The ‘Follow the Arrows’ reading group* is a new initiative, helping bridge the current gap between published evidence and school practices around behaviour, inclusion, mental health and wellbeing in schools. This week we were discussing chapters 5 Inside the living brain, 6 The ever plastic brain, 7 Social mind, social brain, and 8 Understanding other people. The book covered a broad sweep of neuroscience […]
“When I tell people I study the adolescent brain, the immediate response is often a joke – something along the lines of : ‘What? Teenagers have brains?’ For some reason it’s acceptable to mock people in this stage of their lives. But when you think about it, this is strange: we wouldn’t ridicule other age groups in the same way. Imagine if we went around […]
I wrote and published this two months ago. Since then a great deal has happened that we couldn’t have predicted then. But the issue of how to deal with children’s behaviour when and if they return, and more pressingly, how to meet their increased needs arising from their experiences, remains. So here it is again, unedited. It’s hard losing touch with the thread of regular […]
I wrote and published this two months ago. Since then a great deal has happened that we couldn’t have predicted then. But the issue of how to deal with children’s behaviour when and if they return, and more pressingly, how to meet their increased needs arising from their experiences, remains. So here it is again, unedited. It’s hard losing touch with the thread of regular […]
Structured kindness of Solutions Focused Coaching in Mental Health Awareness Week
Children can cope with change when we focus on their strengths, not their failings.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders writing in the TES (April 3rd 20200 was looking ahead to the time when 10 million children and 1.3 million staff get back to school; “When schools return it will not be ‘business as usual’ …. many of our pupils will be deeply anxious about the crisis in general and their own family […]
Understanding the meaning of stress is the key to preventing exclusion
Recently the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Knife Crime produced their report “Back to school? Breaking the Link between School Exclusions and Knife Crime”. The cross-party group of MPs and peers investigated knife-crime, how it connects to children lives and to various aspects of Government driven policy and practice. The report urged the Government to reform school exclusions, warning that being expelled can be […]
What does a World Mental Health Day or a Child Mental Health Week mean for children who struggle in school, affected by the the push and pull of other people’s demands and the consequences of adverse experiences in their lives? Often they’re the ones who seem to ignore your helping hand, who shout and cry for attention, who hurt themselves or withdraw into their […]
