Rebound Therapy Training Courses

Rebound Therapy has a huge number of benefits for children and adults across virtually the whole spectrum of disabilities. The ReboundTherapy.org team of tutors provide accredited training courses throughout the UK for: Teachers, TAs, care staff, physiotherapists, OTs etc. The course includes training in planning, measuring and recording progress, and providing evidence of outcomes.

For further information, or to arrange course, please contact us at: email: info@reboundtherapy.org or visit our website at: www.reboundtherapy.org

50 Music & performing arts

Teacher recruitment crisis

With an unprecedented rise in the cost of supply cover, costing hundreds of millions per year, schools in England are looking at how Scotland and Northern Ireland have been developing large-scale recruitment drives to address the toll of the sector's shrinking workforce. This has been adopted as an initiative at the start of 2023 in Wales, moving to a similar approach in order to cope with the large number of schools and trusts that continue to struggle with finding temporary staff.

It has become clear that schools are increasingly reliant on supply staff, not only due to sickness absence, but also with a crisis in recruitment and retention. This high rate of turnover in teachers creates instability for pupils and thus, as identified recently by the University of Bristol, needs addressing in order to ensure a strong national education system.

A recent interview with Paul van Walwyk, director for schools at the Eden Academy Trust, in Schools Week, highlighted the feeling that the sector is not valued and school leaders are calling for more training bursaries and recruitment campaigns aimed at this sector. schoolsweek.co.uk/special-schools-bear-brunt-ofrecruitment-crisis

Doncaster: funding award for early years

Arts Council England's Place Partnerships Programme, supported by Doncaster Council, has awarded more than £425k to a consortium made up of dance, drama and music professional bodies in the area, alongside Early Years staff.

This will build on established creative approaches, working with four nurseries and schools as well as four family hub settings in the area and responding to an identified need to support very young children's development in terms of behaviour, listening skills and personal, social and emotional development.

A programme of early years activities will include creative play and movement to help develop skills of turn-taking, making choices and developing selfesteem, alongside training for artists and early years practitioners and annual conferences and celebration events.

The intention is to enable young children to catch up on those essential speech, language and communication skills required to thrive in school through stimulating and creative activities.

wearedarts.org.uk/doncaster-awardedmajor-funding

Autism in girls: the unintended barriers to diagnosis

Recent research by Dr Felicity Sedgewick and Hannah McLinden of the University of Bristol has focused on the issues around the diagnosis of autism in girls, with many families finding that it is often more difficult for girls to access this, due to a number of factors. These include a lack of understanding of different presentations and a bias among some clinicians in terms of recognising that this is not only present in the male population. The researchers wanted to investigate how clinicians are changing, in the context of the growing knowledge base, research papers, books and films that reference the experiences of autistic girls. Through their interviews with school staff and clinical psychologists,they established that, whereas the interviewees were aware of the different ways that girls with autism can present, they were mostly self taught, rather than through official training. Whereas this is encouraging, it does indicate that there is something of a lottery in terms of families accessing assessments from clinicians with relevant, current knowledge in this field. In addition to issues around diagnosis, the interviewees highlighted the lack of follow up support, as these also tend to be male dominated in approach.

Wellbeing concerns of ethnic minority teachers

Education Support is a UK charity that supports staff in schools, colleges and universities.In a recently published report, based on research into the wellbeing of ethnic minority educators, compared with the wider population, they identified differential experiences including barriers to progression, tokenism and microaggressions, as well as racial stereotyping and overt racism.

The report was based on information collated from focus groups including teachers, middle and senior leaders identifying as having ethnic minority backgrounds, and supported with insights from the BAMEed Network and Black Teachers Connect.

Conclusions identified that some issues such as Ofsted pressures were drivers of stress, regardless of ethnicity and participants called for much wider, proactive training in equality, diversity and inclusion. A lack of emotional and mental health support for both staff and students has meant that, although most of the participants take immense pride in teaching, they would not recommend it as a career to others, with 72% of school teachers and 84% of school leaders describing themselves as stressed (Teacher Wellbeing Index 2022).

https://bit.ly/41ipM6k