I wish you all a joyful restful break. As usual, through the holidays my posts will be a bit more ad-hoc, as I go and get some rest, and cook up plans for next school year. 1/2

Education is an environment that does a lot of measuring – of staff, of students. Always a new target or improvement to work on next. 1/3

We often do not know how fast children will move on in their learning, but we can be as consistent in providing great environments, interactions and activities as possible. Us adults can lose confidence when we repeat things and don’t see what feels like progress. 1/2

When children with complex presentations of need are in mainstream environments, it can be too easy to drift from the kind of relationship-building that is definitely important, into ‘let’s do what keeps the child busy and contented’, at the cost of them learning skills they 1/3

Yes, I know this sounds wooly, but children need to feel safe in order to learn. They just do. Responsive relationships first. ALWAYS Not relationships for the first week and then ploughing on. We add demand when the child is ready. 1/5