Photo by Freepik
By Nicky Detain
Imagine you’re trying your very best to support young children with developmental conditions through their education. What exactly are these conditions, though? How can you help these children flourish when nobody knows where to start?
This very challenge is what Lynsey Oakley, a sixth-form tutor at The Holmewood School London in Muswell Hill, faced when she began her career in specialist education at the age of just 16.
“Everything now is highlighted around autism, which is fantastic, whereas when I first started, it really wasn’t, which is quite sad looking back for those students,” recounts Oakley, now 41.
Oakly still recalls the difficulties posed by the limited understanding of neurodiversity during those early years of her vocation: “It was in a PMLD [profound and multiple learning disabilities] school. We had just started taking students we know now would be to have autism, and there wasn’t a lot of knowledge around it then.”
“The stereotypical traits of autism, with sort of lining up toys and that kind of repetitive behaviour… they were seen as kind of quirky behaviours, rather than [us] having any education or knowledge around it.”
The past couple of decades have been a turning point in autism becoming better comprehended in schools. It’s a transformation reflected in how the education system has found more means of accommodating neurodivergent pupils.
For instance, mainstream schools are required to have a special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO), who is responsible for ensuring that students with additional needs receive the necessary levels of support for their development.
This assistance might include the child being given individualised tutoring or provided with equipment such as ear defenders if they’re sensitive to sound or writing slopes and pencil grips, which can be beneficial to those with motor skill difficulties.
A critical shift that Oakley notes has taken place over time is in the lexicon used within the conversation surrounding autism. “Even in the last year, we have had a lot more training with the therapist teams about terminology; about how the wording that we’ve always been told to use is… quite a negative sort of way of referring [to students],” she adds.
Furthermore, Holmewood continues to build on its repertoire of vocabulary used for discussing autism and the school’s work, as Oakley makes clear: “We’re bouncing ideas around, you know. We’re trying to put ourselves on the receiving end of; ‘how we, [as tutors]… would we like to be spoken about?'”
“We’re really looking at it from all angles, and we’ve done questionnaires for the students here on how best they would like to be identified.”
“Everyone has a voice now, which before, they didn’t with regards to terminology and language used surrounding their needs and what they have been diagnosed with,” mentions Oakley.
An example she provides is the somewhat divisive term: “person with autism,” which multiple institutions, including the National Autistic Society and NHS, advise against using. Oakley, however, expresses a different view: “A lot of people here have said, like students, they don’t mind saying ‘a person with autism’; they don’t mind that. So, let’s use that.
“Although we’re staff and you guys are the students, there’s so much that you [the students] can teach us and so much that you can help us with.”
Similarly, Louise Wallis-Jones, chair of the London Autism Clinical Excellence Network and speech and language therapist at Holmewood, emphasises the importance of considering the wording used when discussing autism. “All of our research and stuff used to be [conducted] using language from the medical model… essentially you’re ‘fixing’ and you’re trying to make people, you know, ‘not autistic’.
“Now, obviously, we understand how harmful that is.”
However, Wallis-Jones notes that whilst educational settings are becoming more progressive in their use of terminology, the healthcare circle still sees autism referred to with language carrying negative connotations. “The diagnostic manual still says ASD [autism spectrum disorder], and that’s got to change. It’s really frustrating,” she stresses.
“NHS therapists are quite behind us. I feel really lucky being here because we can have this conversation. It’s not [about] making it too shiny and pretending everything’s fine, but it’s just not saying autism is in itself a problem.”
Wallis-Jones’s less clinical approach is also reflected in her advice to her colleagues: “I’ve asked staff here for a long time now… not to use ‘ASD’ and not to use ‘symptoms’, you know, those kind of medical words. So, we just talk about ‘autistic’, and it’s not a dirty word, and it’s not stigmatised.”
In addition, the expectations of students with autism have shifted within the past few years, notes Wallis-Jones. Primarily identifying the declining popularity of “whole-body listening”, a practice where pupils are pressured to conform by maintaining eye contact, keeping their feet still on the floor, and not fidgeting, as well as remaining completely silent whenever they’re listening to someone, or their teacher is talking.
“There’s a lot of people who are traumatised by that,” says Wallis-Jones.
“So we teach ‘what does your body need to do to listen?'” she explains. “So, [someone] might need to listen by looking away and wiggling her feet, and I might need to listen by staring at the person… it’s like knowing your own body.”
Rafael Lourenco, a former student of Holmewood, also believes whole-body listening isn’t fit for purpose: “The concept, I’d say, is inherently flawed, as it can be restrictive in forcing neurodivergent people into trying to learn or communicate in one single way, when they may have their own unique way of doing so that could be better for them.”
“Hell, it could even be painful for them.”
The most profound development in specialist schools, however, is that they increasingly serve to empower the future of their students rather than solely supporting and supervising them. Julia Murphy, a teaching assistant at Holmewood, once worked alongside Oakley in the same PMLD school mentioned earlier. Describing the institution’s attitude during this period, she says, “It was just like, ‘let’s get through day to day because you’ve got special needs, and chances are you’re not going to go any further.'”
Oakley holds a similar viewpoint: “[we were] making sure that, you know, that the students had a nice time and they were well looked after. But now, we have different pathways for students.
“We’re teaching students how to become independent travellers to go to apprenticeships, work experience, and placements. All of this sort of stuff has really come along.”
However, just 76 students, aged from 7 to 19, are currently enrolled at Holmewood, and not all specialist schools are quite as progressive as it is. Tara Young, Holmewood’s assistant headteacher, recognises this.
“It’s really important to note that what happens here may not necessarily be indicative of what’s happening across the UK and other SEN provisions,” she says.
“It’s about the political climates, and I think that actually, if the resources were there in other schools, then there might be the opportunity [for them] to work in the way that we do.”
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