Conversations about special educational needs are already tough and I predict they are about to get even more difficult. Two opposing paradigms are on a collision course. The first holds that devel…| Ben Newmark
A few years ago, in the Golden Era of Edu-Twitter, Berny Andrews and I suggested the Department of Education needed a team of philosophers. We were only half joking. Very often the success or failu…| Ben Newmark
Six years ago, my wife and I learned our then one-year-old daughter Bessie had been born with a rare genetic condition called Williams Syndrome – it’s fascinating and you should look it up. It means with some very distinctive and charming personality features, Bessie lives with a life-long learning disability. This is not something gone […]| Ben Newmark
AI is stalking the world for problems it can present itself as the solution to – problems you did not even know you had. It will organise our calendars and write emails to our bosses and employees. AI will paint our pictures and script our film. It will write our poetry and letters to our […]| Ben Newmark
My final point is – I hope – the logical culmination and expression of the previous four. Inclusion is primarily the business of classroom teachers and nobody can do it for them. While the superstructure around inclusion can obscure this it does not make it any less true. “Inclusion” can’t be done by a SENDCO […]| Ben Newmark
This is Part 4 of a series on making classrooms more inclusive. Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here. Children do not have SEND in the same way unwell people receive a diagnosis. They are assigned the label for many different reasons in many different ways, and there are […]| Ben Newmark
This is part 3 in a series of 5. Part 1 can be found here, and Part 2 here. Designing any system perfectly meeting everyone’s needs is impossible because the interests and preferences of individuals are often opposed to each other. Trying to meet them all usually means nobody getting what they need. The most […]| Ben Newmark
In 1429 a French peasant with no military experience led an army against the Anglo-Burgundians, driving them from their bastion and forcing them to retreat across the Loire River. At the age of thi…| Ben Newmark
We all know teachers should have high expectations of pupils. Teachers who think their pupils can learn and do lots set more challenging work than those doubting their capacities and this leads to …| Ben Newmark
It is hard to talk about things when people don’t have a shared understanding of the words they use, and words usually don’t mean anything on their own – terminology is only given meaning thr…| Ben Newmark