SEN Sensory Tuition

Welcome to today’s Tell it Tuesday! This is for everyone who’s ever felt ‘too fine to be believed, too broken to be seen.’ You’re not alone in the in-between.-Let’s Make A Difference❤️ #SENBetweener #letsmakeadifference #TellitTuesday #education

Pen Licences and Spelling Tests: Why Are We Still Doing This?

In two weeks, we’ll be debating pen licences and spelling tests in our staff meeting—two things I genuinely thought had disappeared along with Victorian classrooms. And yet, here we are, still clinging to outdated practices that do more harm than good.

As both an educator and a parent of neurodivergent children, I am firmly against both. Not because I don’t value handwriting or spelling, but because I’ve seen firsthand the harm these rigid approaches can cause.

Spelling Tests: A Weekly Dose of Defeat

For many neurodivergent pupils—especially those with dyslexia, ADHD, or processing differences—spelling tests are nothing short of torture. My own son spent four weeks learning five words, practising every night, doing everything “right” … and still got them wrong on the test. The frustration, the tears, the crushing sense of failure—it wasn’t teaching him to spell; it was teaching him that no matter how hard he tried, he would always fall short.

Some children can memorise spellings easily, but for many, it’s not a case of effort—it’s how their brain is wired. Language processing, working memory, and phonological awareness all play a role in spelling, and no amount of drilling will “fix” the way a neurodivergent brain learns. And yet, we keep putting children through this, week after week, reinforcing the idea that they’re just “not good enough.”

Pen Licences: Learning, or Public Humiliation?

Then there’s pen licences—the bizarre concept that handwriting must be deemed “good enough” before a child is “allowed” to write in pen. This isn’t about teaching neat handwriting. This is about control. About turning a skill that develops at wildly different rates into a competition.

Who benefits from this? The pupils who get their pen licence quickly? Maybe. But what about the child whose fine motor skills make letter formation a challenge? The autistic pupil who finds handwriting physically painful? The dysgraphic pupil who puts in ten times the effort just to make their writing legible—only to be told it’s still “not good enough”?

What message does it send when half the class is writing in pen while others are left behind, feeling humiliated? We don’t issue “reading licences” or “maths licences.” We don’t tell children they can’t use a ruler until their number formation is perfect. So why do we gatekeep pens?

We Can Do Better

There are so many ways to support handwriting and spelling that don’t involve public ranking and unnecessary stress. Personalised spelling lists based on words pupils actually use. Multisensory learning that taps into movement, colour, and patterns. Typing as an equally valid option for written work. Handwriting practice without making it a competition.

Education should be about growth, not shame. About progress, not punishment. Instead of holding pupils back for struggling with skills that are already hard for them, we should be finding ways to lift them up. Because no child should feel like a failure over a spelling test or a pen.

Check out our new website for more information on the tuition and educational services we offer.

SEN Sensory Learning Highly experienced SEN tutors specialised in helping children with SEND, SEMH, ASC, PDA, ADHD/ADD, Dyslexia, anxiety and more

Hello and welcome to SEN Sensory Tuition, a multi-sensory approach to teaching and learning.

I’m Jade, a primary school teacher with experience in the early years and education sector spanning over 18 years.

Having worked as a primary school teacher, a recovery tutor, a private tutor, a specialist phonics teacher implementing my own intervention programmes into schools and more recently training to be a dyslexia specialist teacher, I have a vast amount of experience helping children achieve their lightbulb moments💡

My multi-sensory approach to teaching and learning ensures that children with SEN are given the opportunity to achieve their full potential. By engaging different parts of the brain, children are given more than one way to make connections, to learn new concepts and to retain information. I’m also a big advocate for giving children the skills they need to improve their working memory 🧠

This approach works not only with children with SEND, dyslexia, ASD, ADHD, SEMH and other special educational needs and disabilities but with all children who may need a little boost with their learning.

I currently have a limited availability for 1:1 tutoring and upcoming group sessions for home educators in English, maths and phonics.