How to Hold on to Your Spoons

LWC’s Senior Head of Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Inclusion, Brigitte Wood is a big fan of the ‘spoons’ analogy.

 

The metaphor was created by Christine Miserandino, who has lupus, to illustrate how it feels to live with certain conditions.

 

The theory is that not everyone begins each day with limitless energy. Some start with a more finite amount (characterised by a number of spoons). As the day progresses, you use a spoon for each task you complete.

 

“You may have used a spoon in class,” explains Dr Wood. “You may have used a spoon at lunch. All of it is using your energy and so by the end of the day, if a child with ADHD or another form of neurodiversity has no spoons left, that’s when they can become dysregulated or in need of decompression time.”

 

The key it seems, is to hold on to as many spoons as you can.

 

The Summercombe Centre is LWC’s new-look learning support space. Designed to feel warm, welcoming and safe for the students using it, it should also offer a few tactics for spoon-keeping. Heading up the much-expanded SEN team is Brigitte, who arrived in the 1200 having spent 15 years as an educational psychologist for a local authority. It could all have been very different though.

 

“I did a psychology degree and was supposed to spend a year on placement doing risk assessments for oil field workers,” she reveals. “But it fell through at the last minute. My mum knew a teacher who needed a learning support assistant and so I did that instead. I was supporting people with Autism and dyslexia. An educational psychologist came in to deliver some training and I decided that’s what I’d like to do.”

 

Having undertaken the necessary teacher training and taught in a primary school for three years, Brigitte set out to achieve her goal of making a difference.

 

“I like working with children and young people,” she continues. “I think they’re brilliant. There’s such a joy to seeing them achieve and believe in themselves. I wanted to be able to support them, to make a difference. To help teachers to implement strategies or just to be that young person’s advocate, to give them a voice because sometimes that can get lost.”

   

“It’s important that students feel as though adults have listened. It’s also about the whole school embracing neurodiversity. It isn’t an add-on, but something that needs to be meaningfully understood with a holistic approach”

— Dr Brigitte Wood, Senior Head of SEN and Inclusion

 

Whilst working for a local authority allowed Brigitte to work across a wide variety of authority-run schools, she yearned to be part of a team working more closely with students and as a result, found herself applying to head up a new-look team at LWC. It’s a big job, with a large remit. From supporting students with Autism to ADHD, dyslexia to processing delays and everything in between. But Brigitte is clear in her mind about what success looks like, along with the surroundings for achieving it:

 

“Firstly, it’s about practicalities. How can we help a teacher to adapt their teaching to best support a young person in a way that meets the needs of everyone? It’s important that students feel as though adults have listened. It’s also about the whole school embracing neurodiversity. It isn’t an add-on, but something that needs to be meaningfully understood with a holistic approach. Do children feel safe and happy in school? If you don’t feel good about yourself academically, that often impacts how you see yourself, so we also need to tackle self-esteem.”

 

Drilling down into the detail of how SEN can impact on a student’s daily experience, gives an interesting insight into the strategies being put in place to help.

 

“Take a child who has ADHD, structuring transition times is really important,” Brigitte explains. “We look to reduce unstructured times (for example, break and lunch). They need downtime, but that’s also when they can become dysregulated. In lessons, we work with teachers on ‘scaffolding’ and try to factor in breaking things up so they can move around or do something different to keep their focus.”

 

The demand for SEN support across the country has never been greater. There has been a five-fold increase in the number of people waiting for an Autism assessment in England since 2019 and the 51% leap in prescriptions for ADHD medication gives an indication as to the rising numbers receiving a diagnosis or seeking treatment for one already given.

 

“I think there is greater awareness of neurodiverse conditions, which is good,” Brigitte continues. “But the support services have to be in place to help. It’s really important to help young people and their families. There are some real positives to neurodiverse thinking. That fixed mindset of being able to hyperfocus on something, the creativity displayed by thinking outside the box and the energy that some bring are all things to be valued.”

 

If putting the right kind of support in place is key, so too is doing it in a way that students feel comfortable with. “Teenagers don’t want to necessarily be different, do they?,” reflects Brigitte. “It’s a case of coming up with a strategy that might be helpful and asking how that would work for them.”

 

As for the whole-school, holistic approach, Brigitte knows this can often be borne out through surroundings. “At our recent Summercombe Open Morning, we gave parents a tour. This didn’t only focus on the centre, but we went to The Barn (LWC’s new Strength and Conditioning Suite) to see how exercise can help with supporting neurodiversity. We visited the new Library, a calm, safe space where some students might feel more comfortable going to at break times. We also have a sensory garden outside Summercombe, so we don’t work in a vacuum, this is a whole-school approach.”

 

And as for The Summercombe Centre itself? “This is their space and it’s a safe space. It’s somewhere they can be listened to and their voices heard.”

 

LWC’s Summercombe Centre