the exact location with everyone who registers.

👇 RSVP here:

https://facebook.com/events/s/open-morning-embefield-growth/9693949
46007439/

No agenda. No pressure. Just a conversation and a very good pastry. 🌿

I wrote an article about the WEIRD scam that is pathologising young people as neurodivergent when maybe - just maybe - they are not the atypical ones!!

#neurodivergent #alternativeprovision #sendeducation #autismparenting #adhd #ebsa #emberfield | Fenella Buchanan The diagnosis describes where a person is. It does not determine where they can go. I have been thinking about the rise in neurodivergent diagnoses — not as a problem to be solved, but as a signal worth listening to. What if the nervous systems we are labelling as disordered are not "malfunctions"...

Wrote a little musing about why teachers could be leaving the profession in droves - which feels more complicated than a much of the discussion about reform facilitates 🤔

#teacherretention #educationreform #teachersoflinkedin #schoolleaders #emberfield | Fenella Buchanan Teachers are leaving teaching. Not in a trickle. In a flood. And I do not think the deepest reason is pay, or workload, or Ofsted — though all of those matter. I think it is the sustained, structural tension between what teachers went into teaching to do and what the system actually asks of them. ...

“By loving them for more than their abilities we show our children that they are much more than the sum of their accomplishments.” – Eileen Kennedy-Moore