Recent Talks
Some of the talks and webinars I’ve given recently. Click into any of them to download the slides and companion notes, free to use in your own school or setting.
Behaviour as Communication
Practical strategies for school staff who want to respond well when a student’s behaviour escalates, rather than taking it personally or making it worse. This keynote shows why challenging behaviour is almost always survival, not sabotage, and uses the CALM framework to help you get the first 60 seconds right, even when you’re under pressure yourself.
Supporting Every Student to Succeed
Practical strategies for educators working with students who need more than the standard offering. This session shows how to translate inclusive values into everyday classroom practice, holding high expectations whilst providing the equitable support that helps every student reach them.
Foundations for Belonging and Learning
Written for the staff team at an all-girls boarding school. Practical ways to build trust fast, repair relationships when they break, and use the 4Ps of relational resilience to work out where to put your effort with a particular child. It ends with the staff team, because none of it holds if the adults aren’t being looked after too.
Starting the Year Well for Every Student
Practical ways for every adult in a school, teaching and non-teaching, to help students settle at the start of the year, especially the neurodivergent and anxious ones who find September hardest. Learn to spot struggle before it escalates, tell anxiety from overwhelm, keep a wobbling child in the room, and support without lowering the bar, none of which needs specialist training.
Demand Avoidance in College
Practical strategies for FE college staff supporting young adults whose anxiety shows up as refusal. Learn to tell demand avoidance apart from defiance, lower the pressure without lowering expectations, and use language that invites rather than instructs, all built for a college setting where learners can vote with their feet.
Autistic Friendly Classrooms in College
For college lecturers and support staff who want to do more than mean well, this session offers small, low cost changes to communication and the teaching space that hold up across very different college settings, with practical ways to spot the learner who looks fine and to help autistic learners settle as they move into college and on into new settings.