Welcome to Pookie Ponders, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. I'm Pookie Nightsmith and I'm your host. Today's question is how can we support children with special needs to return to school? And I'm in conversation with Cat Lang, the Senior Vice-Principal at Dixon's Kings Academy, a secondary school in Inner Bradford. Hi, I'm Cat Lang. I'm Senior Vice-Principal at Dixon's Kings Academy. It's a school in the centre of Bradford, which comes with its own unique challenges. I've been there for two years and I'm line-managed, EAL, SEN and lots of different areas of inclusion, including kind of our catch-up money and our electricity spending. I've been a SENCO for a number of years and I think that's probably it really. So tell me just a little bit to give people a bit of context about, you know, Bradford and Dixon's, like what kind of place are we talking about here? Have you got a lot of need or what's the code? So I'll start with Dixon's because that's probably quite an interesting thing to talk about. And some people might have heard about the trust, some people might not have. So their motto is that they challenge educational disadvantage in the North. We're one of the highest performing trusts in the United Kingdom, but we are all based in the North, so not as well known as the Southern Academy Trusts. At the minute, we've got about 12 schools, a mix of primary and secondary, predominantly in Bradford, but there are now a couple in Leeds as well. I've been with the trust as I said about two years and I approached the trust for a job because I really admired the motto and the changes that they were evoking with in Bradford for young people. So if you've not seen the school in practice, they base routines and their rigour on the book Teach Like a Champion, which has its own discussion around it itself. We call it warm strict. So whilst we apply lots of routine to things that we do every single day, we apply it in a warm, caring nature and it means that everybody's included. We don't have to change what we do for us in students because what we do is right for everybody and helps everybody. So I really like that about the school. So warm strict, what does that mean like day to day? We've got high standards for students and we expect the best from them at all times but we support them really carefully to get there. So when you see a Dixon school in practice, there's things that all of us do, things like we have line up on mornings so the children stand in lines, they have a morning meeting where we talk to them about a specific topic. It might be about one of our three core values that King's hours are integrity, diligence and civility. So it might be something to do with how we uphold those values or how other people in society uphold those values. We've got a huge focus on literacy at our school. So one morning a week we always talk about literacy. It might be about an author. It might be about your own reading. It might be about teachers talking about their favourite book and reading an extra. And then on Friday we have appreciation. So staff can appreciate other staff. Students can appreciate other students or students can appreciate staff by services. That works really nicely. So line up is a really key element for us. It also means that our corridors, whilst they're not silent or very calm, our students walk in lines. They can talk quietly. We call it quiet partners and we at King's have learning modes in the classroom. So teachers will explicitly narrate how children are going to learn and we have a physical spinner on the wall that says the four learning modes that we turn the arrow to to explain how we're learning. So we find that we've got quite a high number of autistic children in our academy because really explicit in how we do things and every teacher uses the same vocabulary to explain the same things all of the time. So we kind of minimise that difference that you'd get usually in schools moving between teachers or moving between classrooms. Everybody has the same expectations. Everybody uses the same language. Everybody learns in the same way. So we remove that barrier already before we even get started on the day-to-day teacher. Wow I've got like a million questions already. Thank you Paul. Tell me about the four, what are the four learning modes? Okay so you've got quiet partners which is where you're talking to the person next to you about your work. We've got independent silent study. I'm focusing on my own work quietly. We've got polite table groups. So you're working with your table listening and turn taking and working with each other. I've lost, I can't remember which one the fourth one is. This is terrible. This is how long we've been away from school. Whole class discussion obviously. We need to be able to talk to each other and listen and take turns in that way. So the last one is whole class discussion. So we would explicitly narrate to the students. We are moving into polite table groups, our respectful whole class or independent silent study and the children know that. They know what that means. We train them on that right at the beginning and then that's the standard. And it sounds like you must have to input quite a lot into your kind of staff training if you're expecting this completely sort of standardised approach from your staff. Yeah, so that starts right at induction for staff. If you're a new member of staff joining Dixons, we're really honest about that before you join us. There's then a specialist induction package so that you get the explicit training but you also get time to practice with your colleagues so that you're not just jump in the classroom and having to practice with the children. We practice all the time in our CPD. So we're constantly practicing with each other to make sure that we're up hold with the same standard. So before lockdown our CPD was on a Friday morning. The children would all go with a member of SLT in their year group for whole year group teaching for 45 minutes and that allowed us to do staff CPD in the school day on a Friday morning. Every Friday? Every Friday for 45 minutes. So I would have my year group that I'm linked with is currently year eight. So I would have all of year eight in the sports hall. I'd do some maths with them, some English with them and then some community work with them so it might be on the core values or it might be PSHE or it might be a revision skill. I'd have them all on my own in the sports hall and the rest of them, the staff can go do their CPD on whatever we're focusing on at that point. Wow. That's a whole other discussion. I want to talk to you about CPD and how effective it is in your school. It's really good for work-life balance as well. So a big focus for us is making sure that staff have got time to just focus on their teaching. We don't want to eat into their family time. We don't want to eat into the evening so the school day is built around like our faculty meetings for example are built into the school day. They're not after school. You sound so passionate about like Dickson's. It's hard to think you've been there for a couple of years only. Yeah so before that I worked at an all through school in Bradford and I was there for seven years but I can't imagine working for another trust now. I love my job and I love the ethos behind what we do. And you said that a lot of families would choose to send their children to your school because that from what you've described I can understand that kind of that predictability and that consistency feels very supportive particularly for learners like our autistic learners. So talk to me, I mean the central question for this episode was about how we're supporting our children with special needs to return to school. Are you doing anything differently for these kids at this time or are you just kind of doing what you would normally do? I think it's probably started you're right as we went into lockdown once we realised that this was going to last more than a week or two weeks. We started thinking about what provision needed to look like, how we could support the children but how we could support the families. So the first thing we looked at was personalised welfare calls. So we ring families with our same children at least once a week but it could be more dependent on family needs. So if parents need some support and they're anxious we'd ring more or if the children are struggling we'd ring more. Now we really looked for those families who was ringing so we have key workers assigned to our children with SCN needs. So particularly children with an EHCP but also anyone on the SCN register has a key worker who knows about their needs, who plans their strategy bans for staff and that's the key link for them between home and school so families already know them really well. So the key workers in the first instance mainly rang for SCN children. Now that might be an LSA, it might be a SENCO, it might be myself. We're lucky that we've got a head of SCN on the SENCO so we really personalised who was doing the calls. We've then had to think outside of the box a little bit about what's going on because we've got some children with EHCPs with quite profound needs who've got transition this year who are in year 11 leaving us so we've had to think about what that could look like. So for example we've done annual review meetings in our courtyard at the back we've got picnic benches so we've done annual reviews face to face but outside socially distanced so that families can still see us. If families have been tech competent we've done them on the team so that they can still have that face to face discussion it's not had to happen over the phone. We've done things like for year six coming in for transition we've had visits into the main atrium so they still get to come into the building and see staff. We did a virtual tour that's on our website so I got two of our year sevens who were in the key worker group to do a camera-based tour really so it's on the website they've shown children around so they can still watch the video and see what it looks like. We've sent out power points with pictures of new teachers on so who's going to be teaching you next year let's introduce themselves what do they like what do they do and thinking about um so visual timetables making sure that they know what they've got to do when they do it so I would say there's been a lot of additional and different but in terms of their main teaching and what they get that has been similar to what they would get in the classroom only it's been remote so we've used SharePoint for most of our learning there's been links to videos on things like Hegarty Maths that explains itself the lessons that they would usually do a set but there's teachers explaining them so a little bit of both I'd say in terms of yes things about to be different but lots of things we've tried to keep this in. So it sounds like you've got an amazing kind of resource in terms of supporting your children with special needs like it's clearly something that at the school has been you know really invested in in terms of people and time and resources um which is incredible why is that such a priority is it because you've got lots of children who are choosing this school or the families are choosing this school if the child's got an EHCP or? In terms of numbers we don't have a higher than average amount of SCN children we're about at national average in terms of EHCPs and our numbers that are SCN and I would say that we look to our budget really carefully when I joined about two years ago and we looked at where we were spending money on where we could be a bit more savvy particularly when we thought about results and the children who were leaving us at the end of year 11 and what they were achieving so we looked at children who were attending alternate provisions children who had bespoke timetables and how we could really improve that so we sadly with our money we pulled children back into school if they'd been out at other provisions and then we spent that money on training up our staff our employing specialist staff so that we could make that provision in house we also looked really carefully at our curriculum time so for key stage three we um extended how much literacy and numeracy they get if they've got a special educational need they've come in as lower priority in so they get extra English and Maths so we could get those key skills right right at the start of year seven so that by the time they get to GCSE they can have a full complement of options and access those if it's appropriate. We did look at options though as well so within our main timetable we don't have to segregate anybody we offer as Dan has an option that sits within the option block we take some children out of Spanish if they can't access a language but teach Maths and English in there so that they get a step up to English or a step up to Maths qualification but we really carefully chose those so we use the same exam board for those as the main GCSE exam board so they can still access the GCSE but the teaching is feeding into that directly so we just really carefully considered what we were doing and where we were doing it and like I mentioned earlier we've got an increasing number of autistic children we're quite appealing to families because of the bigger and structure and that takes away a lot of that anxiety for a lot of artistic learners because they know what to expect so we made sure that we employed an artisan champion who's got specialist training from our Bradford artisan team so it works directly with them around things like the five-point scale around things like being able to deliver legal therapy so that we've got a full complement of support there for those children.  Yeah that's exactly it. And how did you make decisions around things like withdrawing children from alternative provision and teaching them on site because actually there's some brilliant alternative provision in your area isn't there and that must have been quite tricky to work out can we meet the need as well and was there a transition time there? It had to be on a bespoke case by case basis for some children who were maybe nearly in the key stage far it was better for them to stay with the familiar adults and familiar provision that they knew but I don't know how familiar you are with Bradford but we don't have a lot of alternate provision resource our special schools are growing and are flourishing and are doing quite well but it's very difficult to get a place there and so alternate provision was shrinking and we were having less and less options in terms of alternate provision and what that was offering for children and how that was furthering their life chances and at our root we want to challenge educational disadvantage in the north and if we want to do that properly and our children in our school are getting the best results not the ones that alternate provision and that says that this should be with those and we should be thinking about how we can get it right for those children it's not about how they adapt to us and adapt to being in mainstream it's how we adapt our provision to make sure that we're right for them and that's kind of the driver for the change I suppose so it was on a case by case basis some of them as I said stayed in provision some had a phased return to us and had a little bit of time in provision and a little bit of time with us before then building up to a full timetable with us some were okay to come straight back in it literally depended on their need their situation and when we were ready for them in terms of our staff being trained and ready. I think it's a really interesting kind of route to go down I do a lot of work with kind of PRU's and AP's and I think thinking about how mainstream could work better with their kind of you know partners in special and alternative is a really interesting thing to look at because I think that often our aim really is if we can to enable our learners to thrive within mainstream and that's not always possible but if we can it's a really good stepping stone for what comes next isn't it but yeah sometimes it's about thinking how can we draw on that expertise but you've kind of brought that in house with things like your autism champions haven't you yeah and what's your autism champion doing in terms of this you know preparing for the return are you doing anything very specific for your autistic learners or so to be honest we've waited on the guidance because we wanted to know exactly what we were and weren't allowed to do but we've just started to think about what it's going to look like for children returning so for some of our children who've got autism REHCPs they've obviously been in provision because they needed to be there and they were vulnerable but that didn't apply to everybody with autism REHCP some had were perfectly happy at home or needed to be at home during this time because of a variety of reasons so we've just started to think about making sure that we've got the staff to support the children so things like staggering our stats not only the time of the day but when year group starts so that we've got enough staff to support the SCN children within that year group we've thought about transition days so we've started next week thinking about things like social stories with some of our children home visits going out to see them so they've seen us again and they're physically you know setting eyes on us or coming in to see us for a one-to-one appointment so that they've come back in the building and we've kept taking that anxiety away but then talking about not only the change of coming back to school through social stories but how school is going to have to look a little bit different and preparing them for that change things like having to use hand sanitizer all the time lots of them are sensory and don't want to touch things like that so we need to we need to practice that things about how lunchtime and food is going to look a bit different that's a big anxiety for a lot of our learners moving around the corridors will have to look a little bit different in terms of social distancing so giving them time to talk through that in their own way using whatever therapy works best for them and I'm talking blue systems like LEGO therapy some of our children whilst listening to instructions that's the best time to get them talking so making sure they have a chance to work through that perhaps practice it make sure they've seen us and then make sure we've got an individual plan for them so we know what that's going to look like for them. What are you learning from the the kind of schedule of calls that you've got going into to home so you're speaking to each of these children or their families at least once a week and are you finding that there are particular issues or worries or concerns that you're going to need to address and conversely are there any children who seem to be thriving more at home? I'd say there's a huge variety right I mean we've got quite a lot of parents that are struggling with the anxiety around coronavirus around letting the children return to school and that's something that we're having to support individually we do have kind of an escalation system with the welfare calls so if it's a concern the key work feels that they can't address so they're not sure how to support they can escalate it to myself or someone else in the SEM team to support so there's quite a lot of anxiety and frequently asked questions from parents that we're trying to address both over the phone and in letters and communication there's as we say we've got quite a lot of children who are thriving at home so we've got work trackers set up where the teachers are logging the work every week so we've got a really clear idea of who has been working and who hasn't been working so we know what we're going to need to address when they come back into school I think we're also thinking about kind of assessment because we don't want to assess children when they're coming back in the building our focus has got to be relationships and and rebuilding those relationships when children first return so we've said that we're going to think about what provision they had before when they were with us thinking about formative assessment when they come in how are they doing in class and then using those work trackers to feed into what provision we're providing the first place to then look at further down the line doing some more assessment but once we've we feel confident that those relationships have been built that's got to be our priority and how are you going to know if you're getting this right like what are the checks and balances you've got in place to know that these kids are transitioning back in okay and that families are happy I think a lot of it will be about for the children particularly how are they expressing themselves and what is that showing us have we got children that are settled and calm and seem happy to be backing up provision and they settled and calm at school and at home our parents then see in the backlash when they get home at night so I think good communication is going to be key not just withdrawing these welfare calls once lockdown finishes but make sure that we've got a really open homeschool communication link so that we can see what's going on because we know for a lot of our children it's not that they're fine when they're in school but then because their main relationship is with their parent that's where they see the kickback after school so I think dialogue is going to be key making sure that we are monitoring what's going on so we have strategy banks for all our SEM learners that basically staff and the SEM team can feed into so this child does this this is what to try this is what it probably means that they're trying to show you and so making sure that we've got those ready for the children come back in and then we're amending them as and as and when we've also because we've kept in touch with families so well we've got a good idea of what has gone on for the child over the lockdown time so we know if there's been any bereavements in the family and we've addressed that through support that we do have in-house we know if they've struggled for money or food and we've addressed that through like I mean we've done food parcels throughout the lockdown. If your families tell you about that there's no kind of shame or worry there about being open about that. Do you know before lockdown I think there was a little bit of if I'm really honest families not always being honest about those things and the one thing I think that we've really learned from this and that I think has really helped us is that families have trusted us and have opened up and it's something I'm really keen to not lose when we go back in September. I mean at one point we were feeding 30 families and it was about 165 people some some big families and that has come down a little bit as people have been going back to work but these weren't these advantage families are families that were already receiving free school meals it was families where parents were working but were working paycheck to paycheck and as soon as that paycheck disappeared they had nothing so I'm really pleased that we seem to have got these welfare calls right and that people are comfortably opening up to us and can ask us for support. How do you think you did that so you said that was a bit of a change people have felt they could be more honest like is there anything you did that other people could learn from there? I think one of the key parts was making sure that that relationship was already in place so it was somebody familiar who was ringing somebody who wasn't strange who they'd not heard of before. To be honest there was a what to do document for the phone calls so I almost gave questions to hand the discussion around so it wasn't a script you didn't have to read from a script but there was a framework to follow not all members of staff were being trained in well-being and how to cope if somebody had been released and was very upset when they ran so there was a framework to follow and questions to ask and an open ended discussion to have and I think that guidance probably really helped as well people knew the questions to ask rather than just going in blind. Would you be happy to share that? Yeah of course yeah because like it sounds like something that would be really helpful for other people and that kind of getting that outreach right is really important and you mentioned earlier on about that you thought really carefully about who would be that kind of link person for each family and that it was sometimes you know someone like a learning support assistant how did you make those decisions on who should make those calls and how much difference do you think it makes? I think it was huge just in terms of once the parents had answered once and they knew who was going to ring and they knew then once we got that conversation we could say right I'm going to ring you on a Friday at this time just to check in and make sure you're okay. They expected that call I mean we found mostly remote ringing people were stuck inside on their own or just with their family and really appreciated having somebody else to talk to I mean we all remember two months ago it was boring and it got really hard being stuck in and not having anybody to talk to so lots of them just wanted to chat and really appreciated it. But in terms of kind of deciding we have by weekly several two weeks well-being team meetings so I'm the DSL in my school but I have six other trained DSLs and we form the well-being team and we come from a variety of backgrounds we've got a behaviour support worker we've got a qualified social worker there's another member of SLT there's the SENCo so there's lots of different people on that team that bring a variety of skills so we already have a tracker in those meetings for which families have had exclusions which have been alternate provision which are on preschool meals almost like a matrix of feed that doesn't always indicate when there's going to be child protection issues obviously but it indicates where there's a vulnerability within the family so that tracker enabled us to allocate out any families with a vulnerability in the first instance so those families were getting a phone call from a well-being specialist we then looked at our SEN children and making sure that they were getting a phone call from somebody within the SEN team preferably somebody with a trained specialist to their SEN need so that they could provide support and then for the the general children there was a look at behaviour and where there'd been issues with the work or behaviour previously the head of year ran and then everybody else would get a phone call from their form tutor so somebody who they already had a relationship with so I think because of the processes and systems we had in place previously it probably made it a bit easier for us than perhaps if you didn't already have that that built in school but it sounds like that you've really built on yes you've come from really sort of strong foundations of course but that actually perhaps those relationships and the way in which you sit in your community has shifted a little bit during this time in a good way yeah I'd agree yeah definitely and it's something I want to look to build on I think we're not quite sure exactly how September will look even though we've planned we can't plan for the unknown and I think it's something we need to keep as I said that dialogue open with families so that we can we can be more of the community hope if anything definitely not less and how about just thinking now a little bit about the children who have been in school so some of your kids have been in school throughout because they because they've got EHCP and they needed to be there or perhaps their children of key workers etc how are you supporting them with what's coming up in terms of change like do you have any worries about them or is it you know a non-concern for the children for some of those children they'll be absolutely fine and the children who have key worker parents but actually um a settled in provision have enjoyed the provision because it's a lot smaller and bespoke and will be okay there are a couple of children in there with autism who are going to need some support and for those children I mean I'll be I'm currently kind of part still at home and part at school so that when minimizing stuff at school but myself and the Senco will be in next week to work with those children around preparing them for the changes that are going to come and then they'll feed into the bigger package of preparing everybody for September and but I think starting that work now so they know that it's coming and thinking about worries and concerns I mean we talk about worry monsters I don't know for some of our children that works really well even still at secondary leaving your worries with the worry monster and being able to go and enjoy you some more pick up the worry monster in September and but it will be about making sure that timetable and that staffing is right in September even if they need a phase starting to school to make sure that we can make sure that that's as as calm and reassuring as possible really and is your school closing over the summer are you going to be open for key workers or you know we are closing um I think staff need a rest to be honest there's a lot of staff that have been in there since February without a break at all um and and staff are tired and I think to make sure that we can prepare properly we're going to need a break there will be skeleton support in terms of checking on essay and children and children who are looked after by my wellbeing team um but that will be the other thing I have done is the families that were hungry who we've been feeding we took a list of who's going to need some support over summer and one of the charities that was donating for me the lions in Bradford thank you to them I've offered to pack us food parcels in the holidays that one of our teachers is going to drop off with them so that we're making sure that nobody's left behind over summer wow that's incredible you've really thought of so much here and you must be exhausted I'm ready for a holiday but at the same time um it sounds really sad but in a lot of ways work is my life for me I really enjoy my job and I think if you enjoy your job it's not like work um the the amount of satisfaction that you get from being entrusted with other people's children for a certain amount of the day for me is is everything and so if we can get it right that's the reward in itself I'd love to hear a bit about you know why do you do what you do I mean you're clearly driven by way more than a paycheck right this is really deep for you so what what brought you here it's a funny story and there's probably a few things that feed into it I mean um personally I lost my dad when I was 11 he got diagnosed with lung cancer and it was three months from his diagnosis to him passing away it was very very quick um and if I'm if I'm brutally honest I was not very well behaved at secondary school and nobody ever asked why nobody I was quite clever and so I scraped through because I was lucky that academically I got an okay but nobody ever sat me down and said why what's going on and so I think that's where my professional curiosity comes from if I'm really honest I want to be that teacher that I didn't have that says why what's wrong um and then when I was 16 my mum uh qualified to be a foster carver she's fostered over 100 children she stopped two years ago she retired um but that's just that's just placements that's not including the best fight children she took um so a whole variety she um qualified right from babies right up to uh teenagers for a while she did specialist teenage placements so children who were deemed unable to stay in foster care and were going to be put in a children's home she took for 12 weeks to try and calm them and rehabilitate them and get them back into foster care so they didn't have to go to a children's home so she did a huge range of work and the biggest thing that we noticed was that sometimes she needed a rest and she needed a holiday but when she was accessing respite for the children it was a huge thing for them in terms of them feeling like they were rejected finding it very difficult to go or come back losing trust in her because she they felt like they were being left so when I was 21 um I applied to be a respite foster carver so that those children never had to go to another another placement or move house that my mum could have a rest um and I was one of the youngest people in the local authority at the time to be past as a respite foster carver so that stemmed from there not wanting the children to have to go anywhere else and then as part of those 12 week placements I'd finished university and was having a couple years out didn't really know what I wanted to do and one little boy came who was in year 10 at the time um school were about to kick him out he was attending some local authority uh looked after child provision at the time and they were trying to phase in back into school but he had um such disordered relationships and couldn't build trust and I just naturally couldn't we got on at home um and I offered to go into school with him I said I was waitressing at the time and I said I'm not working in the daytime I'm quite happy to go in and sit in lessons with him I've already got my DBS check um and his social work said yes the school said yes so I supported phasing him back into mainstream school and he eventually left with guys ACs at GCSE he got his his grades for next steps and they they I felt so much satisfaction from that I really enjoyed it I've never considered teaching ever couldn't imagine having enough patience but really really enjoyed that um so I went to work for uh an agency uh working in special schools and proves um as a key worker um so I worked in a variety of provisions I worked with children with profound disabilities profound autism who were non-verbal um and then I ended up in a BESD as it was called at the time unit um and they realized I had an English degree and I worked as a key worker then they had me teaching um they taught teaching English without a PGC and my thought all the way along was if I'm going to do this then I help these young people I need to get it right I need to have the qualifications to know that I'm doing the right things so I went back and did my teacher training uh two years after I had finished university um and then I went back into mainstream but with a view to always wanting to work past or like um with special educational needs or with children who were struggling at home so my DSL qualification I've been practicing for eight or nine years now um was really really important to me something I felt really passionate about so I've kind of had a strange journey into in teaching but it's it's quite interesting and I think it's a a driver for everything I do some of those foster children that we looked after I saw the impact of not having the right provision or people labeling them as naughty rather than picking what had gone in the background and how they could support it and I wanted to be the person they needed in school wow do you think you are I hope so I can't nobody can ever sit here and say that they get it right can they you can never get it right 100% of the time but I think if we are open to listening and trying the best we can and thinking outside the box and thinking what does that child need and how can I work around things to get to that point you need to be a bit of a problem solver and I always think you need to be really inquisitive you need to be not bothered to ask questions and think about why um that's probably the the things that help the most what do you kind of hope for for these you know the the various young people and I'm sure there must be some that kind of you know you you you have a deep interest in because they reflect kind of echoes of your your past what are your hopes for them is it about getting them through enough exams for the next step or is it wider than that I mean what what do you hope to do with them it's a balance and I think again this completely aligns with kind of the Dixon's way of thinking qualifications open doors there's no shine away from that they do and so if we can give them a really good education they're in a really good place to have their next steps in whatever way is appropriate for them be it college be at university be it an apprenticeship if they've got the qualifications they need for what they want to do we've done a good job but we always I want to raise nice people I want people who are kind and good citizens and thoughtful and I think it's definitely got to be a two-pronged approach of looking after people as people and their humility but also thinking about how can I open doors for this child because I would say my qualifications opened doors for me if I'd not had the support I had from my mum for the qualifications I got I wouldn't be sat here today doing what I'm doing and so it's got to be a balance of both for me if you were able to be yourself now to your you know secondary school self that that child who nobody stopped to ask you know why is this child perhaps not behaving as she might and reaching her potential what would you do how would you treat that child what would have helped oh this is a deep question isn't it sorry cat no it's fine and I come back to that that that why question I always spend time building relationships before I ask questions of young people because you're not going to talk to anybody you need to have that relationship first and I think that's really important so taking time to find out about the child outside of the classroom taking time to find out what they're interested in about their family about who's important to them about their likes and dislikes and then thinking about what's going on underneath all of that and a child is much like more likely I think to open up to you with the trust you and I think that was the the reason for my behaviour if you personally I put up a wall and a front to protect myself to make sure that nobody could get through I'll get past it if I was having outbursts or avoiding lessons and not going I wasn't there for people to ask it was definitely a wall and it's about unpicking that and breaking it down and and taking the time to do that where we can and it's all that stuff that comes outside of the classroom that's really important then to build that relationship and I think that's what I needed somebody to just take that time to take a step back and think what could be going on under all of this and was there anyone in your life at that time who got it more right than anyone else or did you feel a bit alone in it I mean I've talked about my mum already but my mum is a huge a huge inspiration for me I mean in a lot of ways she was she was very very strict when we were like well I thought this time I am an avid reader and it's because my mum hugely limited TV time we were only allowed to watch TV in the morning eating our savial and otherwise you were playing out or you were reading books so but then as as you know I lost my dad and she moves her to being this inspirational lady who looked after all these children I can't say I would not be doing my job if she'd not taught me the skills that I've got from seeing how she coped with those children and how she evoked change in their life you know she was she was brilliant and an absolute driving force behind everything I've done but apart from that I would say no and presumably I mean your mum was going through her own grief as well I mean that must have been I mean it was a it was a it was a very difficult time I can't even express my we'd always we'd grown up in in rented properties of moving around they just bought their own house but my dad had no life insurance my mum had never worked she'd always been a stay-at-home mum and to keep the house she had to go back to work full-time so at 11 I became a bit of a latchkey kid I had to pick my sister up from school come home learn how to cook to make sure she had some tea and it's still an unbreakable bond between us but it was also really hard for my mum because she had to she had to go back to work she had to get a job she had to worry about how to pay the mortgage I mean I can't as an adult now looking back understand how she shouldered all that responsibility and didn't break because what she went through um is just indescribable really um and and to come out of it just looking after all the people wanting to help them you know as a testament to her really incredible and what do you know what inspired that decision you said you were 16 when your mum became a foster carer yeah she'd always wanted to do it she'd said they'd they'd looked at the application before my dad died but then obviously she she had the loss of him and going back to work and she wanted to make sure that me and my sister were in a stable enough place that we could support the children and not be impacted on what had happened to them she also wanted my sister to be old enough and confident enough to talk about anything that might be going on so my sister's younger and she was 11 when she started and my mum never took children older than my sister um so that we could kind of build that as a family and grow as a family with what she was doing and you became the respite foster carer at 21 which seems I can't get my head around that like you were a child basically I mean they can't some of the kids you were looking after can't have been like hugely younger than you maybe in terms of I mean you must have grown up quite fast as a teenager yeah well if you bear in mind that my sister's five years younger than me and the children were always younger than her so um I mean at the time when children were left with me I don't think I had anybody other than about older than about nine or ten um she did a lot of babies and toddlers around that time I mean we joke she wouldn't spend on holiday for a week and I had a little girl that was two and a half and a little girl that was one and a half um and they looked beautiful and turned out and we went to months of toddlers and we went swimming I think I looked like I've been dragged through a head backwards it taught me a lot and and and helped me to but you're right to be interested with that responsibility um I think just I'd learned so much from her because we've had the children in the family for so long and it was definitely a family decision to have foster children we went through the assessment process together my mum had had tons of conversations with us about what it might mean for our family and how things might have to look different and what changes there might be and how the children might be when they came um but it was already the norm for us we were we were already part of that with her it definitely wasn't seen as her job it was seen as our family life together you lived separately at that time so the children would come to you no no I was still at home um so I finished university and moved home so they never had to leave their house I was still there so did your mum stay there then or would she go away for respite or how did that yeah so she'd go on holiday so I'd always have contact in terms of social workers if I needed any support or help and we have local family around us as well um I mean at the time family used to have to be assessed to babysit as well so there was lots of people and I had a good support network um but she might go abroad for a week and I would be in the family home looking after the children wow and when you decided that you wanted to kind of go through that process to be appointed as a respite uh foster carer was there kind of universal support about this or did you come across any barriers because you were young or anything like that not really we'd had a long conversation with my mum's support social worker about the children and how they were struggling and my mum was always short term placement so if they're not going to be there longer than two years it was a huge upheaval for them to have to move to mum and then to have to move somewhere else and it was all about mitigating that impact really and what we could do to minimize that as much as possible so we had lots of conversations we suggested it me and my mum had discussed it because I was already passed as a babysitter and I would look after them if she wanted to go out on the night or I felt confident in doing it I felt like I'd learn a lot from her and we thought it would be best for them if they didn't have to have the upheaval of going somewhere else it's an incredible thing to do and did you carry on doing that for a long time or whilst I was at home and for a little bit after that yes on and off as and when was needed really I mean even when I got married and I had my own house the children would always come on visit they were always welcome I mean we had one little boy who should have been short term but ended up staying for quite a long time a number of years and they become like siblings I couldn't imagine not having him to come to the house and to stay over and to come for his tea he was like my little brother and so it went on until she finished I mean the year she finished fostering she had a boy who was 15 and when he came she already had a holiday booked abroad for a week and my employer at the time was my previous school not the school I work at now but I was my head teacher had always been really supportive and knew what was happening and she let me adjust my hours for the week so that he could stay with me and I could drop him at school and pick him up rather than him have to go into respite so I think school have always understood that what we did outside of school was such good experience for what was happening inside of school that they were willing to support that I mean I can't tell you how useful it is as a designated safeguarding leading school to have worked as a foster care and to know how the system works from the other side and to know what happens around placements and foster care and eat each so useful to the job I do every single day and employers have always valued that and do you end up taking quite a key role with any kind of children looked after within your schools because of that experience does that sit within your remit too my previous school two years ago it definitely did but we had the highest number of looked after children in Bradford so my experience was really really useful at that school at my current school we've we've got one child so it's much much more minimal but previously I played a key part in liaising with our virtual school making sure we have the staff training in place around things like being attachment aware for example and trauma and how it infects the brain so he did previously and it was really really useful I would say not as much now just because of circumstance yeah and is there anything that you think that kind of everybody sort of needs to know and maybe doesn't always get right in terms of how we support looked after children children that are living in care I mean I think you can probably answer that question but as an icon for honest okay you've got you've definitely got the expertise there I mean I don't know what you'd say I'd I I talk a lot about um attachment and and those attachments and how the brain is developed when children are young and how when they're in a situation that might trigger them back to that young age and then we might see behaviors that seem like a naughty behavior but are the behavior the behavior is an expression of what's going on for that child at that time and the reaction to the trigger and how they express it um I mean what would what would you say a big question I'm not I think you're much better place to answer it than me because you've you know you've you've lived with and loved many many many children through care I mean I can answer it on a more theoretical level or my experience of you know fostering and then ultimately adopting my own daughter but I think you're in a better place to answer it than me I mean I think the thing that I would always suggest to people is that you know the need to provide that unconditional care to know that you're going to provide that consistency regardless of what's thrown at you and particularly actually if a child is pushing your way and kicking and screaming and shouting that's usually when you've got to really stay stay solid and still be there isn't it you've got to keep coming back yeah they've got to know that you are going to be the one person everyone else might have moved away and run away from their distress but if you can sit there through it I think that's really it's a little thing but I always say about not shouting I've got a huge policy I'm not shouting the fight or flight that it triggers in children um unless they are in severe danger and they're about to seriously hurt themselves I don't think there's ever a need really to shout at a child it triggers an awful response and unless you want to see a meltdown or a shouting back at you then it's a little thing but don't shout approach a situation and really calm quiet manner model what you want the child to show model that you're hearing you're listening narrate the situation for them so that they can hear what's going on because sometimes they can't see it but if you're talking them through it and they can hear it really calmly that helps them to process it um I would say probably the most important things at that point I also find that distraction works wonders so don't focus on that behaviour right now let's talk about this really nice thing that's happening next weekend and that's where relationships come in or let's talk about that really nice trip we went on last week or let's talk about what we're having for lunch because we really like today's lunch and we're excited about it so I think if you've got that relationship and you talk it already there's lots of little things at your arsenal to use but that that calm approach narrating the situation listening really really important that can be hard though can't it when you've got a child who is in distress and whether that's that you're upset on their behalf or you're you're angry and it's triggered something in you I mean you must have had lots of situations like that where you've got a kick kicking off and actually you feel that internal kind of fury building or your own anxiety I mean how do you manage that how do you be calm when you think it's a couple of things I mean we were laughing about it I can laugh about it now I wasn't laughing at the time I had a child in severe distress two weeks ago spent an hour shouting at me that I was a child torturer um for a number of things that had gone on previously to that I think it's really important that you've got a support network around you professionally so for DSLs particularly you should be having professional supervision but if you've not got professional supervision there should be some kind of system for support in school at our school we have coaching so once a week it can be around your teaching or it can be around something else that's going on for you professionally but you have a professional coach so you've got a space to have open dialogue about an area of your practice we've just been discussing that when we go back to school that coaching will have a two-pronged focus so one week it will be on uh your academic teaching learning one week it will just be about well-being because if we can't support staff fully they're not going to have the option to talk about what's going on for them and in turn that's they're going to make things as difficult for children so I think making sure that you you've planned on supporting staff fully I think making sure that you know the escalation techniques for that child particularly um and being able to think about what is going on for that child in the moment is really really important so whilst the child last week or the week before was calling me a child touch right I knew that I'd have to tell his mum that he'd been naughty the day before and not followed some instructions he'd been quite rude to a member of staff he'd thrown some food on the floor so we'd had a list of issues that we dealt with but I have to tell mum how we was doing um so I think if I can understand where that behaviour comes from and that he can't express himself in the same way that we would he can't tell me that he's unhappy with what I did or he can't tell me that he feels it's unfair it's hard to stay calm but if you can stay calm in that moment and have the systems afterwards to deal with your own support I think I know kind of this conversation with us came about because I was looking into trauma and attachment for returning to school and I think if you can look after your well-being and staff well-being first you'll then be able to look after others well-being if you don't look after yourself you can't look after everybody else so it's about going into those difficult situations in the best possible place yourself but also being able to almost step outside of it and know I'm feeling a certain way about this but right now this is what the child needs and later I'll deal with how I feel is that fair yeah yeah I'd say so yeah wow there's a lot in it I want to talk to you for like eight days or something but everything you say I'm like now I want to talk to you about coaching and yeah I one thing I do I kind of was thinking before about the things I wanted to ask you about and one of the things that really stood out for me when you shared a bit about your bio and kind of what you've done is that you've kind of worked up quite quickly and had sort of different roles and I wondered how much of that was motivated by having this desire always to kind of make more difference and have more impact and in order to do that that meant kind of gaining a new role going to a new place or is there something there about you know your personal sense of achievement or self-worth or something? I think mainly the driver is around evoking change in school I mean for me I can't quite believe that I'm I I openly say this to the children I can't quite believe that I'm setting the job I'm in doing the job that I do but I did make sure that the roles I was taking and the training and qualifications that I've done are all shaped around being a better professional and being able to do my job well I mean I was quite open when I sent you my bio that eventually my big dream is to have my own provision I think we've got too much of a gap at the minute between alternate provision and specialist provision and quite a lot of children in my opinion end up in alternate provision because they've had a lack of support and assessment and really if they need additional and different they should be in specialist provision and my dream is to have a hybrid where we can get the assessment of work for children that they actually need to make sure they've got the support they need long term so all my my work my qualifications the roles I've taken on have all been geared towards working towards that bigger dream and that bigger vision for getting things right on a bigger level if I'm really honest and so my job previous to this I said I worked in an alternative school so I worked in a three to 18 provision where at first I was single across the three to 18 provision and my role always spanned working across provision I mean by trade I'm a secondary specialist and I'm an English teacher and but I loved gaining that experience of being able to work with the smaller children as well so I think everything has been a conscious decision and a planned decision to work towards a bigger thing but my role from September in my current school is going to be very different because I have built a very unique skill set on purpose around safeguarding and around SCM because they're my passions and that's where I want to evoke change but to be able to do that on a bigger scale I need to be able to run a school so from September I'm going to be in charge of things like curriculum and timetabling and all the things that I've not done yet that are going to build those skills to allow me to be the best professional I can be how are you feeling about that and excited for the change apprehensive that I'm not as passionate about those areas but I also know that I like learning new things I'm a person who likes to learn new things and I probably that probably explains my career progression a bit I do a job for a year or two and then I'm like what else can I learn what else can I do how can I get better so I'm really excited to be learning new things having a new challenge looking at different areas in school and building that skill set that will allow me to run a school effectively and do you think that because you're coming very much with that kind of secnd and safeguarding kind of lens looking at those other areas that maybe you haven't focused in so much on before and that isn't necessarily like you know a natural fit one would assume do you think you're going to bring something new and different to those parts of the school that maybe hasn't been there before I think I wouldn't be able to help it I think it infiltrates every single thing that I do I mean things like our curriculum and our curriculum time those changes have come about this year as I'm moving into that role and I'm thinking about how can our curriculum offer be the most inclusive it could be whilst we're still trying to strive in for educational excellence for our children how can we make this better so I think I can I'll never leave my passion for SCM behind because I'm a firm believer that whatever we do for SCM children is only going to help everybody else so if we just make the provision as inclusive as possible it's going to promote everybody's progress and I don't think I'll ever be able to step away from that ideology so I think it will buy me to just infiltrate everything that I do and when are you going to open your school and where is it going to be tell me about your school or your provision I don't know what you would call my provision in my head I want it to be in Bradford because I don't think Bradford has the provision that it needs and I'm really passionate about making a change for the children of Bradford I've worked in Bradford now for nine and a bit years I mean I live in Leeds but I work in Bradford and I'm really passionate about getting a provision right for those children I mean I've got grand plans I want it to be an academic provision where children can get the qualifications that they need but that it's fully supported by things like having an on-site trained therapist having a social worker who can provide support and supervision I would like animals to provide animal-based therapy things like a dog or hands-on skills for small animals for a farm I'd like to offer a range of subjects both academic and holistic so that children have got options and so I think I've got I've got big ideas I won't do it until I know I'm ready to do it it wouldn't be the right thing to do until I know that I'm qualified and I can do a good job and do it justice for those children and would you run it as a free school or how what's the have you kind of thought about the detail yet or to be honest I have not in that much detail because I think it would depend on what the vision is for Dixons I'd like to stay with Dixons but I don't know what the plans are there in terms of provision in terms of legalities in Bradford and if you want to open a specialist provision there it's got to be supported by the local authority and the local authority will assign the children who come to the school and for me I think the school will need to start very small and grow rather than just have lots of children put in it and so we're opening under a local authority I don't think would help a school to flourish in that way so I think there's a lot of technicalities around opening provision and getting the opening right of provision and but the law and guidance doesn't necessarily lend itself to the most kindly no okay so we need to watch this space basically watch this space watch this space it sounds like a wonderful provision is there anything out there that's doing something similar to what you would imagine doing there's there's some schools that are getting lots of elements right I think there's nothing local to us that's doing what I want to do and I think that's where the gap in the market is I think down south there's there's better alternate provisions and over towards the northeast there's quite a lot of good specialist provision that there's nobody getting the academic results that I want to get for children whilst offering the holistic care that they need and I think that's where the gap in market is I don't I think people think that if children need support they can't achieve and I don't see why we can't have both hand in hand together if we get it right it's a brilliant it's a really brilliant vision to have and I I think your provision sounds amazing and I look forward to you know we'll I think we'll talk many times between now and then but I do look forward to hearing you know when it's opening and and how that's going to go and I would love to kind of end with just thinking practically about when we go back to wider reopening in the autumn lots of people are going to be doing slightly different roles than they might have done before because we're having to shift staff around and lots of people will be supporting children with special or additional needs that they might not feel fully prepared for because that transition process hasn't happened in quite the same way what would you kind of advise to someone who feels a bit uncertain about the children who are going to be in their care in the autumn if they've had to step up a bit or they've got different kids what what what advice would you give I'd say start early your preparation is key so find out as much as you can about the children you're going to be looking after speak to teachers that have taught them before and speak to their teachers that they're old school before if you can on teams or another remote remote way see if you can talk to parents see if you can go out and do a visit or have them in to visit you and go into it with an open mind think think about how what they might have gone through find out what they might have gone through or what they haven't gone through actually their lockdown might have been lovely and it might be a trauma coming back in school because they've had a really nice time at home for the last four months and just make sure you've found out as much as you can about that young person so that you've got an in road to build a relationship because school is about learning but we can't learn until we've got that secure relationship there so that's going to be key build that relationship first and as much information as you can in your armour is going to stand you in good stead for building that secure relationship so preparation is going to be absolutely key prep is key i think what closing thought would you like to leave people with you know i think my message is just children need us to be kind we just need to be kind and we need to be calm and even in the hardest moments when you're really tired and it's the middle of winter and it's raining to run from school and there's no light at the end of the tunnel and it's not even nearly half term step away take a breath have a piece of chocolate if you need to and just be kind