Sub-theme: ‘Many hands make light work’

The possibility of contributions provided by the children, parents and school staff as complementary was touched upon during discussion of the subtheme ‘Whose job is it anyway’. The current theme of ‘Many hands make light work’ is focused on future developments and includes a wider systemic perspective covering the importance of

teamwork between primary-secondary schools, parents-teachers, teachers-children working together and the involvement of senior managers. One of the parents provided a

particularly cogent argument for sensory profiling to be done as part of transition from primary to secondary school:

Tom’s mother: It’s hard to carry on things that you’ve used for primary to secondary. Apart from the distance in location, it’s sort of all of the tools that you’ve had to help with your child’s sensory issues, disappears because it is not appropriate and it’s no good saying well it’s in his EHCP so you have these things, they’re not relevant, they’re not appropriate and they can probably cause more problems but then your child is then left with (.) apart from it being a big scary school from a friendly small primary , the things he has relied on have gone, you know, and there isn’t a substitute and there are hundreds of children going down a corridor and they’re pushed to be brave and the headphones and little twiddle things and the little toys I have bought him and stuff, you know, the schools are going we don’t like fidget things, you can’t have them and they don’t make the allowances for the fact that it is more than just a game or something he can play with. Which brings me back to the other question, the time element, and definitely, they should do sensory assessments before children go to secondary school because it is a huge change, massive, you know. I mean I talk about autism because that is what our son has but I think for any children going from primary to secondary, apart from it not being familiar, you are bombarded with things. You don’t get the same teacher all the time. All that familiarity goes, and it is really hard for them. And for the parents too, you know. I think any tools that can help your youngsters settle in, and that they can manage transition and, you know, it is all about transport and everything else but I think things that help your child feel safe and secure and then they are ready to learn, because if they are not, it is all a waste of time, really. (Lines 1605-1639).

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The ARB staff also considered the potential benefits of having sensory profiles on transition, which would necessitate liaison with primary school staff. They went on to highlight the importance of parental input and liaison to gauge whether strategies are working both at home and at school, and for parents to prepare their children for the more sensory challenging school environment. Staff also acknowledged that they themselves will sometimes need to work with the child, particularly if the child lacks self-awareness.

Staff 1: Yeah I think if going on with what Staff 4 said about at school it’s difficult because we’re sometimes making them (.) not making them (.) helping them do things ((loud laugh)) they don’t always want to do so it is difficult for us to know whether these strategies are always working whilst the tasks we are asking them to do might not be working. Whilst at home they may be using those strategies, doing things that they need to do, so yes, I would say input from home, from parents, is good because then you know from both sides of it. (Lines 634 -643).

Staff 2: And we are also in constant contact with the parents, so we can gauge whether it’s working at home and main school, as they don’t have that constant contact (..).

Staff 1: Yes, what is causing that sensory overload. So, we can say (..) at this point we can say they’re going to need to use that strategy. (Lines 701 -706).

Staff 4…for the ones that slip through the system that haven’t been assessed, haven’t had OT support, that is very useful for them to arrive with that basic knowledge that this is their sensory profile so therefore we are starting from an informed place rather than having to slowly, slowly get to know them by default. Oh, if we take them to that it will trigger them, you know. That is really quite useful to have it written down. (Lines 811-819).

Staff 3: I think it has raised our awareness in that if (.). We just don’t have time for it. The ideal thing today would have been, where we knew Tom was on a wobbly day was to do his sensory diet, that would have been great, calmed him down and then sent him down to a lesson. But then he would be yelled at for being late, so it is, isn’t it about how do we fit it in practically?

Staff 1: Whilst also including the students in inclusion work? Yeah.

Staff 4: Which kind of comes back full circle to the idea of using these things for preparation and it being important, that, yeah, those skills are practised at home, as well.

Staff 2, Staff 3 and Staff 1: ((in overlap)) Yeah.

Staff 4: Before they come into school and the evenings, I mean before they come to school and also the, actually we use them for recovery, as well, so if someone is having a really stressful time that they have some time and space up here for recovery. I mean we do have that option of pulling pupils out of lessons and we do use it and they can use their strategies then to help themselves so (.). (Lines 936-957).

Parental comments were extensive on the importance of teamwork. All of them felt that links between school and family could have been better to enable them to support the programme at home suggesting effective communication is a vital mechanism. One parent added that when she eventually got access to the folder (at the coffee and cake session towards the end of the intervention) she made immediate use of it to the benefit of both her son and the family as a whole, suggesting that the lack of earlier parental involvement was a major lost opportunity for the study.

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Other parental comments reinforced the importance of opportunities for

communication between teachers and parents, contrasting this with primary school. Parents also valued the involvement of an outside source, such as the researcher, in raising staff awareness and providing practical solutions.

One parent felt that doing the exercises at school but sharing the information with home provided additional insight as ‘they don’t often tell you’, thus contributing towards the ‘bigger picture’, which was helpful. Another parent noticed the potential of the

programme to help generalisation of strategies from school to home when her son, for the first time ever, settled down to do homework without a meltdown.

The importance of staff being able and willing to facilitate the children’s use of strategies, if only to provide prompts was another theme, with the suggestion that this would require something to be written down, as a communication aid, to enhance staff awareness.

Parents were more vocal than staff about wider systemic issues which they felt could usefully be addressed, such as increasing mainstream teacher awareness and the funding of resources. This suggests that the mainstream school and local authority should also, usefully, be invited to participate as part of the ‘team’.

One parent added that as face-to-face contact is important, ARB staff could have usefully been given non-contact time to participate in the study more easily, as part of their own ‘teacher training’.

Another parent worked in another school full-time, however, and this caused difficulty coming to any ‘get-togethers’ arranged during school hours, suggesting some flexibility in timing could also be beneficial in the future.

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Illustrative Quotes for Sub-theme ‘Many hands make light work’ from the parents:

Tom’s father: I would like to say I wasn’t really drawn into the programme because (..) um (..) there was no prompt on a day to day to link in with family life coming home and except the few times he talked about it (..) you know (..) you are sort of so busy getting through the day that (..) um (..) you need something to start a conversation at mealtime or something.

Tom’s mother: Yeah.

Tom’s father: about it and I think the (..) lack of a prompt on a, at the end of the day to engage with it um maybe would have sucked me in a bit more whereas I’ve been stood back from it really. (Lines 1306-1318).

Peter’s mother: I think what they are taught, from Peter’s point of view and from my knowledge of autism, I think when um Peter learns things he learns in that context and then he won’t or he rarely moves it into a different situation so if he'd learned this at school, he would have managed these things, at school, but wouldn’t have necessarily brought it home and managed it at home, although, like as we have just discussed, there have been a couple of occasions when he has, but I feel that if I'd have been more aware of this earlier on, I think it would have had a bigger impact on Peter and us as a family, earlier on. (Lines 2202-2212).

Tom’s father: If it diffuses (.) a potential meltdown, you know, and there is a list of three things that can diffuse a meltdown and, you know, all the staff at (ARB) should be aware of that so, you know, if something is brewing, say Tom why don’t you go to the kitchen and make yourself a honey and lemon drink, you know, and that. Unless they’re all aware of that then it won’t happen, you know. (Lines 1886-1893).

Simon’s mother… I think, ideally, in an ideal world, any face-to-face contact is better isn't it if you can, so that would be like face-to-face meetings, which we’ve done some of in the programme, but again it is difficult because it's about people’s time, which is limited, um, which is more about, I suppose it's the teachers time is limited because they're there with the pupils, you know, during the day hours, that is what is difficult. But then I think they could be better, in all fairness for them, is the school could have been probably. It's difficult isn't it, because they know their pupils but whether, it feels like outside agencies could also have been more supportive like the 0 -25 team. And the school itself, because, other staff could have come in and offered more supervision to release them, you know, why not? It's like any training that is offered, isn't it, I don't know? (Lines 2847-2860).

Tom’s mother….so, I guess it is sort of teacher training.

Researcher: Mainstream teacher training, you are talking about?

Mother: Definitely, yeah. I would change the world if I could, but you know, it has to spread out and it’s no good just the people who deal with these situations, the ones who already have an understanding in the (ARB). It has to go out to the wider school, in an ideal world. (Lines 1980- 1988).