 Right now Sophie have we got any questions on our slide or does everybody just want to go home? No, we do have some questions on our slide. Oh So the one at the very very top that has two upvotes Is how do you try and change slash influence grumpy front line staff to smile and greet parents and children? That's how do you okay, um, oh poor front line staff I have to say Generally speaking I find front line stuff to be brilliant They are often quite overwhelmed in their role and what I would suggest here is actually stepping into their shoes and try and understand What is it that is making them feel less than delighted in their role right now? So it can be sometimes really simple things like we sometimes find that front line stuff I've got really horrible working conditions that they're sitting constantly in a draft And that this is really unpleasant or that they're expected to deal with all the difficult stuff That's coming in but all the nice stuff gets cherry picked off by someone else So just putting ourselves into their shoes. I think is a really good starting point there But then also having quite an open and honest discussion with them about their role about how what they feel that they can they can bring I'm making sure that they feel that they're being I was gonna say fully utilized but that I think Sounds a little bit wrong. I guess making sure that we're playing to their strengths really and understanding what they they feel that they They bring and then giving them reason to smile making sure their surroundings are good And that they're appreciated that we stop and we say thank you to them And I put that out as a challenge to all of you really and do you have? Great front line staff in your school And if you do when was the last time that you told them that you think that they're doing a great job? And if it comes to your mind that that wasn't very recently Could you just write them a card or drop them an email or pick up the phone to them and let them know that you think that They're doing a great job because they don't hear it very often what they hear more of is the problems and the difficulties It's not an easy job So, yeah, that would be my advice there Brilliant, so we have another question next popular Which is what is the best to measure how a student is at the starting point to use as a guideline to measure progress? Strengthen difficulties or something else So and I Have sent you a link Sophie to the well-being toolkit from the Anna Freud Center Which is usually where I would look to try and decide what's the best tool for measuring kind of anything to do with Children's well-being There's a whole range of different tools and actually what the Anna Freud Center's well-being toolkit does is it kind of Outlines them all and lets you know what the strengths are of each of those different tools So that you can make a really good decision about which one will work best for you The thing I would say though is that whilst validated tools and measures are a really good thing And I'm a scientist and I love science and I love to measure stuff Sometimes the best thing to do is just to stop and work out What do you actually want to know because you can end up implementing some really long-winded tool? And you might find out loads of stuff, but not actually answer the question that you're interested in knowing the answer to So creating something yourself That's really short and really simple and actually asks the question that you want to know the answer to Might sometimes be a better way of doing it than using a validated measure It depends on what you're you're trying to achieve I think definitely trying to measure things in some way is good because we can see progress and often it can Help us to make good decisions But don't assume that a validated tool will always meet your needs You might want to create your own and it's just a question of saying well, what do I want to know? How would I know that this has exceeded what would that look like and then asking questions around that? Brilliant. Someone's just popped into the chat. I work with autistic children Do you have some advice for when we go back into the building in September? Also, do you have any suggestions for good social fun time with kids on the spectrum? So what we can do is send everybody Sophie the notes from the course about Supporting autistic children to return to school and we will be running that course again over the summer for anybody Who wants to come so we could send a link to that as well And anyone who wanted to come to that we've changed how you book on to those courses So you can now come as part of a premium membership to the site, which means you pay 17 pound 50 for the month and then you can come to as many as you want So you used to pay 20 pounds a session and I just pay for as you pay once and you come to as many as you like But in terms of simple things and I would generally be thinking always about how can I help this child to succeed? So I would be thinking and this would be true for autistic children or children who are school avoidant I'd be trying to think what's going to motivate to get this child to come into school Why do they want to come and it's not for us to judge their reasons because their reasons might not make sense to us It might be that they really missed Lego club or you know That there's a particular place that makes them feel comfortable and we might have much loftier aspirations for why they should be here But it's about what matters to them and seeing it from their point of view So trying to find a hook there about why they might want to attend And then thinking how can we create a series of eye cans for this child? So how can we help them to succeed? So what will often happen is that there's lots of I can'ts we see all the things that they can't do and instead It's about going really sort of macro and saying what are the successes that we can have here So it's not about saying this child failed to attend school. They couldn't stay in all day It's about do you know what this child managed across the threshold today and that was really great So we're looking for the successes that we can we can build so we can build on a series of eye cans and Then in terms of the other bit of that was around sort of positive social times I think for children who are autistic and I would be driven by the child And I would be trying to tap into their special interest is often a really good starting point So our autistic children will generally have one or more special Interest things which they want to talk about and do endlessly which might not make sense to the people around them But if we're looking to build relationships with that child Either stepping into their world and actually giving them inviting them to tell us about the thing They care so much about and to really engage with them and help them to teach us about it Can really help or pairing them up with other children who might share that special interest to Generally speaking we find that for our autistic children creating structured activities that have got clear rules of engagement will work really really well Whether or not that engages their special interest and things like Lego clubs and Lego therapy and can work really well here And there's there's lots of really really good ideas about there about that out there I'll send you a link to a book about Lego therapy whose title I've completely forgotten off the top of my head But that's very good Brilliant just making a note of that And so the next question is what different methods of parent communication are used by different providers, which they find effective oh That's probably one to put out there Is anyone got any good practice? They would like to share about what they found to be effective in terms of working with parents. Okay collect I Do a lot of texting Texting yeah lots of texting don't do video don't do anything like that a lot of texting and Obviously telephone communication, but a lot of texting and any letters that come out from the school I Will always follow up with the text not the full letter Just what they need to know and that is humongous brilliant for the the parents to say yeah I understand what's going on. I like that because I think as well text is so immediate and it's really sort of It's not very scary as a means of communication I think is it so things like letters can sometimes feel quite formal can't they and actually many of us struggle with the phone But a text. Yeah, yeah much more manageable. Yeah. Yeah any other thoughts on how people are engaging with their parents So one thing I would say here is Which I think someone did share earlier is about the sharing of good news So actually trying to change that conversation between school and home So often it can be that you fall into a cycle of only communicating with home when there's a problem And we get to a point where certainly I've been in this Role as a parent in the past where when I see the school's number flashing up on my phone I get that sinking feeling of oh no, what's gone wrong now? And actually if instead you could create a situation that when your school's number came up on a parent or careless phone They thought are brilliant. Why are they in touch? That's really what we want We want to have positive communications with home in particular where you've got children who have fallen into a bit of a cycle of Difficulty and challenging behavior if you're able to hunt for the good there and actually pick up the phone or drop a line home When something really positive has happened that can completely change the tenet of that relationship with with home And can make parents and carers much more ready to engage with you And it can also change the sort of narrative around school at home because instead of when the child gets home Hearing yet again that they're a disappointment that they've done this wrong that they've done that wrong that the other has gone Wrong if instead they hear I heard that you worked really hard in math today And you were able to sit and through the whole lesson and you you actively participated. I'm really proud of you That's a whole different thing to be happening Sometimes you've got to hunt quite hard to find that good But where you've got children who you're not making progress with actually hunting out those good things and communicating home with them Can be a really really positive thing to do We've been sent the right and Friday think good videos So they're all the recorded in school and then the children have been sent tell me that have been at home Have been sending in their recordings of what they've been up to that week as well And at the beginning there was wasn't very many and now everybody's starting to take part in and it is lovely Each picture each week takes a turn to do it And then they'll have special music to it this week is dedicated to the year six leavers But it's that has been a brilliant way of communication That's brilliant. And did you say you were using a specific tool for that or it's good Okay, I don't know that one. So I've had a class dojo I don't know if anyone else is using that but I think there are a few different tools out there Aren't they that are meant for communicating between school and home and some of those and it can be used really really positively and I think again This is always about just keeping a check on making sure that this is driven by the genuine needs of your school Community that it's being used in a positive way and that it's not putting too much onus on staff What we don't want is to create a situation where we're using something like say class dojo And that becomes another big administrative burden for already overburdened staff But rather that it's a positive means of communicating home. That's not too too heavy Next Sophie How can we support staff who are reluctant to ask for help how can it So how can we empower them to their own self-care plan? Yeah So the first thing I would say here where we've got staff who are more reluctant to seek help It's about thinking what is it about our culture here that means that some staff are Reluctant and is there anything we can do to change there and this has to absolutely be led from the top and I would be looking at What is the Kind of example that's being set by our senior leaders and we certainly do have a role there for our leaders for our governors of Making it clear that it's okay to be accessing help And then I'd be looking at things as well like the staff room culture Do we have a staff room where people feel able to ask or support of each other? Where we are supportive of each other when things are challenging and Then we can think finally if we've got someone who is is Reluctant to ask for help and we don't really feel like we're able to engage there I would do two things one is thinking more generally about how we can promote positive Well-being because that can feel a bit less difficult for people to engage with rather than tackling the difficulties So you might think about more generally more universal approaches to promoting positive well-being And then also thinking about whether there are any sources of support that we can highlight for those staff Which are anonymous so we do this for children too sometimes Where if they're not yet ready to confide in someone face-to-face and having these conversations with a known entity feels too hard We might be highlighting things like Childline or Samaritans and for staff We might be highlighting things like the education support partnership where a member of staff can go completely anonymously and get support and guidance with Any difficulties that they're facing and that can feel a lot less hard than having to talk to a member of Staff who you're gonna have to face every day And you might just not feel comfortable letting them know about the issues that you're facing and asking for help that way Brilliant. Someone's asked how do I access other courses? Great question. Did you plant that one Sophie? No, there's someone's actually and it's been upvoted as well Okay, so we can send through information about how you access the site, but very briefly So we've been working quite hard On on this and so we were a face-to-face training company And then COVID happened and so the plans which we'd had to deliver online training for many years that haven't actioned Have all now come to fruition or they haven't all come to fruition, but it's happening So since Easter we've had a website where you can access on-demand training And we've got now well over a hundred on-demand training courses and lots more in the pipeline Which are series of videos, so they're really short accessible bite-sized courses And you can access those by signing up to the site either as an organization So if you have a team and you would like your whole team to be able to access all of the courses We can do a four-week free trial for you and then it costs 750 pounds for the whole year for all of your staff to access all the on-demand training or as an individual you can Access those on-demand courses for five pounds a month And we also make every week a different course free for a week So there's a few free courses and again safer you can send a link through to those so our kind of COVID specific courses There's about five of them They're all free and always have been and always will be and then we make a different course free each week So last week it was about writing a well-being action plan for yourself this week You can access a free course on emotionally based school avoidance and another one about pathological demand avoidance Which I'm really excited about that one because this is a Condition that is not very well understood. It's part of the autism spectrum And it's really misunderstood and it's the kind of course We could never have run in the past because we couldn't have made it work We couldn't have you know We wouldn't have been able to get staff out of school for a whole day To go on that kind of training But by providing a course that takes less than an hour to complete and making it free to people for the week this Week we've had hundreds and hundreds of people complete that course who never would have known about this and they wouldn't have known How to meet the needs of those kinds of students and what we know about pathological demand avoidance is that it is a Kind of subset of autism, but when we try to treat it as autism Then often we make things worse for those children and things can spiral quite quickly for them And these are often the kinds of kids who will struggle with school based anxiety and might become School avoidance, but there are simple things that we can do to really help them So yes, in short, you can you can sign up So if he will send all the all the links through there and now in addition to being able to access the on-demand training We do also have our premium membership for people who want to be able to access the face-to-face No, the live online Opportunities as well of which we're going to provide at least four per month But we will be led by you as to what topics you want and how frequent they should be and that kind of thing And we'll be providing other opportunities as things arise and the other thing you could send through Sophie is a Link to the suggested course page on the website because again I'm I'm doing all the commissioning and I'm being led by what you tell me you need So a course that I'm in the process of commissioning at the moment is one on Mutism because I've been asked about that. So again, tell me what you want And I'll I'll do my best to to meet those needs I think I think I've told you everything you need to know about accessing our courses now So if you'll send through links and do just keep feeding back to us We're learning all the time and and it's been incredible the number of people who have engaged with our courses We've had and our bereavement course had over 25,000 people did it in a week, which is amazing So yeah, please do do join up and we will make sure that you all get added to the Mail list for the free courses as well. If you weren't now, I think most of you will probably already on it Okay, any any any more for any more. So there's quite a few questions. There's one about certificates For the courses, but I'll acknowledge that in my email What do you do if you're displaying work from all ability levels? But it is it's clearly causing bullying as children and parents compare work. Oh I Don't know the answer to that one. Sorry if anyone's got a good idea about that I mean, I think that's a wider culture question, isn't it? So the question was about if we're looking to display Work and sort of success at every level But that if pupils or parents are comparing the work of some students to others and it might cause kind of teasing or bullying Because what is successful when people might not be successful another. Can I just say that we we Don't ever put a child's name on a piece of work. That's Shoulders I have a lot of children who are in care and We can't afford the risk of identifying that they are At school with us. So the children's work is up That child has a photo of the work being up to take home for their carers or Parents or whoever they live with but you can't walk around the school and see whose work is Whose what you can do is see that that is year to work Because it's on a year to war or it's a year one work and within year one. There are children who are Making marks and there are children who are writing form sentences, but we we have to we have to anonymize Everything so that everything is equal We can't take the risk of having children's names on boards it it just And also we have children who come and go so quickly that it would be very difficult You know, we just try to make sure that we have a really good range up So we have something from everybody is has to go on the wall within a term But there are no names no Thank you, Leslie. That's really helpful. So just you know what we do. Yeah No, but I think that's the thing That's why it's always nice to come together because actually what is completely standard practice in one school is Something that's completely new and really helpful to another. So thank you for sharing that. That's really helpful So There is a question about the Lego Club that you were talking about earlier How do we run clubs like Lego when only one child can touch it before it needs to be sanitized? Yeah, how how we do that in this current moment is a bit more challenging What some of the schools I've been working with of doing have been kind of making up kits for each individual people So that they will have a bag with their Lego in and that each child plays with their own Individual Lego and then the Lego goes back into the bag and lots of special schools that I've been working with Have been working on that basis so that each child essentially has a set of resources that will be going around with them And it's difficult and lots of the schools I'm working with are having to invest in more resources And they would do normally in order to have enough for each child to have their own set Which might not be how they would usually do things but that's something that they're building into into their budgets And if anyone has different or better ideas then do do do share them But that's that's what I've heard of happening at the moment Brilliant Could a well-being action plan and a pupil profile be merged together or is it better to keep them separate a? Well-being action plan and a pupil profile good idea So okay So well-being action plans really briefly for anyone who hasn't done the training on that a well-being action plan is basically a really simple Framework for well-being where we think about what's in our well-being toolbox What the things we do to kind of keep ourselves happy and well What are the things that are included in our daily routine that we do each day in order to be well and stay well thinking about our Physical and our emotional well-being what are the things that we avoid because we know that those are things that kind of bring Us down or make us feel less good and then also thinking about What are the warning signs that things might be going less well for us? And what do we do next if we see those warning signs and who who and what is in our support network? So that's well-being action plan in like 30 seconds So Could that be combined with a pupil profile? Yes, it could I think and this is all really about doing what works for you And for the people so well-being action plans are a great framework for working with an individual people if you want a really easy simple framework for Generating discussion and understanding what might work for that people and as a starting point and a pupil profile Assuming that I'm thinking of the the right thing and people sometimes use the same words for different things But I'm thinking of something here that might go round with a pupil so that different members of staff might know how to support that People and meet their needs and so what you might do might be to create for example a one-page Passport or pupil profile based on what you learn from doing a well-being action plan and have that move around with the people so that Adults knew quite quickly what they might be able to do to support that People again in the notes will send through to you about supporting autistic children to return to school And I did put together a very simple one-page profile that a pupil could complete So that different adults knew what they could do in order to support that people and help them to emotionally regulate and Manage within the classroom and you might adapt that Another resource that I must highlight for you Is the Head Start Kerno well-being action plan website which will send a link through to you So the kids in Cornwall worked with us to create an online version of the well-being action plan where It's pre that there's basically loads of ideas from the young people themselves about how you might populate that plan And you can create an online version that you can then Either just keep online or you can kind of print off and it's it's it's a really really neat tool It's still in development and will I think get better and better But based on the needs right now and it was brought forward More quickly and published more quickly than it might have done and so that it could help to start meet It could start to meet need more quickly and running out of words now But it's really really great and we're really proud of it And just generally and the the kids in Cornwall have done some really fab work So do look up generally the Head Start Kerno work and you'll find all sorts there to inspire you and all sorts of resources You can use okay last couple of ones and so because I'm aware we've kept everyone a really long time It's just one last question Would it be beneficial to have a well well-being care plan for all students in your class thinking about supply teachers cover staff? Etc. Yeah, so well-being action plans and those sorts of frameworks I think are useful for everybody and it would be a really useful things for students to do as they're Transitioning back into school after the holiday because for everybody this is going to look difficult and challenging often I would recommend Putting together a well-being action plan in the run-up to holidays for staff and for students And at any time of transition when things might change and we just need to take a little bit more care of ourselves And certainly I think that having these kinds of plans and developing them with all students would be a really positive start to the New term thinking about how we're gonna keep ourselves well thinking about the ways in which we can support each other as well And helping friends to recognize the things that they can do to help on another because there's often a real will to do that And absolutely we might share a simplified version of those plans particularly for our more vulnerable students With the various different adults that might be involved in their care So often if we can find simple ways to communicate so that people can recognize when things are going less well and Really importantly what they might do next. It's incredibly helpful. So you might have a student for example who might have Developed a sign a symbol to say I'm struggling right now They might have a red card or it might be that they take the green felt pen out of their pencil case And they put it on their table and that indicates I need your help right now And that we might have a time of calm agreed with that student that when they put that green felt pen on the table in Front of them then what they need is an adult to come and check in with them Or to be given permission to go and leave the room and to do some breathing exercises or to go to a safe space that they have Within the classroom or within the wider school. It's about planning at times of calm about how we'll manage those moments of distress So that's all the questions Hooray. Well, thank you everybody and Thank you for coming. Thank you more widely for the absolutely remarkable work that you're all doing I've been quite it's been quite an emotional kind of term and a half and Every time I think about what you're all doing every day I get quite sort of choked up thinking about it because it's incredible you're incredible and Please do keep talking to us about how we can best help you to support the children in your care and your staff and the families as well But the one thing I would ask of you above everything else right now is please have a think about what you will do for yourself And how you will make sure that you get some form of rest some form of relaxation and some decent self-care Over the summer holiday because what you're doing is incredible But you need to stop at some point and look after yourself. Otherwise, you can't be the adult that your children need whatever Thank you ever so much. We will close there Everyone so may hope I get a break too. Yeah. Yeah, I'll try I'll try try and leave by example And yeah, thank you ever so much for all that you're doing and do take care Do be in touch and I'm sure I'll see many of you over the summer on the various courses that we've got running But have a lovely evening now. I'm gonna go for a walk with my dog So there's my self care for the evening and catch up with you all soon. Thank you and thank you to Sophie