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Nancy

@nancygedge.bsky.social

820 followers 640 following 1.2K posts

Teacher | writer | mother | SEND Resource Base Coordinator | tired | often irritated | Down’s syndrome | epilepsy

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Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 10h

Not really - I mean I do spell it out to them that everyone has different starting points - but it’s more about the nature of their disabilities and what they have overcome. I am working at the high end of complexity in mainstream - without learning disability

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 10h

For some of my students they are a GCSE and they (and their families) are rightly proud of their achievements and certificates.

Reposted by Nancy

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 12h

How we confuse two different meanings of 'typical' and why it is crucial for SEND discussions.

(or why correlation is not characterisation)

Reposted by Nancy

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 12h

Or it does not follow from the fact that most children achieve a certain level of progress, that children ought to make that progress.

It is common to find that SEND discussions slide from ‘most children do X’ to ‘children ought to do X’, and thus pathologising difference as it if were a defect.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

Or find problems to justify our own beliefs. Hi Michael, hope you are well

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

Unless ‘we all want special’, in which case I could go on at some length (but won’t) (everyone wants a label etc etc etc)

I am far too cynical for everything and far too tired

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

I’m not sure I took that from it - more a criticism of the ‘SEND industry’ ‘SEND sharks’ who play on parental insecurities.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

THIS. Picking priorities in life.

And a very healthy blame culture. I’ve written about blame a lot too.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

Indeed. Outcomes as far as a working life are concerned are not really something that schools can influence hugely - and that goes against the ‘higher grades means a better life social mobility’ porridge we have all been fed for the last two decades.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

I think there is a lot of ‘mum guilt’ playing into the narrative - PLUS a SEND system that is clunky in the extreme.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

Gosh I can tell it’s Friday! The internal ranting is strong! I haven’t even started on the effects of social media, in particular Facebook

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

Replied on Laura’s thread too - it’s far to easy imho to scapegoat ‘the send system’, and with any disability story told in the media, its simplification. It’s easier to externalise than look to ourselves.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

I do indeed.

I have set my blog to private for the foreseeable but I remember ranting at length about end of Y6 proms and straight lines of progress etc

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

Otherwise schools and send become the scapegoat for a wider societal/cultural issue…that no one really seems to want to address or have an honest conversation about.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

We really need to examine how parents demonstrate their love for their children, parental guilt and working patterns/economy and parental fear for their children’s future.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

I’m not convinced. For me, this is too SEND system/school focussed and not taking the broader view of both changing cultural expectations of parents (mothers in particular) and of children in a ‘knowledge economy’ and highly competitive culture.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

So, the SEND system has become emblematic and in that sense, it is not so much practice, accommodations, blah blah blah that is the problem, but the cultural expectations put upon parents (mothers in particular) and children.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 1d

I think there is a big elephant in the room which is something around how we, as a society and generation of parents, demonstrate how we love our children - and how we justify it when our parenting does not provide the desired result. Among other cultural issues.

Reposted by Nancy

Warren Oates @warrenoates1.bsky.social · 3d

County Lines

Since Labour came to power and invested in the County Lines Programme, record outcomes have been reported:

1,120 senior gang members charged

Over 2300 'deal lines' closed down

stabbings down 20% in county line areas

3,200 children & vulnerable people supported

More of this please!

Record number of gang leaders charged for county lines offences

A record 2,300 ‘deal lines’ closed in first year of this government.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 5d

Its comparative 🤪

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 5d

I reckon most of them will be ex-Tories, so your worry is fair.

Reposted by Nancy

sianushka.bsky.social @sianushka.bsky.social · 7d

I don't know where this revisionism has come from about the suffragettes - people saying "if the suffragettes were around today, they'd be considered terrorists."

The suffragettes were arrested and tortured, sexually assaulted and beaten by the state. They *were* considered terrorists!

Reposted by Nancy

Ternfortheworse @ternfortheworse.bsky.social · 7d

All the others are busy doing their actual fucking jobs

Louie Stowell @louiestowell.bsky.social · 7d

Is Katharine Birbalsingh the only teacher in the uk available for media comment because...I seem to hear from no one else in the media.

Nancy @nancygedge.bsky.social · 7d

There is too much of this kind of communication. The one that really gets me is behaviour notifications. We have too many eyes on kids as it is, they don’t need this kind of policing or they will never grow up to be in charge of themselves.

Reposted by Nancy

SueP @sparkes66.bsky.social · 11d

Explaining to the classes that visited Chatsworth (wonderful countryside experience day) that the sheep dog they met was not half sheep and half dog …