Right. Off onto the next. So the next is bridging the gap, an evidence based approach to supporting pupils with ADHD by Chris Benson. And coming up there is designing neurodivergent futures architectural design panel. And just... Well, like he's waiting in the wings and very, very excited. Chris Benson, someone I've been... Met now a few years ago, was immediately bowled over by how exceptional he was. One of the very few serving head teachers to actually say they... And be publicly disclosed they had ADHD. If not the first, we're not... You can ask him, but if it was their first or one off. It's an incredibly impressive person who's done a lot. So if you ever felt like you and your child.

And their school are all trying hard but somehow still not on the same page, this is the bit for you. Chris Benson has lived ADHD from every seat at the table as a pupil, as a teacher, as a head teacher, and as a dad of neurodivergent children. He has more than twenty five years in education, He spent fifteen years leading in schools in The UK and internationally, including in France and Monaco. So he has the international experience as well as The UK experience. He's diagnosed with ADHD at 48. He started speaking, writing publicly while he was serving head teacher and the response was huge. The teachers and school leaders with ADHD autism dyslexia started getting in touch. And.

Today, he writes for TES on neurodiversity, and you'll see him there often neurodivergent. He founded Headfirst Consulting, which aims to help schools, staff, and families better build support for pupils. And I'm proud to say he's an ADHD... He's ADHD UK's education lead, as well as an ambassador. You can send your questions in using the q and a box. You've seen that working. I'm sure we've got a bunch already. See what's there. Upload the ones you like and as well as contribute your own and see how many we've got right now. We've we've we've got a bunch, but obviously want more. Chris, it's time to welcome you on. Absolutely delighted to have you here. Welcome.

Hi, Henry. Thank you very much. Thanks for that kind welcome as well. And just to say, first of thanks very much to yourself, to Max, to to Neil, to Lauren, and all the others that that so much work that goes into putting this together. It's it's it's really incredible. And this time last year, I was watching it as a head teacher, and now I'm... Have the opportunity to speak on here. So that's that's great. It's a privilege for me.

Well, we're thrilled. I'm gonna bring on your your slides and Thank you very much. Let you introduce your... Introduce yourself. Well, sorry. So I must start, but I I should probably get rid of me and not you. Right.

Okay. So I think I have control of the slides. Yes. I do. So... Yeah. Hi there. I'm Chris Benson, and I now work as a neurodiversity and education specialist. I I was the first UK head teacher to to speak right nationally about living with ADHD, and I started doing that last year. The response has been quite phenomenal. I was serving a teacher up to the end of last year. So now I work with consult... In consultancy, still very much involved with education. And the purpose of this session today, really, is to look at bringing together the three parties, the the key when it comes to students with ADHD, and that's bringing together those students, the families, and school as well. Because it's an area where.

People get... Tend to speak over one another, and it's really about getting that understanding. I've sat in all those seats. I think that gives me quite a unique stance on this, and my work is very much about bringing people together with that. So just to get started, yep, five percent, we're talking around five percent of UK school aged children, young people have ADHD, and that's a figure as well that applies pretty much nationally as well. So if we then look at this, this is just a little bit of an intro for me. I don't need to do that now because because Henry's already done that. But one of the things I wanted to start with and to to speak about is a model that I use. It's a framework, and it's a framework for communication.

Because this is the one area that I see time and time again that really needs the focus. And so if you look here, you've got two wheels. The first one says where the pressures are coming from, and these are those systemic pressures, those pressures within systems. And you'll see at the the middle of both wheels, we have the word belonging, because that is so central, so key, to how a child succeeds within school. So if you look there, you'll see that they have neurodivergence, behavior, mental health, identity, and on the second wheel, you'll see security self perception, and we've also got connection and understanding. We're gonna focus really on the system today, the system pressures, because.

One thing that I constantly see is the focus being on the diagnosis itself. Okay? With ADHD being a cluster of of traits and symptoms, Okay? And it gets a label, and that label is ADHD. But often, the focus will be too much on those traits and not what sits downstream from that. And, essentially, we're looking at not what does having a diagnosis, what does that mean for the child? It's actually it's actually helping the child understand themselves, and to work with this. So if we look here, I've I've jumped on. There we go. So we've got three seats, and there is... Here, we've got the student. Okay? Who they are, not what they are. That's really important because, personally, I I don't identify myself through my own diagnosis.

I'm I'm Chris. I'm a teacher or a head... Former head teacher, a teacher. I'm a father. I'm a partner. And many many things, and I have ADHD. That's my own personal take on that. That, of course, has impacted my life in many ways. Some positive, some not so positive. But for me, it's about who someone is. That's what we're trying to help someone to understand who they are, not defining what they are. Then there's the parents. Okay? The fight that they go through. What happens to their identity? Okay? And the information as well that they have to have to go out and find.

So the struggles for the parents as well there because the student has their own journey here, the parents have their own journey, then there's the school. And having been a head teacher, I'm not someone who who now takes a stick to be be teachers and schools with because I know how challenging their role is. And there are real constraints. There's... And there's real capacity there though to also to do better. And And so... And when we look at partnership, that's where good intentions really become lasting change. It's not as easy as it sounds, but we'll look at ways that we can work with that. So I think really important is that this is not a deficit. It's a difference. And schools do have a tendency to see, ADHD.

Simply through the lens of SEN and simply through it being a deficit, and something to fix. And ADHD is very diverse in itself, and as we'll see, a difference is a better explanation than a deficit even if the word deficit is in ADHD. So attention deficit is arguably one of the worst, most misleading medical labels in common use. Okay? It's most students with ADHD don't have too little attention. What they have, you could say, is like a dysregulation of that attention. So steering the attention is the challenge. Okay? It's not about not having the attention. They have the attention, but it's where that attention goes and when.

So a differently organized attention systems we're looking at that can be driven by interest, novelty, challenge, urgency rather than obligation, importance, or consequence. So who are they? Okay. And not what they are. So it's often assumed ADHD defines who the student is. Okay? When I say what's actually true, this is my belief. It's part of who they are. It's not the whole of it. Okay? The child has ADHD. Okay? But no two children with ADHD are the same, and their ADHD won't show up in the same way all the time. It's a ceiling on what they can achieve. This is a really important one. So for me, ADHD is not a measure of ability.

Okay? And there's a great deal of research to back that up. Most students with ADHD do not have an intellectual disability. Okay? Though they may have other needs alongside it. So I'd also say they don't have a lot of the time. There is no real learning impairment. There's more of a learning difference. And they often assume the idea that they just need to try harder the same way as everyone else. Well, they will need to try hard, and some things they may need to try harder than than others because of challenges they have there. They may need workarounds, different methods, but they don't need lower expectations. Okay? What they do need is better understanding. So students with ADHD often see themselves as less competent academically.

And socially even when their performance is genuinely adequate. So the gap between how they see themselves and how they actually perform is driven not by ability, but by an accumulated experience of comp correction, failure, and feeling misunderstood. And self perception is something that's so key. Self perception predicts achievement, mental health, and later life outcomes more strongly than symptom severity does. And I think that's such an important thing to hold on to there. I'll just read that again. Self perception predicts achievement, mental health, and later life outcomes more strongly than symptom severity does. And so when we see schools working with a focus on those symptoms, and that's their main focus and their primary focus.

I think we're missing something. And I firmly believe that we should always be starting with that child's self perception. What they've internalized, what they believe about themselves, those glass ceilings they've created for themselves, and those glass ceilings others have perhaps created for them, what they believe they can and can't do, what they've told themselves. So the diversity within that diagnosis, within ADHD, okay, it rarely travels alone. Around seventy eight percent of children with ADHD have at least one co occurring condition. Anxiety affects roughly four in ten, and learning differences such as dyslexia are also common. The strengths, though, are real too. People with ADHD more strongly identify creativity.

Hyper focus, imaginative thinking, humor, and spontaneity as personal strengths, not just deficits to manage. Now I'm not going down the superpower route here. I'm not a believer in ADHD being a superpower, but I'm certainly a believer that people with ADHD have a great deal of talent, and those talents sometimes, remain hidden, and it's really important that we get a chance to bring those out. Sometimes it's the inflexibility of systems that don't allow those talents to really show through. So if we go on here, agency and not dependency is really important. When I speak about agency, I'm talking about that sense of independence. Like with any learner, what you want is that they become increasingly independent over time.

A good teacher essentially will make themselves redundant in the in the... The better their job they do, the less the teacher is needed. So over accommodation is as damaging as over punishment. Over accommodation where we're talking about what I would call learned helplessness, and this can happen even with good intention because a lot of the time, teachers are afraid of doing the wrong thing. And I think that's something that I see having over twenty five years in the teaching profession is that I went into a profession that was very much... When... And I... When I went in, it sounds twee, but it was very much about going in, making a difference, really positive. Okay? It was something exciting to go into. I left the profession.

At the end of last year where my feeling was that that had been replaced by fear of getting it wrong. And that fear of getting it wrong can lead to people really over accommodating the child and in doing so, that can that can teach learned helplessness. Now dependency on adult support can lower competence, reduce that agency, and erode the identity and the dignity. And what I do see time and time again is that the understanding that many teachers have of ADHD, just like in the public... In in general public, is pretty poor. It's pretty poor. It's pretty basic, and it is very much focused on, traits, symptoms, and the same set of strategies.

That are rolled out again and again and again, and they don't really get down to the actual individual behind it. So the goal is always increasing independence, working with the ADHD, and not working around it. Now scaffolding is one option that can be used. Okay? Self scaffold, you watch, you wait, you don't intervene until that that student genuinely can't proceed. Okay? Prompt. Okay? Okay. Wait ten seconds. Ask what do you need to do first. Give them one piece of information, then wait again. Show the next step. They still take the action. And then finally, only when essential, return to a lower level immediately after. There is a great deal of research around working memory and that certainly verbal instructions by themselves are...

And I know from a personal point of view, I know, give me a set of verbal instructions. And if there's three of them, I would have forgotten at least one of them, if not more, almost immediately. So we can take what we call a multimodal approach, which means that, rather than just giving verbal instruction, we've also got that written down somewhere as well. Okay? So that you've got different cues. You've got different reminders, and those reminders are really important. Certainly, with a child's attention can easily be distracted. Okay? So moving on. The student's voice is really, really important, and this is one of the things I don't see enough of. I've seen... I've sat in so many meetings.

So many meetings. I've led so many meetings where actually the conversation is about the child and doesn't involve the child. Now, obviously, that's age dependent, but there can be involvement at all levels. So are we asking those children directly, how does ADHD affect you in school? What helps you learn best? Is there a warning sign sometimes before things go wrong? I mean, looking at you're not broken, you might just be wired differently, and struggling with something isn't proof that you're not clever. So here, we're really getting as well of that self perception. What do they internalize? What do they believe about themselves? Because until we can work with that and perhaps correct that, we're always starting, okay, from a very.

Fragile foundation. Now... So what sits downstream? Okay? Here then, if we look at the wheel, first of all, we've got neurodivergence. Okay? In this case, we're talking ADHD. Okay? And the child there, we're talking with the child. We're asking the child actually, well, how do you feel about this? Well, and look, the child says, I thought things would get better once I got the diagnosis. That's what people told me, but they just give you a piece of paper telling you you've got ADHD and then you leave you to get on with it. Now many of us will know, many of us as adults who have received a diagnosis, that's very much the case. Very, very much the case. And that you are then left in a position to sometimes work it out for yourself.

In a world where there is a great deal of misinformation. And so where do you find the credible sources? Where do you find that information? Are the schools adequately trained? Is their knowledge good enough? And sometimes we we will see that it's... Schools become heavily reliant on SENCOs. And I've worked with enough SENCOs to know that their jobs are so intense that they spend most of their time on administrative tasks and and don't get the opportunity to work with the children, the families, the colleagues that they really want to spend their time with. For an international, listeners, SENCO, is a special educational needs coordinator.

So that's where the child might be feeling around their own neurodivergence, their own ADHD, then behavior. What's the point? When I try hard and do well, they never seem to notice or just tell me I should be doing the same in all lessons. Why should I listen to them? They never listen to me. So here, this is something that we could actually have to give the child the opportunity to express this and share this. It's really important. The family hears it. It's really important. The school hears it. Not just the SENCO, class teachers as well. School leadership teams need to know it. Identity. This is really important. Now when I go back just to say on behavior, this is often where schools, see ADHD.

Because they see the external side and they're looking at the behaviors and they're looking at the stereotypical, okay, naughty boy. But then let's go down to identity. Why can't I do this? This is where we get into that self perception. Why can't I do this? Everyone else seems to manage. I must be the problem. And then when we're getting to sort of medical models, okay, and schools seeing this as SEN and as a problem to fix, seeing it uniquely as SEN and a problem to fix, that child then is internalizing that I must be the problem here. Something's wrong with me. Something's gotta be fixed.

And that can create a great impact on that child's future learning capacity and and their and their belief and the mental health. And we go on to mental health. I'm constantly in trouble. They don't think I care, but I'm the one who feels constantly anxious. They're the ones that don't care. That frustration that is there. So this is giving us an insight to what might be happening in that child's mind, what they are experiencing. And often, that's hidden in plain sight with big, big focus on the symptoms, the traits, and the strategies and not seeing this. So if you say what sits downstream, anxiety, low self esteem, avoidance, and depression, they are not inevitable, but they sit downstream from unaddressed neurodivergence.

With striking regularity. Self compassion is not complacency. It is the foundation, the agency, that independence, that responsibility is built on. If we've got that, then we can really start building and moving forwards. So let's move on now to the parents because the parental journey is a really challenging one. I have a daughter who has ADHD, son who has autism, so I'm familiar with this as well. Now how does it impact the parent? Well, I used to feel like a capable parent. Now I question myself constantly. I love my child deeply, but I feel lost and and ashamed for admitting that. These are sort of things that I've I've heard from parents. I'm trying to understand my child's diagnosis, but it's all so confusing.

Identity behavior mental health. A child's ADHD will reshape the parent's self... Sense of self too. So the parent is going through this. That parent may well be neurodivergent themselves. We know about the high rates of heritability. But even so, even if they're not, these impacts identity, behavior, mental health, that sense of self, the parents are going on this journey too. And this is where a lot of the frustration, okay, with with long waits, administrative struggles, etcetera. That's where things start to escalate as well with schools. Now the diagnostic route, awareness of ADHD is growing so fast.

So that as we spoke before, there's a a volume of conflicting information online leaving many parents uncertain which explanation to trust before a diagnosis even happens. A diagnosis requires traits of the system, developmentally inappropriate, and impair functioning across more multiple settings, not just at home or or just at school. And the weight for that assessment and the assessment itself, it can be long as we know and exposing the pro... And, yeah, long and exposing process in its own right. And one of the greatest fears, if I speak to clinicians, one of the greatest fears, okay, really is that what if it isn't ADHD? Because then people are left with that fear. Well, okay. Is this my parenting?

And and I think that sometimes clinicians, the hardest the hardest news to give is actually, no. It's not ADHD. And then trying... You have to be very skillful in how they would explain that then to parents because often there's been a long journey building up to this. So we talked about heritability earlier on, seventy four to eighty eight percent. Okay? It's based on twin and family studies. Now... So for the parent, if we look now, what sits downstream? So as I said before, I'm trying... This is about around that neurodivergence, their understanding of ADHD. I'm trying to understand my child's diagnosis.

But it's also confusing. I'm told to accept it, support it, advocate, yet I'm also expected to fix the problems that it creates. So this is what the fee... The feeling that can be there in the parent's, mind, how the parent is experiencing this. Then when it comes to behavior, from the outside, it probably looks like I'm not setting boundaries or I'm being inconsistent. The truth is I'm constantly choosing between keeping the peace and holding the line, and neither of those feels right. This is a time when it's so, so common for parents to be so self doubting, and and there's so much sort of questioning goes on at this point. Yeah. I used to feel like a capable parent.

Now I question myself constantly. I love my child deeply, but I feel lost and ashamed for admitting that. So boundaries that perhaps were there in the past. Okay? What parents thought they understood around behavior, boundaries, routines, suddenly a diagnosis comes along. And without having that support and that information and understanding that, no. You you look, your child does require responsibility and agency. Yes. They've got challenges. ADHD brings many challenges. However, okay, you... It is not wrong to be taking, the iPad from the child or or or stopping them gaming or or or having set routines. And a lot of those routines are gonna be absolutely crucial. But for parents at that point in time.

They feel like they've got no rule book. The parenting rule book we know is probably one that we could write once we've finished parenting, but none of us go into parenting with. But but I think when you've got the ADHD parenting rule book, that becomes even more challenging. And so the parent's self sense of identity and that concern of what other parents think about them, what other family members think about them. And then there's the mental health effects. I'm exhausted. I'm always on alert, always worrying about the next call, the next incident, the next thing I'll be blamed for. I don't remember the last time that I felt calm. So I'm building a situation here where a school, a student, and a family could all be hearing this.

Through this chain for... This this shared framework and trying to actually see, okay. Right. Trying to understand where that parent's coming from. The parent that we think is just being difficult and is escalating and is threatening formal complaints, subject access requests. Okay? There's all this a lot of the time going on behind the scenes. Now if I say here, don't see it. I think it says behind their deficit. I can't see it. But a difference in development is what we're looking at. Rather than a deficit, Okay? It's not a lack of ability. It's a different developmental path. So support is key, but not lower expectations a lot of the time. Understanding should increase support without lowering that bar.

And then there's the shared responsibility. Success depends on the parent, the school, and the child together. And that can be challenging, but it's absolutely crucial. And there will be parents sitting here thinking, well, yes, but my child's school when I've tried this, when I've tried that. Okay? And I know I know that happens. I also know from a school's perspective, I've had parents come to me. My child can't do this. They've got ADHD. Now at the time, I hadn't actually disclosed my own ADHD, and it's one of the things that used to frustrate me so much because I wanted to turn around and say, well, who's gonna do it for them? Are you.

Saying that you're... Are we gonna lower the bar for your child? What do we want for them? Because if we're using that at that point, they can't do it because of this, then, really, we're limiting what that child can achieve. And for me, that belief that, yes. Okay. This might look different. They might not be able to do it in a conventional way. They might need structure. They might need scaffolding. Those things are key. Okay? It's not about I can't do it. It's perhaps I can't do it in the way that I'm being asked to. So stay aware of the real risks and challenges without letting them become a self fulfilling prophecy. So we still need clear boundaries. Okay? But we need that agency. This child needs boundary structure and responsibility.

Arguably, many... More than many other children, not less. Resist the temptation to remove every challenge. And as parents, ADHD or not, this is a real challenge for us. They need that... They need these to build their own understanding, awareness, and resilience, scaffold, and support rather than doing it for them. And when I say scaffolding, that's about giving them support. It's a bit like when a child's learning to ride their bike, and you've got those... The the little wheels that you attach on the side. Okay? Of course, stabilizers in The UK. Okay? To help them with them. You don't want them forever. Okay? They are there to support, to scaffold over time, and then be removed. So the same principle applies in the classroom. Okay?

Over accommodation is as damaging as over punishment. Okay? And that applies at home too. So understanding emotional dysregulation. A lot of things I see in schools, will see that great ideas come up, backed with some great research, and then they get diluted, and then they become something they were never intended to be. Now dysregulation is one of those. When your child has what looks like a huge reaction to a small criticism, they're not being dramatic. That's a nervous system that is genuinely overwhelmed. And one of the things around dysregulation is about the proportion. If something is disproportionate, appears disproportionate.

About control over that in that moment, over that feeling, that emotion, that response. Okay? Children with ADHD reach emotional extremes faster a lot of the time, and they take longer to return to that baseline. A genuinely narrow window of tolerance there. And so regulate first, and then the responsibility and the repair still come after, just not during. So that doesn't mean there's no responsibility. That doesn't mean sometimes there's no consequence, but it does mean if the child's dysregulated, okay, you want... Really, we're looking to co regulate. We're trying to regulate that child, okay, first and foremost before we start to move on and look at responsibility and repair. So, re... In terms of partnership.

Now partnerships with schools is really important. If you can get it, and I know it's not easy. I work with a lot of families, and part of my work is to start building those partnerships with schools. Okay? And a lot of the time, parent... The... Those schools will allow me to work between school and the family as well. Oftentimes, what's happened there is that the the the communication and the relationship, the trust is already broken down. So you go in as a partner if you can, not an opponent, even when that is hard at times. If you can go in with a positive approach, okay, because often you will need that time. You will need also when it comes to things like exam access arrangements where you're getting additional.

Time, movement breaks, etcetera, for your child's exams. You need to have a really close working relationship with the school and to make sure that happens and it's done properly. You know what your rights are, and you know what your child's rights are. Okay? Now sometimes that doesn't mean going in first time around and and and reading out all of those rights as a first meeting. It's really about knowing that. Okay? And there are ways... It's very powerful. If you... If when you meet with the school, the school understand that you know those rights and you also understand ADHD because you need to become your own expert in ADHD, and the child also needs to become very knowledgeable about what ADHD is. Escalation really is a last resort.

And really not strategy. Okay? Sometimes things escalate, but I really think in the... It's in the best interest of all concerned because when we get when we get to escalation, what happens is hundreds of hours get taken up, okay, with few results a lot of the time. What's a shame is that with a tenth of that time, real progress could have been made. You cannot pour from an empty cup. Okay? So your own well-being matters too, because challenges of parenting, child with ADHD, okay, you do need to look after your own well-being. And, if you have ADHD yourself, you you know, the idea of suddenly taking this on as some sort of super challenge and and then two months down the road, you're exhausted by it isn't it certainly not unheard of? So.

If we go now and look at the school, now schools have got competing priorities, and they've got real pressures. Okay? And that's all schools I've worked in. I've worked across in in international schools, independent schools, state schools as well. I've worked across all different types of schools, and they've all got competing priorities, and they've all got real pressure. So real... These... Here, we can look at some real reflections from school leaders, okay, and what they're sharing. So if we now look at that wheel and we look around the neurodivergence area, okay, the head teacher is saying, I understand this behavior is rooted in neurodivergence, but the system doesn't give us the flexibility or support to respond properly.

Okay? There are systemic issues here. I'm talking about here specifically with England. Okay? But this happens as well across, okay, many, many, many countries. I've worked internationally. I've got an insight into a number of different education systems, and education systems tend to have a real lack of flexibility. So... And that flexibility also impacts those people who are running those schools because of the pressures that they're under. Okay? And then they've got of of inspectorates. They've got their own governors. They've got parental, pressures as well. They've got financial constraints. Now here with behavior, the behavior is dominating leadership time, and it's affecting staff morale and learning right the way across the school.

So this is another pressure, a system pressure that the head teacher might be feeling around this. Identity. So here, if you look at the school or head teacher's identity, I'm torn between doing what's right for one child and what's sustainable for the whole school. So this can be a real, real challenge as well because as parents, of course, we are gonna advocate for our own child as we should do, but there's a lot... It's a very complex balancing game. And that's why how communication is handled between the... With the child, the school, and the parents is is absolutely.

Essential. I don't know of any teachers who wake up in the morning and think, right. How can I make that child with ADHD? How can I make their day as difficult as possible? They don't. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but that's never anyone's intention. In my experience, over twenty five years working in schools, most people, the vast majority of people, unless they're in the wrong job, who are in education, are there to try and genuinely make a difference and help. And then mental health, I feel constant pressure knowing every decision could lead to scrutiny, complaints, or escalation. And this is a real, real problem for schools. I know certainly, I would say in in England, this is... And if... And certainly the smaller the school.

Is that if you get to a point where formal complaints are being made, the amount of manpower that that takes up, the hours that are required then on that process, are huge, are huge. And that will take away from spending that time. There's opportunity cost. If it's gonna be spent on dealing with a complaint that's escalated into a formal level, okay, that time can't be used elsewhere. And schools are really, really... And I speak to enough head teachers. I speak to enough teachers to know that schools are in fear of that next escalation, that next formal complaint. Now sometimes a formal complaint is necessary. Sometimes even the threat of it actually can be what starts a process moving forward. But as a starting point.

It it it it really... I would never suggest using that as a strategy, because most of the time, you will find that schools, if you can build that relationship, they will want to work with you. Sometimes, okay, you will have to escalate, but I would always start from a positive with that. So that's strong homeschool communication. It's essential and often assumed rather than built. The student should be actively involved in it. That's really important. Really important that that student is heard. They need a voice, and they also need to take response... Some responsibility as well.

And their voice should be heard directly and not relayed only through the adults around them. So I think that's a key part as well. I know that can be depending on the child. That's sometimes the age of the child. That can be more complex. But where it can happen, okay, I think this is the way that we should be looking to do things. Don't assume that you already know what's going on for this student or this family. If you're working in school, ask. Because assumption is something that I see time and time and time again. And if we don't have the information, what do we do? We fill the gaps, and we fill the gaps with assumptions. And those assumptions can be and often are extremely wrong.

And we suddenly... We don't understand what's actually behind a lot of this. When I speak with parents, I've had I've had hundreds of meetings where I've had a parent come to meet me, when I've been a head teacher, and and they've they've come to me very aggrieved about something. The most important thing is that they are... They feel as though they've been heard. And often, a chance to get that off that... Off their chest and also how that's impacted them, how they feel about themselves. We go back to a sense of identity for for a parent and some of the indignity as well of going through a long diagnostic process. And I've heard stories of of families who who have had clinicians say some pretty shocking things.

And and comments about their own capacities as as parents. So these these parents can be on on on really tough journeys, and that these are tough journeys that impact whole families and and relationships as well. So it's really important to not see the parent as an adverse... An an adversary. You know, they're not there to make your life difficult. They are... But their their lives have often been made difficult by this process, and and that frustration will come through. So most ADHD draining schools, in my experience, is very basic. It doesn't reflect how much diversity there is within the diagnosis. It's still very much diagnostic criteria based, I would say it is.

Sort of... You might sort sort of call it sort of superficial first level training. It doesn't look or present... ADHD doesn't look or present the same way in every single student. Okay? But a lot of the time through that training, you'd assume that it does, or you wouldn't go much further than than, you know, being hyperactive impulsive as one, then the inattentive, and then the combined. Going beyond that, there isn't what I've seen enough where you're actually looking at how it presents diff... Differently, how ADHD presents in girls, how it presents often in boys who who don't fit that that that stereotypical, hyperactive boy. So... And it doesn't get down to.

The individual, the child, because that... That's... The most important thing is to know the child, not the label. So don't try to fix the child, and don't try to placate the parent. Look beyond the label to the individual in front of you. Understand. Try and understand what ADHD is. You don't have to be an expert in it. I wouldn't expect teachers to be an expert in that. Okay? But the... There is certainly room for an improvement in training of schools. Okay. So diagnostic.

Labels are less helpful for day to day teaching decisions than understanding a child's individual education needs. This is something that's often spoken about. Some of the SEN reforms, special educational need reforms that are going through in in England at the moment. Two students with an identical diagnosis can have very different profiles and need very different approaches. So an individual learning plan, so learning sort of support plan needs to be built around the individual. What I see time and time again is what looks like a copy and paste of a set of generic strategies, ADHD strategies. Okay? And whether that child needs a fidget spinner or a visual timetable or they need a timer or they need.

Movement breaks. I mean, all of those things, they they may well need. But again and again and again, what I don't see really is seeing that child beyond that. And so, yes, some of these things can be the basics, but they should be really built into school cultures anyway as opposed to being sort of retrofitted around a child once they've got a diagnosis. So the consistency challenge in secondary school, this is an issue, And transitions are really difficult times. So transitions and certainly the transition from primary schools or elementary school into the secondary school in UK, in The States, we're talking in... Into into middle school.

So going from... At the end of sort of probably 11 years of age, going from that first stage of education into more senior education. Okay? A student passes through the hands. Once they get to secondary school, you're going from having one or two teachers to 10 or more every single week. And that consistency of understanding across the school, okay, and the and the the teachers, the students will will will be exposed to. That's the hardest challenge once it gets to secondary. And you will get some great teachers who've got great understanding of knowledge. You'll get others who are great relational teachers.

And even if their understanding knowledge of ADHD isn't isn't great, their understanding care or or or on their relational skills are. Then you'll get others who, write their relational skills may not be great, or they... The way they run their room, this doesn't fit with with them. And getting that consistency across secondary schools is really difficult. And a lot of the time when I speak to parents about their child's experience at secondary school, they'll tell me there are certain classes, certain teachers where it works well, and there are others where it really, really doesn't work.

So a carefully written support plan that sits in the SENCO's office but hasn't meaningfully reached the the geography teacher or the PE department has limited effect, okay, on a Tuesday afternoon. So that's one of the things is that these support plans, you know, they need to be real. They need to be real making sure that parents should be, know, always involved with them and making sure that the child knows what's in them as well. Because, unfortunately, what I often find is other than the SENCO, nobody knows what's in them, and that all too often is the case. And then you have the review meeting, and that's when people realize what was in there. So.

Moving on. So... And this isn't just about special educational needs. That's really important. I think that's something... Special educational needs can... For me, is a bit like that's... The the the the draw that we've all got in our homes where we put things where we don't know quite where they belong or what to do with them. And and that's what happens with SEN a lot of the time. Everything ends up thrown in there. Okay? So it's not just about learning impairments, learning disabilities, learning challenges. It's it's social and emotional mental health. Everything is being thrown in. Okay? And when it comes to ADHD, it isn't a purely a send issue, and it isn't the SENCO's job to fix that alone.

Because if that's the approach, it will never happen. Leadership need to be involved. Senior leadership need to be involved at all stages in training. Okay? And that training needs to differ between roles as well. When I work with schools, I will do training. I can do training for the whole school, but I'll also do training that works specifically with leaders and then specifically with SENCO's teachers, teaching assistants, work that I've done with teaching assistants. I've I've I've run a course especially for teaching assistants because these are the people who often spend the most time with some of the children with ADHD and yet get the least training, and the least support.

So I think it's incredibly important that they get that training and that, you know, to help them with that with that understanding and to help the children that they're working with. We've also got non teaching staff as well. A child will spend a lot of time, you know, at school office. Okay? Whether it be the the janitor, the the caretaker. There are plenty of people within schools, whether that be the the... Those people supervising at lunchtime or the school kitchen. All of these people will come into contact with these children on a daily basis. So we can't just assume, train the teachers, keep it in the classroom. It's as long as the SENCO knows what they're doing. It'll all be fine. We've ticked the box.

Because you might tick a box, but you won't make meaningful and and sustainable change that really changes lives for the better. So start with the student and not the strategy. I'm gonna speed up a little bit here. Little look here at dysregulation. Okay. What is dysregulation? What's willful behavior? I think sometimes what happens is that people assume that if a child's upset or angry that they are dysregulated. They may not be dysregulated at all. They might have a very valid reason for being, angry or for... To being upset. Okay? And that may well be completely proportionate of course, with with with what's what's happened. Okay? So that is not dysregulated behavior.

So if we look at willful behavior is and what dysregulated behavior is, willful behavior is purposeful refusal, Boundary testing. All kids do it. Okay? We've all done it ourselves. The student is within their window of tolerance. They're making a choice here. Okay? This isn't about having lost control here, having lost control of the of of the situation of their own, of their own emotions and their own regulation. Okay? This is child making choice. And here, we respond with clear, calm correction, consequence, okay, and repair. Dysregulated behavior is different. It's a loss of that inhibition, emotional flooding.

And the student is outside their own window of tolerance there. Okay? It is something that just sweeps over you, and, and I've seen it myself. And and then often a child who feels remorse and, and also, when they do come out of that stage, it is almost as as though almost as though they've been in a trance beforehand. So it... That emotional flooding means that it's all got too much. Okay? At that point, respond with regulation first. Okay? So getting that child regulated again out of that state, okay, where that emotional flooding has just taken over. And then, okay, once that's done, then things like consequence or repair, okay, can be can be worked on. Okay? It's not about less accountability or lowering the bar. Same accountability.

But just a different sequencing, a different way of getting there. So co regulation and dysregulated nervous system can synchronize with a regulated one. Your calm, steady presence is not a soft option. It's an evidence based intervention. Okay? So you can keep your calm in the situation. Okay? And that can be challenging certainly if it's in front of the whole class. But if you can keep your calm, it's far more likely that it's gonna help to regulate that child, okay, and improve the situation. You can go back to afterwards with repair and also consequence. Now afterwards reflect, did my response deescalate or escalate?

Did I scaffold, or did it... Did I take over? Okay? And that's always one thing. When when we've had a situation where a child's clearly been dysregulated, it's really important to look back and say, right. What was it that I did in that lead up to there that either helped or hindered the situation? That's a really good and important reflective process for teachers to go through. Okay. So schools bring professional knowledge. Parents bring longitudinal knowledge of their own children, and then students bring direct experience of what it actually feels like to be them. So ask them. Ask them. Okay? Don't assume. So when all of these three use the same framework, that's where real understanding can become possible.

So where good intentions become lasting change, student, the parents, the school, it's closing that gap. So we talked about that from the beginning. Three people, one child, three different views of the same situation, and all of them need to be heard. It's not that one is more valid than the other. Without hearing all three of them, part of that jigsaw is missing, part of that there. And it really... That's where escalation and misunderstanding where trust is lost and communication breaks down if that isn't happening. So bridging the gap starts with seeing where the views differ. Okay? Partnership works when it's built, not assumed. Gonna go quickly on from this, but these slides, I think, will be available later.

Okay. And we'll move on. Okay. And then one thing from each seat for the student. Tell us what helps and what happens before things go wrong. Here's an example we can use. Parents, come as a partner. Share what you know over time. Raise concerns early. And for schools, ask. Don't assume. I think that's a key thing. Don't make assumptions, because so many of those assumptions are wrong. Make sure the plan reaches every teacher. Okay? Regulate first and then repair. I mean... And I see enough schools to know that there are many, many schools out there who are excellent with this. Okay? There will be ones, and there will be teachers who aren't. But there is a... There is... It's certainly things have improved.

But there's still a long way to go. So together, okay, we're reviewing this and on the same map. So invest early. It costs a fraction of the time and the money that escalation costs us. So... And if we look at the cost of escalation, this is... Okay. Here, we're looking in England. 21,000 SEN tribunal appeals in England in 2023, 2024. That's up 55% on the year before. Ninety eight to ninety nine percent of those cases that reach a full hearing are won by the families, not the local authority, and 46 to 99,000,000 spent annually on tribunal defense across England. And that's a huge waste, but I understand why parents feel that they must pursue that because the challenge that they face is very, very real, and they feel all too often unheard.

And unrepresented at every single stage. And this is their child's education. It can't wait two, three, four years. They won't get another shot at this. And so we can talk around diagnostic criteria, whether this is correct or that is correct or whether it's overdiagnosis or what... Whilst you're doing that, okay, and having those discussions, that's making no actual positive impact on the lives of the life of the child, who five years down the line, their opportunity is gone. So we can have all those discussions. There might be a time or place for those discussions, but that clock is ticking. And when it's your child, it's very real. My own daughter didn't attend school for almost all of year 10, which would be grade nine, which is.

The first of two important exam years within, okay, The UK. It's on the international system. She didn't attend school for almost eight months. She has ADHD. I was a head teacher part of that school at the time, and I was just as lost in many ways as the parents despite my training, despite my own knowledge in that situation. Thankfully, the school were excellent. They really were excellent. She got the support. She got back in, and now I'm very proud that she's off... And she's at university now. She's just gone to Trinity in Dublin and started there. But it could have been so different without that, without that support. However, if, we'd known more at an earlier stage, it could have been avoided as.

This often can be. Once... With EBSA, once that starts where we've got emotional behavioral score avoidance, it is... Once that starts, it's a very difficult thing to turn around, and the experience the child goes through is often, and the family, extremely harrowing. Okay. So just really to finish up, families who make formal complaints almost always gave clear signals earlier, and they just weren't read. Okay? In the vast majority cases I've seen as a head teacher in my consultancy work with families and schools, escalation could have been avoided, had time be invested early in bill... Okay, in building shared understanding. So have that thought in mind. Okay? Do I wanna spend half an hour here? Okay?

Be... Or I don't wanna end up in a situation where I'm spending maybe hundreds of hours. Okay? Because I've tried to save a little bit of time here and there. Because at the end of the day, nobody benefits, and and that time and that money and a lot of money is is is wasted that way. Escalation doesn't just cost time. It erodes trust, and the child is caught in the middle of that as well. And that trust is very hard to repair, and the child's experience there and what the child then feels towards their own school and about themselves can often be very damaged. So that is everything from me. I do believe that there are some questions that have come up, and I did have a copy of some of those questions myself.

Henry, if you could... You able to I could help you out this. That's what I mean. Thank you. Not just a beautiful thing. Also read questions. That was very, very interesting and I think made even more interesting by you sharing your personal stories and and that openness about that your own child struggled to go to school and you struggled to know what to do as a head teacher. Yeah. I guess something that I think a lot of parents will take great heart from.

Mhmm. It's tough. Like, this is tough. I I was wise after the event, but at the time, I certainly... I I, you know, I certainly wasn't.

Well, I've got a few questions for you, but we are running out of time, so I have to do them quite quickly. Okay. The... We'll do the most upvoted first, which isn't about kids.

Okay. But.

Having had conversations with you, I know this is something that you care for. So schools often talk about neurodivergence in students. Yeah. But we exclude staff or implement token accommodations for them. Yeah. School resources and funding is stretched, but they're also losing excellent teachers. How can schools actually provide meaningful support for neurodivergent staff? And I I'd like to add to that. We've also heard situations where a teacher is neurodivergent, has some adjustments, but because of some of the prejudices around it, they don't wanna tell people. And then the school finds itself in a spot where it can't explain why a teacher is doing something differently.

Mhmm. I mean, this is an area that... Yeah. I I I... I've a lot of personal professional insight experience with. I've I've written a number of articles for Times Educational Supplement, which is the... Just education network, really, I think worldwide, actually, and talking around this subject because the Department for Education has no data has no data on this. They do not collect this as part of their workforce census data. I just wanna add an extra rant. They also don't collect data on ADHD kids. So they don't know... They don't. No. And that goes through. Yeah.... Outcomes.

And it's something we tried to campaign on and they just Yeah. It it feels like they just wanna be, like, we don't wanna know. And... I mean, mean, I've I've written about how.

Other regulated professions are actually ahead of the curve with this. I think the essential thing, because I'm conscious of time, is that I think underlying that, if we're not going to be neuroinclusive as a teaching profession, I think that says something cultural about how we view and feel about neurodivergent children. And if if we're left with neuro, you know, neurodiversity celebration weeks where we're looking at at celebrities who have come out and and spoken about their own neurodivergence, their ADHD, autism, dyslexia, etcetera. And yet there are staff in that school, the adults that are in those children's lives on daily basis hidden in plain sight. Yeah. And where's the representation for those children?...

Be an inspiration and be someone to to look as a path, it is important. And then... Okay. One last question and then we've gotta run. Yeah.... I feel like it's... My daughter holds it together all day at school, then completely falls apart at home. Obviously, this is so...

Very, very, very, very common. Yeah.

School's gonna be fine. Mhmm. How do I get them to take it seriously without becoming that parent?

The school are basing that on what they observe. Okay? But if they... Okay. Let's sit down there with the child, with the parents, and and with the school and say, okay. Let's see if if the child is one. Because what we see, okay, is only as part of it. So there... And schools often, we're looking at behaviors. On the outside, the child seems fine within, you know, within the school environment. Now this is why it's so important to have that conversation, to actually hear from the child because... And sometimes children won't want to speak up with that. You know? Maybe just find a trusted adult in the school who who they can speak with. But if we base it on what we see, okay, we're making a lot of assumptions there. And why would a parent.

Make this up? Their child is coming home, and they've been through a day where they felt they've had to hold it together, whether it's masking or whatever. And and then at the end of the day, there is that sort of, you know, that that meltdown that's that's experienced. I think that it's... You know, what we see is part of the picture. Really important that the school hears what the child experiences.

I think that that... That's a key thing. Thank you. Look, thank you for doing such an interesting inspirational session. And thank you for combining both your knowledge and and sharing about you. I I think that made it very special and and important. If people want to get in touch with you, they can via headfirstconsulting dot com or via LinkedIn at forward slash it's Chris Benson dash UK.

We'll put those links on the Thank you. On the Global Conference site too. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for putting this together. I think it it it... You know, it's excellent. And it... It's gonna... I think it will help. It's gonna help a lot of people.

Well, that's excellent because of people like you with amazing expertise who are leaders in your field sharing your information. I can only give you a little applause, so I'm gonna try and try and Thank you. My my best abilities. Chris, thank you so much. You're amazing. Cheers. Cheers.