Today’s blog post is a bank of ideas and resources you could use to support your next INSET day or twilight training session. I hope they’re helpful. Please can you let me know if you end up using any of these and how they go down as it took me AGES to put them together! All the different ways to connect with me are on this page.
Bitesize CPD Sessions – Ready to Go
My bitesize CPD sessions are all totally ready to go. I’ve written the slides for you and done video walkthroughs so you feel confident teaching them – and if you don’t, you could always just play my videos.
These are designed to be short sessions and could take as little as 10-15 minutes. They could also be massively expanded out through discussion and exploration to take a large chunk of time if you have the capacity to go deeper.
BITESIZE CPD | Autistic Friendly Classrooms
This session explores my 3Cs for a more autistic-friendly classroom.
BITESIZE CPD | EBSA/School Anxiety – Starting the Day Right
Emotionally based school avoidance / School anxiety is a massive issue right now. This session explores some ideas for getting the school day off to the right start for students who are struggling to attend. This sets the tone for the whole day (or week, or term..)
BITESIZE CPD | Sensory strategies for dysregulated children
In this session, we explore three sensory strategies for supporting dysregulated children. These ideas are helpful for supporting autistic children, those with ADHD and many others.
BITESIZE CPD | How to Be A Safe Adult
This session is all about how to be a safe adult and looks at the 5Cs that children need from the adults who work with and care for them if they’re to feel safe. It’s basically how to be a trauma-informed adult with all the fluff taken out! Simple to understand, simple to do, helpful for every child (and adult).
BITESIZE CPD | Using Puppets & Play To Explore Feelings
In this session, we explore how we can use puppets and play to explore feelings with children. These ideas are designed to be very introductory and require no specialist knowledge or skills.
Activities to Generate Discussion and Action
My downloadable resources could be used to generate discussion and action on your INSET day. Consider what you like or don’t like about them and explore how you could use them or co-produce your own versions.
DOWNLOAD | Comfort Audit to Prevent Sensory Overwhelm
A simple tool to help us identify and respond to potential sources of sensory overwhelm for autistic / ADHD students. Colleagues can audit their own space or each others’ during an INSET day and there can be great value in discussing findings and exploring simple changes that could be made together.
DOWNLOAD | ADHD/ASC Student Class Task Planner
As a team, you could take a look at this simple task planner designed to help students who struggle with executive functioning skills to reach their potential in class. You could explore how the version I’ve created could work in your department, or co-create your own version suited to your subject.
DOWNLOAD | Tricky Moments Plan
Explore whether a tricky moments plan might be helpful for individual students who have been struggling recently. Explore whether this plan is fit for purpose in your context or whether you should create your own. You could also develop an action plan for developing and sharing a plan of action for tricky moments for students who need one. Consider how you can include the voice of the child and their family too where possible.
DOWNLOAD | All About Me! Resource to Support Child-Centred Meetings
This download is designed to help you take a child-led strengths-based approach when holding meetings about / with a child. Explore as a team how you could use it in conjunction with children and families to change the culture of your meetings, or simply as a connecting activity with children you’d like to get to know.
6 in 60 Seconds
As the name suggests, these videos are all under a minute long but they could be a great stimulus for INSET discussion. Each video has six ideas – you could unpack each of the six, exploring together how that idea might translate in your setting. Explore what’s already working and what could be better and consider what you could add to my six. You could also have a go at creating your own for other topics… (follow me on TikTokfor more of these)
6 In 60 | Neurodiverse Friendly Communication
I also recorded a podcast on this topic if you’d like to go a little deeper – might be a good idea if you wanted to lead a session on this with the 60-second video as stimulus…
6 In 60 | Emotional Regulation at School For Autistic Students
Six simple ideas that are cheap in terms of time and money to implement but which could prove transformative for your autistic students or others who struggle with emotional regulation.
Magpie My Training Slides
Finally, you could take a look at any of the massive number of slidesets I’ve shared this term from training I’ve delivered and use them to inspire your own session. They won’t all make perfect sense without me (I’m a bit of a less is more gal when it comes to slides so my commentary tends not to matter) but take a look and magpie anything that looks helpful. There are also resources linked out to form each session too. Here are a selection that proved popular:
- Supporting Children Who’ve Experienced Loss or Bereavement
- Anxiety And Low Mood Session For Parents/Carers
- Trauma – What You Need To Know, Do & Teach
- Maslow’s Toolbox – Creating Classrooms Where Every Child Thrives
- Getting It Right For Autistic Learners In Mainstream Settings
- Working Together Towards More Mentally Healthy, Inclusive Settings
- Self-Harm – What? Why? Help!
- Enabling Early Career Teachers To Thrive
- How To Be The Adult Children Need Now
- Wellbeing Strategies For All Staff
- Trauma-Informed School Leadership
- Leading Well, Staying Well
I really hope something in here is helpful on your next INSET day – please let me know how you get on.
***If you’d like to support my work, you can do so by sharing my resources; by joining me on Patreon for £1 a month or by inviting me to speak at your setting or event or to deliver a webinar***
