Parents' Special Needs Support Group
Latest News
- This is an invitation to all parents who would like to join us at a meeting of the Special Needs Parents Support Group. It’s a good chance to meet up with other parents going through the same things whether your child has been diagnosed with a specific condition or is just struggling at school or with behaviour problems. It’s an opportunity to share our thoughts and experiences over a cuppa and some biscuits.
- Meeting December 9th 2008: Many thanks to Mary Howard for explaining and demonstrating the basic elements of
Brain Gym to us. Mary first became interested in Kinesiology through having personal sessions herself. She developed an interest in Educational Kinesiology and used Brain Gym to great effect with primary school children in her class. An extract from her website explains what Brain Gym is:
Brain Gym is an educational, movement-based programme which uses simple movements designed to help integrate the information between the brain’s hemispheres, preparing the person with the physical skills they need to learn effectively. It can be used to improve a wide range of learning, attention and behaviour skills.
See her website for more details http://www.engagingbrain.com. - Special Needs Meeting Tuesday October 7th 2008: Julie Woods kindly took the time to tell us all about Speech and Language Therapy - and we all found it even more fascinating than we had anticipated! Julie was able to give us a good overview of normal and abnormal language and speech development, what her job entails, and some of the ways in which children can be helped. Many thanks Julie! We hope to book another speaker for our next meeting in early December.
Parents' Special Needs Support Group
Next Meeting:
TBA
Resources
- Advice, assistance, support and information - The OAASIS Website
- Attention Deficit Disorder Information and Support Service - The ADDISS website
- Educational Kinesiology - The Official UK Brain Gym Website
- A local network for Mums (or Dads!) - Netmums.com
- What it can be like to have a child with special needs - "Welcome to Holland"
Do you know of other reputable resources we can include links to? Please let us know: pta@pooleit.com.
Support Group Meetings
Dear Parent/Guardian,
As a parent of a child with mild special needs I am aware of the difficulties parents can face dealing with their children on a day to day basis and in understanding the whole special needs scheme within the school. Just hearing the words ‘special needs’ can be frightening to some parents.
For this reason I would like to invite you to a new group designed to help us parents.
I believe we all have useful information or our own strategies for dealing with particular
problems, whether at school or at home, which we could share with other families.
I would welcome parents of children who are simply struggling in one area and who are
following an Individual Educational Plan through to children who have been diagnosed
with a particular problem such as Dyslexia or ADHD.
I have spoken to Mr France and he is very supportive of the idea of a parent-led group. We hope to invite members of staff and other professionals or specialists as necessary in later meetings, but we would like the first meeting to be an informal opportunity for parents to tell us what they want from the group and what their concerns are. Some parents have already been contacted and we are grateful for their feedback. We would like to invite them, and all other interested parents/carers.
The first meeting will take place in the evening on Wednesday 5th March at 7.00pm. Entrance to the meeting will be via the front entrance of the school. For more information you can contact us by letter via the office or by email at pta@pooleit.com, and keep an eye on the PTA website lytchettmatraverspta.net for further updates.
I hope that this meeting will be of interest to you and that you will be able to attend.
Rachel Lucas (P.T.A. Special Needs Representative)
February 29th 2008
The aims of the group are:
- To help parents, children and staff to understand the specific needs of certain conditions (e.g. dyslexia, Asbergers, ADHD etc.)
- To help parents to understand the special needs system with the school.
- To facilitate communication between parents, children, special needs staff and teachers within the school.
- To understand what parents, children and staff would like the school to achieve regarding 'special needs'.
- To think about issues concerning parents with special needs.
- To help parents learn how to deal with children with certain conditions.
- To help parents to help their children when they are struggling at school, either academically or socially.
- To provide a welcoming social atmosphere where parents feel able to talk freely and to share their experiences and worries.
(By the way, when we say 'parent' we really mean 'parent, guardian or carer'. We hope no-one will take offence if we continue using the term 'parent' for the sake of brevity!)