Supporting Pupils
GTCS – Additional Support Needs and the Professional Standards
In the Professional Standards for Teachers 2021, there is specific recognition of Additional Support Needs. The document linked to above gives an overview of the places where Additional Support Needs are specifically mentioned.
Reach website – to help young people understand their rights to extra support in school:
Reach is Enquire’s service for young people
Enquire website: Children’s rights to extra support with their learning:
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Education Scotland: Trauma support for children:
(Education Scotland’s resource intended for practitioners who are teaching at the upper primary stages but could also be useful for those who are teaching at mid primary stages or early secondary. )
NHS Health Scotland – short animated information guide to ACEs (4 minutes 16)
NHS Health Scotland – ACEs
NHS Health Scotland organised this conference with Education Scotland and the Scottish Government.
This event was attended by strategic leads at local authority and senior managers at school level as well as public health and health improvement colleagues.
You can use the above link to access presentation materials by a number of those involved including:
Dr Linda de Caestecker, Director of Public Health, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Chair of the Scottish ACEs Hub
Professor Sir Harry Burns, Professor of Global Public Health, University of Strathclyde
Alyson Francis, Director, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Support Hub, Cymru Well Wales
Darren McGarvey, Rapper, Social Commentator and Author of ‘Poverty Safari’
Breakout Presentations:
Renfrewshire Nurturing Relationships Approach: An educational approach to supporting adverse childhood experiences and building resilience – Amy Nolan, Sandra Menary, Ciara Briggs (Educational Psychologists) and Claire McLaren (Our Lady of Peace Primary School)
Towards the Nurturing City: education as a vehicle for tackling poverty, addressing ACEs and building resilience – Alison Crawford, Principle Educational Psychologist, Maura Kearney, Deputy Principle Psychologist and Nancy Cluny, Head Teacher
Building resilience in the school environment – Jen Myddleton, Development Officer, Health and Wellbeing, Edinburgh City Council and Dr Adam Burley, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, NHS Lothian
Links between speech and language, attachment, literacy and reducing the impact of ACEs – James McTaggart, Educational Psychologist and Rebecca Castelo, Speech and Language Therapist, Highland Council
The Dundee Approach to addressing ACEs – Sarah Anderson, Education Support Officer for Health and Wellbeing at Dundee City Council and Dr Tamasin Knight, Consultant in public health, NHS Tayside
‘Flipping the thinking’ on poverty and its impact on children’s outcomes – Dr Morag Treanor, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Stirling
Dr Suzanne Zeedyk’s Connected Baby resource
Dr Suzanne Zeedyk is a developmental psychologist fascinated by babies’ inborn capacity to connect. She was, for 20 years, a research scientist based at the University of Dundee. In 2011 she founded an independent training enterprise, which allowed her to work more closely with the public, helping them to understand the discoveries science is making about the importance of relationships in all our lives.
Dr Nadine Burke Harris TEDMEDTalk
(15 minutes)
Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. An impassioned plea for pediatric medicine to confront the prevention and treatment of trauma, head-on.
Pupil Inclusion Network Scotland
The above link is to resources made available by PINS including information on GIRFEC, child poverty and child protection.
Dyslexia Unwrapped, the online hub for young people with dyslexia
Dyslexia Unwrapped
Three linked courses written by the Addressing Dyslexia Toolkit and Dyslexia Scotland with the support of the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Project. All three courses use the General Teaching Council Scotland’s focus areas identified to support professional learning.
short Dyslexia courses
National Autism Implementation Team: Supporting Autistic Learners Returning to School: https://www.thirdspace.scot/nait/covid-19-return-to-school/
Transitions
A Q&A published by the GTCS about research into pupils with learning differences transitioning from secondary to tertiary education. However, some of the information is highly relevant to secondary school experience too. (Jasmine Miller and Sarah Strachan)
http://www.gtcs.org.uk/News/news/a-difficult-transition-your-questions-answered.aspx
The Principles of Good Transitions 3 provides a framework to inform, structure and encourage the continual improvement of support for young people with additional needs between the ages of 14 and 25 who are making the transition to young adult life.
Principles of Good Transition
The Salvesen Mindroom Centre – guide to learning difficulties
It takes all kinds of minds, provides an insight into a number of learning difficulties, including ADHD, autism, dyslexia and Tourette syndrome. The guide helps teachers to identify these learning difficulties and includes practical advice on how to provide support in different contexts.
The Salvesen Mindroom Centre delivered by The University of Edinburgh in partnership with The James Lind Alliance has published a report presenting the findings from their project, Research Priorities for Learning Difficulties.
The report aims to provide funders, researchers and scientists with ten research questions to explore with regards to learning difficulties. These questions were identified and prioritised by children and young people with learning difficulties in Scotland, their parents and carers and the professionals working alongside them.
CALL Scotland
Communication, Access, Literacy and Learning
CALL Scotland – posters and leaflets
For example: Addressing Reading Difficulties: A practical guide
Available here:
Pupil Inclusion Network Scotland
The above link is to resources made available by PINS including information on GIRFEC, child poverty and child protection.
Education Scotland – Additional support for learning
Autism Toolbox
The Autism Toolbox website is brought to you by the Scottish Government in partnership with the national charity, Scottish Autism with support from Autism Network Scotland.
| Free resources to support literacy difficulties |
 Reading and Writing circles support teachers’ gain an understanding of how the literacy skills have developed for the child or young person who they are working with. The circles can be used in primary and secondary sectors and may be beneficial EAL and adults. The circles provide:
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Dyscalculia
Dyscalculia – Education Scotland resources
The above link provides the 2022 Scottish Working Definition for Dyscalculia and accompanying information and resources.
Route map: Career long progressional learning for dyslexia
Supporting Learners: the education of learners newly arrived in Scotland
Supporting the education of looked after children with uncertain immigration status
