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We (almost) all go to school, and there we learn many things. We learn that school is a good thing, and that we have to go to school in order to learn. We learn that without school, we’d get nowhere in life.
These beliefs run deep. The things we learn about ourselves and education at school often stay with us for our whole lives.
Then if you have a child who struggles at school, it can be hard to know what to do. Your child is so unhappy, but everyone tells you they seem fine. You’re told they have to be made to go, but at the same time the distress at home is unmanageable. You think that school is essential, but the cost to your child seems out of proportion.
In these courses and webinars about school, Naomi talks about why school can be hard, and why some children are traumatised or burnt out by their time at school. She’ll talk about how parents can help their children to learn and thrive, whether or not they are at school.
Are you a parent navigating the complexities of the Special Educational Needs (SEN) Tribunal process? Parents say it ranks as one of their most stressful life events. This course is designed specifically to guide parents through the challenging journey. Whether you're new to the process or seeking to deepen your understanding, this mini-course by Dr Abigail Fisher (Educational Psychologist) will equip you with the knowledge and confidence you need to advocate effectively for your child's educational needs.
This mini-course, Dr Abigail Fisher, Educational Psychologist, will help you navigate your child’s EHCP Annual Review with confidence. You’ve got the EHCP in place, but it’s only the start of the process. She describes what should happen and when, what the legal process is and your rights are, and ideas about how to make the process as useful as possible, to help ensure your child is well supported and their needs are met.
Things have gone wrong at school for your teenager, and now it’s like they have nothing left. They have lost their sense of what made life worth living. You don’t know how to help, and sometimes it seems like whatever you do makes things worse. Naomi will explain how burnout happens and what the process of recovery looks like.
In this mini course Naomi will talk about school trauma, how it occurs, what makes it worse and how parents can help. You'll leave with a new understanding of what has gone on for your child, why they are still affected by the past, and some ideas of what to do. This course will combine psychological theory with practical strategies and ideas.
Is your autistic child having problems at school? Naomi offers ways to think about the issues, and tools and strategies which will help you make changes for your child.
Your child isn’t happy at school. They are protesting in the mornings, or having meltdowns in the afternoons. They tell you that they don’t want to go, and you feel torn between them and the school. School are telling you that the answer is to keep pushing, as you don’t want to reinforce avoidance or behaviour. It’s starting to dominate everything about your family life, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
This course by Dr Abigail Fisher helps parents struggling with anxiety and misinformation about the EHCP process. It enables parents to make sense of this process and understand more about what you can do to influence it. It covers 4 main areas: (1) Why do you need an EHCP? (2) What's the process (3) Essential tips on getting a useful plan (4) Look at some reports and tips on drafting a plan
In this mini-course, Dr Abigail Fisher, educational psychologist, delves into effective strategies for working hand-in-hand with school to support your child's unique needs. This course will give you insight into what's possible and help foster a positive and collaborative relationship with your child's school.
In this webinar recording, Dr Abigail Fisher (Ed. Psych. and qualitifed teacher) and Eliza Fricker (illustrator, author and parent who has been there) discuss the EHCP process from the parents’ perspective. It’s illustrated throughout with Eliza’s brilliant cartoons.
Eliza and Naomi talk about the process which parents go through when school stops. How can parents move forward in a positive way and plan an alternative future for themselves and their children?
Dr Abigail Fisher, Educational Psychologist, talks from her experience both as an early years psychologist and as a Reception teacher. She shares ideas for how you can help and explains how school can support them.
This bundle gives you all 10 webinar recordings from Activate Your Parenting through to What About Me? for £120 off the normal price of £300.
This bundle gives you the second 5 webinar recordings in the Low Demand Parenting series for £50 off the normal price of £150. It contains: 6. Other People 7. Screens 8. School 9. The Future 10. What About Me?
How can you be low demand parents, whilst your child goes to school? What can you do to take the pressure off and give them the space to thrive? That's what we'll be discussing in this new webinar.
If you are a parent worrying whether self-directed education will work for your child, because you have been told that they have special needs which can only be met in the school system - think again'. Neurodivergent children experience and interact with the world differently to many of their peers. Standard educational systems often fail to adapt to their unique strengths and ways of learning. School, and even the act of learning, can become a source of great anxiety and trauma. Self-directed education offers an alternative to traditional schools that can help neurodivergent children develop at their own pace and thrive.
Children are born full of curiosity, eager to participate in the world. They learn as they live, with enthusiasm and joy. Then we send them to school We stop them from playing and actively exploring their interests, telling them it's more important to sit still and listen. The result is that for many children, their motivation to learn drops dramatically. The joy of the early years is replaced with apathy and anxiety.
Many adults tell me that they reached the end of their education with little idea of what interested them. They say things like ‘I studied science because my school encouraged it, even though my passion was writing’ or ‘I did history because I thought I’d get an A, even though it bored me’. They knew what they should be doing, what others thought they were best at, and what others valued most highly. They knew what would get them the best grades. They made their choices based on that – and years later, they regret those choices. They burn out or change life path in their 40’s and 50’s. They say they are finally getting back to making choices for themselves.
What a strange thing we do to our young people in this culture and time. We make them spend several years learning things that they often have no interest in, that they have not chosen and that they will in many cases never use again. We tell them that these things are vitally important. Then we sit them in rows and make them write about the things they can remember for an intense few hours. We compare what they have written down with everyone else of the same age, and then we rank them.