For children with brain injury and neurological conditions, the mainstream education system can be a challenging place, with teachers often not knowing how best to support them.
NR Times meets Judith James, a special education advisor and co-founder of Education and Case Management Services, whose team supports hundreds of young people, parents, teachers and schools across England to enable children to achieve their potential in a happy, supported environment that works for everyone
“Teaching is hard, we know this from our own experience. We aren’t here to criticise, we’re here to support, and ultimately get the best outcomes for these kids.”
The approach of the Education and Case Management Services (ECMS) team is simple; tried and tested through years of hands-on experience of working with complex young people, which now enables them to support other teaching professionals.
With combined decades of experience of working in outstanding special schools, supporting children with often profound cognitive and physical disabilities to maximise their potential and thrive, the eight-strong education team ECMS are well placed to know what is needed.
Since its creation in 2015 by founders Judith James and her husband John Walker, who runs the case management side of the company, she has gone on to recruit a number of trusted former colleagues from the independent special education sector to expand its service nationally beyond its Newcastle base. Referrals come from throughout England – from Northumberland to Devon and Norfolk to the Welsh borders.
Since that time, ECMS – unique in its field – has grown to support hundreds of children and young people aged from three to 25, and its reputation is such that all of its work comes via recommendation or referral.
“If a child’s needs are not being met, then ultimately something needs to change,” says Judith, who was a lead teacher in a special school from 1997, and achieved an outstanding rating as headteacher in the same organisation from 2005 to 2015.
“Each child is unique and each referral will be unique – but with our skills and knowledge, and the fact we have been in the position of these teachers and know what it’s like, we know what is needed.
“We all want to get the best outcomes for as many children and young people as possible, and that’s what we want to help teachers and schools to achieve.”
Support for schools
In mainstream education, with increasing class sizes, squeeze on resources and scrutiny of standards, teachers are undoubtedly under pressure.
Adding in a child with a brain injury and a raft of additional needs only adds further to the many demands on a teacher and a school, and many do not have the specialist knowledge – or, crucially, the support – to be able to adequately make provision for the child, while also supporting the rest of the class.
This very situation is the reason ECMS was created and is so in-demand nationally, both from solicitor and case manager referrals, and occasionally, from parents directly.
“Because of the background we all come from (at ECMS), we understand how therapy impacts in the classroom. We have seen how doing things differently can get a child to learn,” says Judith.
“It’s very different in the non-maintained sector. If you’re teaching English, you’d have a speech and language therapist in the room. In PE, you’d have a physio there. You can directly employ therapists to work alongside the teachers, which you just don’t get in mainstream education – but you can still use the benefits of integrated practice.
“We go into a school with the aim of making classroom practice the best it can be. We upskill teachers in the best SEN practice and empower them to build their confidence, so we can give a child a great outcome every day of the week.”
Once a referral is received, based on the child’s Education Care and Health Plan (ECHP), one of the ECMS team will observe the child in their classroom setting, to get a better understanding of exactly what is needed.
“We will unpick what’s happening and what their needs are. It could be that they need one to one support, or perhaps a different route other than pursuing GCSEs. Or it could be that we can find a different way of doing things,” says Judith.
“There was one teacher who was teaching a boy with an ABI and very complex needs, and she was so stressed out about having to build in practice on his walking frame to his timetable. She just couldn’t see where the time was going to come from.
“His ordinary routine was to get dropped off by his taxi, go to the classroom, go to the toilet, and then get back part-way through his maths lesson.
“But we had a look at it and made a couple of changes – instead of going to the classroom first, he went straight to the toilet. Then he got his walking practice by walking along the corridor, and we put some maths challenges on the walls for him to do as he walked along. Then he’d already caught up with the work he’d be doing in that lesson.
“Straight away, that worked for this boy and this teacher, and it shows how we can give the support to make things more manageable and we’ll help these new approaches to be embedded.”
Often, it can be the case that while small changes are made for the needs of one pupil, a number of children actually benefit from that.
“Neurodivergent kids need to have sensory breaks, so it might be the case that instead of doing spellings, we scatter words around the playground and they have to move around to collect them and then stick them on a wall,” says Judith.
“So they’re getting the exercise, the upper body movement, the cognitive practice – it’s integrating an OT approach into learning to make it more accessible.
“But as well as it being suitable for this child, teachers can find it actually works for their whole SEN group. Learning doesn’t always need to take place at a desk, and we can help teachers to find ways of doing this.”
In working with teachers, Judith is mindful of the need not to be seen to be forcing their advice or recommendations – and rather, to build a relationship which will be in the interest of the child.
“I’ll always thank a teacher for letting me be part of their lesson. It’s important to be respectful of how they work and how the school operate, we’d never go in all guns blazing,” says Judith.
“We’re all teachers and we know how hard it is. We aren’t there to judge or to criticise, we want to help and support. Together, we can help get this child the best experience they can get and make their learning as accessible as possible.
“Often, teachers have never been trained in how to best support kids with brain injury or who are neurodivergent – in a typical teacher training course, they will have two days of SEN training in a whole year. And imagine how much time and attention each particular aspect of SEN gets within those two days!
“But we’ve been there – we’ve dealt with the challenging behaviour, we’ve done the personal care, we’ve seen it all – and achieved some really great outcomes for some very complex children. While we might have to recommend some changes, we’ll do it respectfully.
“We come in and get some really great results without beating up the school, which is why we are able to build the relationships we do.”
Supporting parents
One big area of change Judith has seen in education since the COVID-19 pandemic has been the rise of home education for children with special needs.
But while it may present a number of challenges, and makes parents take on the role of educators, ECMS is also able to support in that environment.
“We’ve seen a massive increase here, and that continues even now. We have seen a lot of kids who feel less anxious at home, maybe school isn’t the right environment for them anymore,” says Judith.
“Education shouldn’t be about having to fit into a particular box, so we help families and therapy teams achieve a package of integrated education at home.”
Home education for children with an ECHP is legally binding, meaning it is important that a structured weekly plan involving 25-hours of education is put in place for each child.
“We are talking about the same life skills as you’d learn at school, but maybe maths might be done in the supermarket, the sensory experiences will come from the park,” says Judith.
“We make sure the local authority can see a plan with very clear outcomes, and we monitor the record keeping all the time. We are always committed to making sure a child’s needs are met honestly and truly.”
While supporting the parents, for children with complex needs, a teaching assistant may also be introduced into a home schooling set-up, to support with the formal learning plan.
“Children can complete the same work as in school but in a different environment, with the support they need and with them being able to reduce their anxiety and behaviour problems,” says Judith.
“We will be there to help with the adoption of practices and routines, but only until such point as they can do it themselves. The whole point of how we work is to up-skill people so they can do it on their own.”
For many families, they may not have access to the resources that permit support from ECMS – but Judith will still offer advice where possible.
“We can’t help every school or every family, but we can help to offer guidance and knowledge where we can. It’s very important to me as a parent myself to empower parents so they know what questions to ask,” says Judith.
“I do try and offer advice where I can. Recently, I was at an event and a mum came over and said ‘I saw you speaking at a conference two years ago, and I’m doing all the record keeping and annotating work you suggested’. It was lovely to hear how much a presentation I’d given had helped this child.
“To help parents to better support their children, whether that’s by asking the right questions in a meeting with the school, or whether it’s in creating a home education environment, is such an empowering thing for them to achieve.”
