I use encouragement and patience during every lesson but most especially in a SEN classroom. I work closely with every student, providing the individualised support and praise they require. I also make sure to include the family in planning and review and stay connected with them and specialist agencies involved, to develop and encourage the success of each student, both inside and outside the lessons. I have enjoyed and truly appreciate everything I have learnt from each child and each family with whom I have been fortunate to work. As well as providing sessions in person, I provide online live teaching sessions using a range of different platforms from Skype Zoom, IMO, Google classroom and WizIQ.
Student support SEN Subject Specialisms: Foundation English and Maths, Business, Key Stage 3 in (Literacy) English, Maths (numeracy), Functional skills in English and Maths, Geography, Citizenship/PSHE and RE. A ‘level -Sociology, Psychology and Health & Social care, Employability/ Life / Foundation skills, Language acquisition, Study skills, revision techniques and homework support. GCSE BTEC Levels 1-4 – Health & Social care.
My experience teaching young people who are non-verbal/have communication and speech and language needs; I have extensive working knowledge of teaching young people and adults from age 11 to 30 who have a wide range of communication and language needs. This experience has been developed from my role as a TESOL teacher. Special needs teaching, mainstream school teaching and private 1:1 support. I have experience with a wide range of learning difficulties, including working with non-verbal students, selective mutism and varying levels of Autism Spectrum Condition. This has equipped me with a deep understanding of tailored teaching methods and the importance of adapting strategies to meet each student’s unique needs. For example, using communication boards, or speech-generating devices to support non verbal students. Creating a nurturing environment with visual aids like pictures, symbols, and diagrams helps to support communication and comprehension confidence in students.
My Functional Skills tutoring sessions: I am very experienced in teaching functional skills in English, Maths and ICT and equipping students with the practical skills needed to live, learn and work successfully. I am very patient and skilled at breaking down sections so that students of all abilities can access all parts of the course. I teach across five levels (Entry 1 to Level 2) and varied ages from teenagers to adults. I work with my students to design a tailored Functional Skills learning plan to suit their needs and carry out skill assessments. The lessons are creative, engaging and interactive, with fun tasks to make sure the student is learning.
My experience teaching study skills and independent learning: I help students to understand potential barriers to their learning, and how to overcome them so that they can answer questions, complete work effectively and become a better learner have successful outcomes. Together we create strategies to help the student overcome the challenge to interpret and answer questions. They learn techniques to break questions down to make them more manageable and use a marking scheme then to answer questions effectively. The students then use these strategies to help them become more organised, with planning and gives them control and ownership over their own learning.
My experience in coaching and mentoring students and young adults: I have helped many students/ young adults over the last 20 years get back on track and to gain a better work ethic and find it satisfying to see them reach their goals. I do this by helping them:-
• Deal with difficult or embarrassing issues so they discover their potential, Set goals to reach and help to improve family dynamics. I give them the opportunity to talk about difficult subjects, such as bullying and relationships and this encourages them to see the world from a fresh perspective.
• Help them to begin to set (healthy, spiritual and educational) goals for self-improvement
• Coach them on how to handle and manage emotions.
• Give them support of from an objective and non-judgemental mentor.
• Build their confidence and social skills .
I also provide Interview coaching to help them stand out from the crowd and teach them how to create a good CV and write a cover letter. We work together on creating a set of attainable goals and a plan of action and if requested build up their confidence for public speaking. I also help them manage their anger by illustrating a range of techniques, i.e. breathing, counting down, time out, yoga and meditation.
My experience working with students with focus and concentration challenges: I provide different fun learning tasks that provide my students the basic skills of Literacy including reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Students and I discuss the topics they find interesting and this is used these to create fun and effective activities for learning. It helps the student to engage in lessons and gives them a sense of self control and achievement. In one to one session, I used books on athletics to support a student with their reading and this really helped because they were immediately interested and helped with their concentration and writing skills.
My experience working with students with autism: I have lots of experience working with children with a range of levels of autism especially High functioning Autism on an individual basis. I develop a plan of action and materials to support the student’s progress while creating safe, stimulating, and supportive environment for my student . My approach is to use short (easy to remember) sentences and keywords and support oral actions with visual references: Repeat pairing of words with pictures / objects / routine activities. Using observation to record behavioural patterns – what ticks with them and what doesn’t and focus on appropriate replacement behaviours and use improvisation to model what the child should say rather than asking direct questions. I then break up activities into a sequence of smaller steps based on the young person’s interest to plan activities and use a reward system.
My experience supporting children with demand avoidance behaviour and other behavioural/emotional needs: I have lots of experience teaching students with demand avoidance and other behavioural needs. The students I have taught display this through physical reactions to an activity, inappropriate verbal responses, refusal to respond and or eating issues. To help to reduce this I think ahead and anticipate what might be tricky, identify triggers so strategies are put in place in advance. I use these to give students advance notice which gives them a sense of being in control and some processing time. Additionally, I incorporate humour and the specific student’s interest to create visual timetables, this helps them to feel a sense of independence, choice and reduce their overall anxiety.
My experience developing Social skills: I have helped to develop social skills with lots of children and young adults in my role as a secondary teacher and as a Youth Life Coach. I use a variety of techniques to boost their social skills, for example, positive reinforcement; using behaviour specific praise, to shape positive social behaviour. We work together on friendship building, effective listening, appropriate language, empathy, relationship management, conflict resolution skills and respect. I model social interaction, turn taking and mutual dependence so that they have a life skill example. The use of videos and role play are used in my lessons to present and learn context clues, verbal and physical social skills. Alongside this, I break down social skills into small parts and teach them through supported interactions – games, play, greetings. I celebrate their successes with verbal, physical and visual rewards.
My experience teaching Business Studies: I have over 5 years of experience teaching Business studies, both GCSE and vocational courses so can support with both exams and coursework. These are BTEC Business Level 1, 2 and 3 Edexcel and AQA GCSE Business and Cambridge IGCSE. My main focus in lessons is improving answers and using real life scenarios where the student has to think and progress every lesson. I am an extremely friendly person who seeks to build relationships with students in order to get the best outcomes. I have also run my own social enterprise/ business, so I can offer my students real-life examples of how businesses are run. I plan my lessons to identify gaps in knowledge and understanding. Once these gaps have been filled, I move onto to build the students confidence in exam skills. My passion is to help develop confidence in young people both academically and their emotional wellbeing.
My tutoring experience with Dyslexia: I have taught students with dyslexia in a classroom situation as well on a to one to one basis. I have had training to devise learning programmes to develop the skills of dyslexic students using ICT and have found my students felt empowered and enjoyed the activities and lessons I created for them. Multi-sensory learning is used to work on the skills that my students need to develop, these being -processing, spelling, memory, planning, organisation, writing skills and proof-reading. I use these techniques with a range of the different subjects I teach, and my students have found them easy and fun to learn.
My ICT, Digital Media, and I Media tutoring experience: I have over 20 enjoyable years’ experience designing , planning, and teaching a range of ICT/I Media programs. These start from beginner levels, primary key stage 1-2 , Key stages 3-5 including ICT IGCSE Examination, Cambridge national Coursework, BTEC ICT Level 1-5 and A ‘Level.
Digital skills, Creative I Media, DIDA are my favourite ICT courses to teach because they provide students with essential knowledge, transferable skills, and tools to improve their learning in other subjects as well as encourage independence and creativity. My students learn to create digital Graphics, 2D/3D characters, Storyboards, comic strips, and short animations. They also build multimedia websites, Interactive multimedia products, edit sound files and video files.
One of my favourite projects is to create blogs, videos, podcasts, and snapchats for citizenship/PSHE lessons and then get my student to come up with their own, using easily accessible account online which I help them create. I use varied teaching methods, one of these is setting individualized target for all students by identifying aspects of learning engage my students and implementing them when I plan a Scheme of work and any activities. This encourages learning and builds their self-esteem.
My PSHE and Citizenship tutoring experience: I have taught PSHE and Citizenship to Key stage 2 through to Key Stage 4 in mainstream education/ SEN schools and one to one tutoring sessions for the last 10 years. In the last few years, I have set up a social enterprise to help address some of the world’s problems and tackle barriers to learning, raise aspirations, and improve the life chances of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. I incorporate current issues into my learning programmes so that my students can relate to them and find topics that they are interested in and encourage thinking out of the box. Some of the subjects covered are Self-awareness, emotional wellbeing, Moral and spiritual development as well as looking at relationships in Family, friendships, and conflict resolution. Using discussion, research, and different ICT tools the students explore the world and develop the knowledge, skills, and attributes they need to manage life’s challenges to make the most of life’s opportunities.
ICT, Digital media and computing expertise : GCSE ICT, GCSE Computer Science/Studies, IGCSE in ICT, Cambridge National in ICT and Creative I Media. Key stage 1-5 ICT, GNVQ, DIDA, AIDA, A ‘level ICT, A ‘level Applied ICT, Digital Skills, BTEC IT Level 1, 2,3 and 4. ICT and Entry Level.
An overview of how I work with students:
- Teaching Literacy and Numeracy through a multi-sensory, immersive and creative learning approach integrating music, drama, art and performance into sessions with young people on the Autism spectrum, Down Syndrome and other trisomy’s/ chromosomal abnormalities.
- Providing comprehensive academic support in person and online to young people with diagnosed learning and sensory disabilities i.e. Down Syndrome and/or ADHD and executive functioning deficits.
- Supporting across general subjects -English, History, ICT, Math, Science, with a focus on literacy skill development. Teaching the basics to higher order reading comprehension skills (i.e. phonological awareness, decoding, reading fluency, comprehension, inferencing skills, etc).
- Analysing the macrostructure/microstructure of texts with young people, discuss themes/messages, make connections etc.
- In terms of writing, working with young people on summarizing (identifying main idea/details), structuring multi-paragraph outlines/essays, and producing/ dissecting different types of writing styles/text styles (i.e. literary techniques, persuasive writing vs. expository writing).
- Demonstrate and reinforce social standards of behaviour – Establish norms of class behaviour and maintain order. Consult with parents, professionals, administer and produce individualised programs for young people.
- Extensive experience managing student behaviour, through student celebrations and achievements, customised management for individuals; and differentiated learning practices, to accommodate different learning styles.
- Implement different special-education methods – Reinforce skills such as independence, problem solving, and goal setting.
- Advise and monitor children in the use of new learning materials and teaching equipment.
- Identify warning signs of emotional and developmental problems in children
- Implemented behaviour modification and incentive plans for young people.
Curriculum Development
-
- Design tailored curriculum documents and teaching programs, keeping in mind young people’ levels and goals.
- Identify and adapt teaching resources to meet the varying needs of children with different learning abilities, learning agilities and special education needs.
- Using Extensive experience and knowledge of developmental practices and educational theories design online curricula, using digital videos, audio clips and learning tasks aligned to educational programmes.
- Design Initiate, organise and implement creative instructional programs, to adapt the learning environment so that children feel encouraged to fulfil their academic potential.
- Constant desire to raise English language level of young people.
- Plan, prepare class materials and employed various teaching methods in class to create an environment where children are actively engaged in the learning experience. – Lecture, demonstration, discussion, active learning spaces, blended and online, brainstorming, case studies, debates, discussion, flipped classroom, group work, questioning simulations, diverse groups.
- Research and utilise a variety of learning materials, resources and technology methods, such as: Internet-learning, library, team learning, to support and develop the classroom environment.
- Efficiency with MS Word, Excel, Outlook, files archiving and electronic reports and eLearning approach.
