Latest Webinar - How to support children with SEND and Neurodivergent Conditions

Let's reject this idea that all children are traveling down the same developmental pathway and let's embrace the messines of human development.
(Kerry Murphy, SEND & Neurodiversity in Practice, Tales Toolkit webinar)

In our latest webinar, we look at the thorny issue of rising special needs diagnoses in early years. Our guest, Kerry Murphy, is an associate lecturer at Goldsmiths University and founded Diverse Pathways to help train and educate early childhood practitioners with supporting neurodivergent children.

Early education settings are seeing a huge rise in children arriving into nursery with a diagnosis. There are many reasons for this and it's a trend we're seeing in wider society too. Regardless of that broader context, there is increasing pressure on educators in classrooms who are being asked to do more with less.

Inclusion is being made to seem increasingly contradictory. Children are being taken out of classes to do interventions and are being treated differently because they've been given a label. Kerry Murphy talks about this issue in detail and passionately advocates for an approach that can support individuals and the entire nursery community - because a nursery is a community too!

Inclusion is meant to be expansive. It's meant to be continually getting wider and wider as we learn more about what it is to be human.
(Kerry Murphy, SEND & Neurodiversity in Practice, Tales Toolkit webinar)

Kerry also challenges us to think about how we define play and reflects on her own change of perspective. Are we too narrow in our idea of what play "should" look like? In her work, Kerry saw that neurodivergent children often found engagement and joy in ways that neurotypical children did not. It might not look like our idea of play, but if we're seeing joy, connection and engagement, what else could it be?

I've been doing alot of work recently with people around learning through play and how that can sometimes be a really troublesome narrative; that for play to be valued, you have to be learning through it and actually you don't. It can be rest, it can be regulation, it can be pointless.
(Kerry Murphy, SEND & Neurodiversity in Practice, Tales Toolkit webinar)

The reality is that we are working in a system that is trying to monitor and control the development of children. Kerry believes that the system itself needs to be completely reimagined.

‍

Watch for Free

Watch this webinar for free until Tuesday 3rd February 2025. Subscribed members have full access to all our past webinars, but anyone can create a free account to get access to new webinars every month!

‍

Related Webinars from our Back Catalogue

The Power of Play - Changing Children's Lives with Ben Kingston-Hughes

Ben has an ADHD diagnosis himself and talks passionately about the role of neurochemistry in play as a driver for development and connection.

‍

Wellbeing in Practice - For Children and Teachers with Jenny Mosley

Kerry touches on the significant pressues that teachers are under as a result of this rise in SEND support. To learn more about ways to support the entire setting's ecosystem (teachers included!), watch this webinar from Jenny Mosley.

‍

Hitting the Target and Missing the Point with Sue Palmer

If you're keen to hear more from people working to change the system to better support everyone, Sue Palmer from Upstart Scotland is the one for you!

‍

Where's the Joy? Discussing the EYFS Profile with David Wright

More on the topic of systemic change here, as David Wright highlights the ways in which our current curriculum is restricting the creativity and intuition of teachers.

‍