Deall iechyd meddwl a lles mewn addysg / Understanding mental health and wellbeing in education
Cwmni ymchwil wedi’i leoli yng Nghaerdydd ydym ni sef SRI a rydym ni’n gweithio gydag Education Support, elusen sy’n wedi ymroi i gefnogi iechyd meddwl a lles athrawon a staff addysg ledled y DU. Er mwyn i’r elusen allu cefnogi athrawon a staff yn y sector yn well, rydym wedi cynllunio arolwg byr yn benodol […]
Oracy assessment: principles and practicalities
Oracy is set to become part of the national curriculum in England for primary and secondary schools. But what does that mean for assessment? This webinar discusses some of the principles of oracy assessment such as assessing oracy skills themselves and also assessing curriculum subjects through oracy, including formative assessment. The second part of the […]
From the editors
Georgina Durrant, SEND specialist and author; Strategic Lead for Inclusion, Twinkl, UK This edition arrives at a pivotal moment for education and inclusion in England. A new Secretary of State for Education, an updated Ofsted inspection framework with an increased emphasis on inclusion, and the government’s proposals for reforming the special educational needs and disabilities […]
Making the invisible visible: Using executive function as a framework to enable inclusive practice
NICKI WISE, PHD STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF HULL, UK; HEAD OF DIGITAL LEARNING, GEORGE HERIOT’S SCHOOL, EDINBURGH, UK Across the UK, the number of students identified with additional needs continues to rise, with policy frameworks emphasising inclusion for all. While information about these needs is often fragmented or absent altogether, support structures frequently remain tied to formal […]
Supportive unmasking: Why professional development in schools must prioritise girl-focused research on neurodiversity
EMILY RUSHTON, SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF WEST LONDON, UK Introduction Historically, teachers have identified neurodivergence through externalising behaviours. This means neurodivergent girls often go unnoticed because they are better at masking their traits. However, recent research by McKinney et al. (2024) shows that adolescent girls find masking to be the most exhausting […]
High-TEMPO teaching and learning: Strengthening the universal offer to improve outcomes for students with SEND
Daniel Gent, Deputy Headteacher, Chipping Norton School, UK Introduction Chipping Norton School (CNS), an average-sized, fully comprehensive school in West Oxfordshire, has secured improved outcomes for its students with SEND by prioritising teacher development in five areas: Task design, Explanation, Modelling, Practice and Oracy. Implementation Prior to the launch of High-TEMPO in 2018/19, typical practice tended […]
Falling through the gaps: Autism, ‘emotionally based school avoidance’ and misrepresentation of need
OWEN MATTHEWS, FLEXIBLE EDUCATION, PETERHOUSE SCHOOL, UK; AUTISM INITIATIVES, SOUTHPORT, UK Introduction National figures show that students with SEND have far greater rates of absence than those without, with severe absence markedly higher among students with an EHCP (education, health and care plan) than among those without identified SEND (DfE, 2025). What is commonly referred to […]
How can we better understand learners with SEND?
Alex Galvin, Senior Education Lead, SSAT (The Schools, Students and Teachers Network), UK The increased focus on inclusion and adaptive teaching has prompted much discussion about the practical steps that teachers might take to enable all learners to thrive. The reality is that it will always be challenging to support the progress of children with […]
Compact guide – Students with cognition and learning needs: The role of language in on-the-spot formative assessment
DR AMELIA ROBERTS, HEAD OF PSYCHOLOGY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT, UCL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, UK Setting the scene Black and Wiliam (cited in Wiliam and Leahy, 2024) highlight the importance of designing lessons that enable on-the-spot observation to build a rich and detailed understanding of students with cognition and learning needs (CLN), to enable scaffolding […]
Compact guide – ADHD in the classroom: What can I do to support my students?
Abby Russell, Associate Professor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, University of Exeter Context Many children and young people show patterns of challenge in paying attention, regulating activity and impulse control that are commonly described as ADHD, and large-scale studies suggest that in a typical classroom at least one or two students would meet criteria […]
When movement becomes thinking: Rethinking ADHD in the maths classroom
OLIVER JOHN VELLA, DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS, KING’S COLLEGE SCHOOL, WIMBLEDON, UK Introduction Supporting neurodivergent learners has become an increasingly central part of my classroom practice, particularly in my Year 9 bottom-set maths group, where several pupils present with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a neurodevelopmental condition involving differences in attention, inhibition and self-regulation. Over time, I […]
Compact guide – Autism in the classroom: Evidence-informed strategies for inclusive teaching
DR ANNA COOK, LECTURER IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF SURREY, UK What does the research say? Autism is a lifelong form of neurodivergence that shapes how a person communicates, processes sensory information and experiences the world around them. Around 3.2 per cent of students in England have autism recorded as their primary type of special educational […]
Compact guide – Supporting students with speech, language and communication needs through adaptive teaching
AMY LOXLEY, LEAD SPEECH AND LANGUAGE ADVISOR, SPEECH AND LANGUAGE UK Setting the scene Speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) are challenges with talking and understanding words that can affect how students understand what is said to them, express themselves and interact with others. Research tells us that 7.6 per cent of students – on average, […]
Let’s talk about oracy: Why oracy matters when planning for cognition and learning needs
ALISON TWINER, SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, CAMTREE, HUGHES HALL, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, UK PETE DUDLEY, CEO, CAMTREE, HUGHES HALL, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, UK PATRICK CARMICHAEL, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CAMTREE, HUGHES HALL, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, UK REBECCA STOTT, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, TWINKL, UK NICOLA ROMAINE, NATIONAL ENGLISH LEAD, TWINKL, UK Context and challenge Research now embedded into policy through the Curriculum and Assessment […]
Compact guide – What every teacher needs to know about developmental language disorder (DLD)
STEPHEN PARSONS, SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPIST, THINKING TALKING, UK Setting the scene Spoken language is the lifeblood of the classroom. It is how students engage with learning and form social relationships. It has direct impacts on literacy, learning, social relationships and mental wellbeing. Students who face ongoing challenges with spoken language may meet the criteria for […]
Compact guide – Building words and worlds: Vocabulary and knowledge in the inclusive classroom
JOHNY DANIEL, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DURHAM UNIVERSITY, UK Context How many words students know and how well they know them are central to reading comprehension (Beck et al., 2013). Yet comprehension is not a free-floating skill that transfers across any text; it is dependent on what a reader already knows. In one study (Kaefer et al., 2015), […]
A curriculum-focused supplementary literacy intervention for secondary students with reading difficulties
Johny Daniel, Associate Professor, Durham University, UK Introduction Many students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are one to two years behind their peers in reading by the end of primary school (Daniel, 2025). As students transition into secondary school, the texts they encounter become increasingly complex, requiring them to decode multisyllabic words, draw […]
Compact guide – Supporting pupils with dyscalculia in mainstream classrooms
DR KINGA MORSANYI, READER IN MATHEMATICAL COGNITION, LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY, UK Setting the scene Dyscalculia is a specific learning disability characterised by persistent and severe difficulties in learning and understanding maths. It affects around six per cent of the population, meaning that most mainstream classrooms are likely to include at least one student with dyscalculia. Dyscalculia is […]
From concrete to confident: Supporting a learner with dyscalculia through a CPA-based mathematics intervention
DR TAREK EL BABA, Mathematics Educator, Dar Al Fikr Schools, Saudi Arabia; Researcher, Makassed University of Beirut, Lebanon Introduction During my career as a maths teacher, I have repeatedly encountered learners who believed that maths was something they simply ‘could not do’. In many cases, they were not lacking effort or ability, but had developed gaps […]
Compact guide – Supporting the inclusion of children and young people with vision impairment
DR RACHEL HEWETT, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CO-DIRECTOR OF VISION IMPAIRMENT CENTRE FOR TEACHING AND RESEARCH, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM, UK Context Children with vision impairment are a low-incidence yet high-needs group. They are also heterogenous – a wide range of conditions can affect vision in various ways, such as peripheral vision loss, central vision loss, […]