Divergent Learning Diaries

There’s a whiff of change on the horizon

For those of you who regularly read my articles you will know that my area of intense interest is the experience of Neurodivergent young people in the school system.  This is partly as the parent of ND children but also as a school leader who sees a disproportionate number of ND pupils struggling to attend, to adjust and cope in the mainstream.  

I have consciously worked on developing a neuro-affirming culture in my school.  It is certainly my top priority that all of our students feel as though they belong, that our school is a safe space for everyone to express their individuality.  I am pleased that families largely choose our school for that reason, as well as feeling confident that their child will be well taught.

The last few years of my life have refocused my purpose as an educator.  I now want to be right at the edge of educational developments that benefit our diverse populations, but particularly our Neurodivergent population.  It’s what gets me up in the morning.  It has become my purpose.

I would like to have a hand in creating a blueprint that will ensure that less children who don’t quite fit the model, like my daughters, have access to an Education that embraces their way.  This is the ambition for the final stretch of my career.  However long that may be and in whatever form it takes, whether it be in schools, with other Education leaders or through this work, my writing I desperately want to be part of a disruption to the current model.

It’s what motivates me to write about Divergent Learning Experiences.  What drives me to write these diaries.

As I scan the road of my career ahead I know that I want, as an Educator, to have made enough of a difference to the landscape for our Neurodivergent children that there are more pathways open to them than there currently are.  That the education workforce has evolved to recognise how inclusion could look.  That schools are communities that are flexible and responsive enough to deliver experiences that arrive exactly where each child is at any point in time.

In the last week it has felt that the mainstream media has picked up momentum around the desperately pressing issue of SEND reform.  Such emotive expressions as ‘broken’, ‘losing hope,’  and ‘falling short’ are being shared across platforms, on live news reports and in Parliament.  There are well known TV personalities like Carrie Grant and Kellie Bright who are sharing their personal experiences in navigating what is a horrendous system.  A system that too often feels designed to grind parents down so they give up fighting for what all  around can see is not only right for their child, but what they are entitled to by law.  And now, it feels for the first time that this messaging is starting to be heard.

While I can bang on about how desperately the system needs a fix I am aware that there are no blank sheets.  That we can’t completely dismantle the system we have and build a new one.  Education relies on momentum and any disruption to the system must be carefully considered.

Most likely, the communities that already exist will evolve to meet the current need that is out there. Bridget Phillipson (Education Secretary)  has hinted that this would be the most efficient way to get cash into the system to where it needs to be.  For those of us who’d like to detonate the whole thing and rebuild from scratch this isn’t particularly inspiring.  But it is realistic.  And practical.  And since we need ‘better’ fast it’s probably the best step forward.  Not completely dismantle.  But reconfigure.  

Mainstream schools are huge.  This is particularly true of mainstream secondary schools, where the biggest ones sit at around 2000 pupils from Years 7-13.  

My own school tips back and forth around the 1800 pupil mark.  Once you add the adults who work there into the equation you’ve got 2000 people in a single education institution.  Day in, day out.  

However, the education infrastructure requires schools to be this size.  The whim of dreaming of smaller environments, where everyone knows everyone, where there’s more chance that the events of the day can be predicted with some level of certainty, where a sense of calm is more naturally achieved is a vision that is unlikely to be achieved any time soon.  I wish this wasn’t the case.  

There is definitely an opportunity for some of the metropolitan schools to reduce their admission numbers though, as post-pandemic, many families left these areas for a more provincial life.  In London certainly, the numbers of children coming through the school system has significantly reduced.  Schools are closing and merging.  Big secondary schools can therefore shrink.  And this is without doubt a good thing.  I’d ultimately like to reduce my school by a couple of forms of entry (around 60 pupils in each year group) over the next few years.

The notion of adding Specialist and Additional Resource provisions to existing communities of schools is a good solution.  Particularly at Primary phase so that support is in place and children’s needs are understood before the pace really ratchets up at Secondary school.

Then, there do need to be more actual specialist school provisions. Very small, focussed settings.  Sensibly priced, endorsed or led by local authorities.  More expense to the system but absolutely essential.  Any new plans for reform can not get away from addressing this need.

We have been looking at a special school for my daughter who is not able to attend her big mainstream school.  We can’t find an ideal solution for her, probably because ideally, Patti would have been a student who could have developed and thrived in a well resourced adapted mainstream environment.  Had this been available to her at her primary school, potentially she would not have collapsed under the weight of those years of fitting in.  For her, mainstream broke her, but small special school isn’t her either.  She falls into the nothingness in-between. 

We already have an Alternative Provision (AP) at the school I lead.  Many secondary schools have developed their own separate, smaller, lower arousal provisions that offer an alternative to the enormity of the mainstream experience.  I love ours.  We designed and developed it to offer a low arousal space with adapted pathways for students who were evidently not benefitting from the demands of the academic pathways that are there for the majority.  Unsurprisingly, about 80% of the cohort of that setting have emerged as Neurodivergent young people.

We have also been approached by our local authority to open an ARP (Additional Resourced Provision) for autistic learners.  It’s this project that excites and inspires me most.  We are well into the planning phase and the provision will be at our school in the not too dim and distant future.  

I know now, that as a school leader, however, long I have left leading in the Education space that a significant amount of my work will be devoted to understanding what our Neurodivergent children need  and looking at how we can make sure our setting becomes a community  provides the best, best flexible education environment for each individual student, regardless of their Neurodiversity.  

I know that as a writer, here in this space, that my work will be devoted to exploring alternatives, looking at how we can disrupt the system in a well considered way and sharing my learning both as an Educator and a mother in these diaries.

I know that as a parent, any change that arrives as a result of the current SEND discussion around urgent reform will likely come too late for Patti and that she will need something completely different.  Away from anything systemic.  What that will be we still don’t yet know.  And whether I will still be able to give her what she needs and stay in the Education space professionally is another matter entirely.

For now, I watch with interest to see how all this unfolds.  With hope that the coming week will bring news of a solid financial investment from the Chancellor that can help us disrupt this broken system.  In a considered way, of course.