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Summary
Did you know that children with ADHD have a very reward driven brain - that drives them to seek out immediate pleasure ? That means if they're doing something that's boring, whatever the activity may be, it's physically uncomfortable for them.
In this week's episode, ADHD expert and founder of DIG Coaching Practice Jeff Copper, reveals his insights into the difficulties and challenges that kids with ADHD have and how we can effectively support them in school.
Important links:
Visit Jeff's website here: Dig Coaching
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Get our FREE SEN Behaviour Handbook: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/SEN-handbook.php
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Show notes / transcription
Jeff Copper 0:00
People with ADHD have a very reward driven brain. It's really dopamine related. They want to feel good and they want to feel good now, not later, right now. To the point in time, if they are in an activity that is somewhat boring, it's physically uncomfortable for them, they'll do anything to escape it, even if it's not something that they should do or it's good for them.
Simon Currigan 0:24
Hi there. Welcome to another episode of school behaviour secrets. My name is Simon Currigan. In Macbeth, Shakespeare talked about man's journey as being a tale full of sound and fury, told by an idiot signifying nothing. It's like you got a sneak peek at the scripts for the next season of school behaviour secrets with me today as ever is my co host, Emma Shackleton. Hi, Emma.
Emma Shackleton 1:25
Hi, Simon.
Simon Currigan 1:26
Emma, this week, I've got a question about memory. Can you tell me about a time when you forgot something that made life difficult or awkward?
Emma Shackleton 1:35
Okay, well, I think that my memory is actually pretty poor, to be honest, especially for things that happened a long time ago. So it was hard for me to remember something to say about it. But a time when my memory malfunctions and let me down. Well, I can remember a couple of completely missed appointments. Only small stuff like forgetting a dentist or hairdressers appointment. Nothing major, but annoying and inconvenience for everybody involved. So what's your question about memory got to do with this week's episode?
Simon Currigan 2:08
So this week, I got to interview Jeff Copper from Dig coaching. And Jeff is an expert on ADHD. And he talks about how ADHD is actually a condition that impacts executive functions. And working memory is just one of the executive functions that we have. We had a really interesting chat about how students with ADHD may have difficulty in the classroom because of their executive functions, and the sort of strategies and ideas and really the mindset we need to take to be able to support them effectively.
Emma Shackleton 2:39
That sounds interesting. And if you're a teacher working with a pupil with ADHD in your class, that means that this week's episode is going to be really useful to you. But before we go to our interview with Jeff, first of all, can I ask a little favour? If you're finding this podcast helpful, please don't keep it to yourself. Spread the Love by opening up your podcast app now, and sharing this episode with a couple of colleagues that you think would also find it useful. It's a quick and easy way of helping your friends and making a bigger impact in the world and helping others will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Simon Currigan 3:20
But before we get into the interview, I just want to add one more thing. Jeff shared so much good advice around adopting the right mindset and strategy for supporting kids with ADHD that I didn't want to leave any of it out. So for the first time ever on behaviour secrets, we're going to run that interview over two weeks. So I hope you enjoy it.
Emma Shackleton 3:42
And now here's Simon's interview with Jeff Copper.
Simon Currigan 3:46
Today I'd like to welcome Jeff Copper to the show. Jeff is an ADHD coach and expert on attention issues, and the founder of the DIG coaching practice. He's also the host and founder of attention talk radio and attention talk video. And as a coach who's certified by the ADD coach Academy, and the coaches training institute, he coaches individuals with ADHD and ADD symptoms who are seeking success, both personally and in business by helping them realise their potential. Jeff, welcome to the show.
Jeff Copper 4:16
Thank you so much for the opportunity to come on. I appreciate it.
Simon Currigan 4:19
We're really excited to have you and for you to share your insights really into the difficulties and challenges that kids with ADHD have and how we can support them
Jeff Copper 4:27
Absolutely.
Simon Currigan 4:28
So can we start by looking at the idea of executive functioning disorders? You say ADHD affects the executive functions. Could you give us a brief explanation of what our executive functions are and what they do?
Jeff Copper 4:39
Yeah, I'm happy to do that. I'm kind of curious though, just for grins and giggles when you think of executive functioning, what comes to mind to you?
Simon Currigan 4:46
What comes to mind to me is the executive like the government, so it's someone organising at the top, telling other people what to do. That's where I imagined my head was a part of our brain bossing other parts of our brain around.
Jeff Copper 4:57
Sure. So let's just think about like Planning, right? What is required and planning and organisation. And if you stop and think about it, if you've got something that you need to organise maybe some information, something you ever noticed that there's all kinds of different ways to organise it?
Simon Currigan 5:14
Yeah, sure.
Jeff Copper 5:14
So the first thing you have to do is you have to think about all the options on a trial and error basis, think about the pros and the cons. And do kind of a cost benefit analysis, because sometimes you have information for one use, it should be organised one way, but for another use, it needs to be organised a second way. And so sometimes there's a lot of different things in as I described, you start at number one, you got to pick the system that you got to do. And it's a trial and error process for you to go through that and determine what that is. And then once you make that determination, you actually have to sequence things put things in order within that particular system. And so have you ever thought about cognitively what goes on in order for that to happen?
Simon Currigan 5:52
I guess that's a lot of comparison, a lot of imagination on the part of the brain, you're imagining something that doesn't exist yet. And you're trying to imagine how do I put these bricks together to arrive at that kind of solution?
Jeff Copper 6:03
Yeah
Simon Currigan 6:04
Which is quite a complex process, actually,
Jeff Copper 6:05
it's exceptionally complex process when you kind of break it down. And so understand is that you load information in your mind, and then you play with it, okay? And you're playing with it at kind of towards a goal. And let's just do a little exercise between you and I and the listeners can kind of join in and what I'd like to do is I'd like to ask you, I'm going to say six words very slowly. All right. And when I say the words, I don't want you to write them down. And if you feel the urge to repeat them after I'd say I'd rather you didn't, but after I'm done, and when you're ready. Can you repeat them back to me in alphabetical order?
Simon Currigan 6:36
Sure. I feel nervous, but let's run with that.
Jeff Copper 6:38
Alright.
Igloo, teacher, zebra, kangaroo, bumblebee, hippopotamus,
Simon Currigan 6:46
Bumblebee, igloo. Hippopotamus, teacher. Zebra, I feel like I missed one out there. It's hard.
Jeff Copper 6:49
It is, you missed kangaroo.
Simon Currigan 6:57
Ah,
Jeff Copper 6:57
What's interesting is you hear when you said oh my god, I'm nervous.
Simon Currigan 7:00
Yeah, think you feeling the pressure immediately. Yeah, stressed,
Jeff Copper 7:03
I'm going to come back to that. That was an emotional reaction. Alright, so let's just think about this for a second. You didn't learn anything new, you know what all those things are, you could visualise if you want to. And you know what the alphabetical order is, what you had to do is you had to load them in your mind and maybe associate them with retrieved knowledge from your mind. And then you had to manipulate them, you had to pay attention them individually, somehow, and put them in order without forgetting them and repeat them back. I gave you six words, and you forgot kangaroo,
Simon Currigan 7:27
I felt six was just beyond my limits.
Jeff Copper 7:29
Yep! But that's what working memory is. It's manipulating information in your mind towards a goal. That was just six words, if you start thinking about organisation, and I don't know, 15 different ways you could organise information and try to think about all the pros and cons, you had anxiety. Just before you did six of those. I mean, you think about that for a second. I mean, so what we're talking about is executive functioning is about planning, holding information in your mind and playing with it towards a goal. And so time is the ability to visualise the future, to be able to sit there and say, All right, I need to go to a meeting, Okay, I gotta get up, I gotta get my keys, I gotta get my car, I got to drive there, I've got to park, I've got to go up the elevator have got to go get in and think about all that steps you've got to do and then begin to calculate how much time in order for you to predict when you need to go. Now many of us take shortcuts on some of that stuff. We've done it before. But if you haven't done it before, you have to be able to visualise. So when we start talking about executive functioning, we're talking about basically the process of planning. Once you have a plan, you're done. It's the process. And within that, you've got to find information, you've got to filter that information, you got to organise that information and sequence it over time. If you're doing all that stuff in your head, it's really kind of quite complex not to pick on you six words, and you forgot kangaroo which by the way, is normal. I don't want you to feel like bad about this. I do this all the time with people because I want them to get the sense. This is what we're really talking about. And so when you think about this, and by the way, I asked you not to write the words down, because that would have made this a piece of cake
Simon Currigan 9:11
And not being able to say it.
Jeff Copper 9:12
Yes
Simon Currigan 9:13
But that repetition. So most likely still got the sound of the words in your head.
Jeff Copper 9:16
Yes, absolutely. I want to kind of come back to that. But what we're talking about here, basically, executive functioning is thinking inside your head towards a goal. Now, what was interesting to me was, I saw a presentation by Dr. Russell Barkley in 2010. And he basically said out there and he was saying, like, we're looking at this disorder, and there's a lot of confusion that's going on. And you know, we know that executive function, we know it's in the prefrontal cortex, but if you take an executive function he tested didn't show up as an impairment. And he argued he had seven different legitimate ways to argue that it had to be in our prefrontal cortex yet it didn't show up. So either ADHD is non executive function or the tests are wrong. So we started taking a look into the tests and stuff and he found 34 different definition of exec functioning in the world. It was like a dog's breakfast. I mean, it was just anything goes type of thing. So what he did is he sat down and said, you know, we can't manage anything was we have a precise definition of it. So he took a look at what was out there. And general consensus is self regulation is a major executive function. That's the ability to pause, direct an action back on yourself to change your behaviour to change the future, it's actually a future directed act. That's a really kind of complicated way of saying, basically, you have to pause, ponder and proceed in a different way to it's about self control.
Simon Currigan 10:31
Yeah, have an idea, assess it, and then decide what you're going to do afterwards.
Jeff Copper 10:35
Exactly. And so what he did from there is he began to sit down, and he broke it into like, six Mind Tools. The first one is self awareness. And it grows as you develop. So you have to have self awareness. Human beings have the ability to be aware of ourselves. The second one is self restraint, the ability to be aware of yourself and stop yourself. The third mind tool that's a part of executive functioning, is visual imagery, the ability to create an image inside of your head. The next one is nonverbal, working memory, it's it's self taught, we all talk to ourselves towards a goal inside our head. The next level is emotional self regulation. And the final level is playing with information in your mind. So those are the six kind of mind tools that make it up. And I like to reverse it around. If you take a look at self awareness, you got to have self awareness. And if you have the ability to down regulate your emotions, you can actually have some self restraint. People with ADHD have a very reward driven brain, it's really dopamine related, they want to feel good, and they want to feel good now, not later, right now, to the point in time, if they are in an activity that is somewhat boring, it's physically uncomfortable for them, they'll do anything to escape it. Even if it's not something that they should do, or it's good for them. I like to talk about emotions as a reflexive reaction. When you're threatened with your life. You go to fight flight or freeze and you don't think and I'm emphasising this because if you don't really acknowledges, it's like going into the doctor's office, when they hit your knee, or when you're going to fall, you instinctively reach for something to brace your fall. That's a reflexive instinct. And for our audience, you got to understand this because it happens so fast, it's very difficult to control. So this ADHD crowd has a real difficulty, they don't really have a lot of self awareness, which I'll come back to in a second. And emotionally, they have this reflexive action to feel really good right now. And they have a hard time restraining themselves. So I like to lump those three executive functions in one quadrant because that's the more primitive brain that's the one that advertisers prey on, right? It's all about giving you pleasure escaping pain. The next three I like to lump together. That's the visual imagery, the self talk and play with information towards a goal loosely when I gave you those six words. That's what you were doing, you were playing with information in your mind towards a goal that is impaired for people with working memory. Let's simplify it. Thinking inside your head is more difficult for people with ADHD than neurotypicals. We know it's more difficult. If you take a look at all the tip tricks and strategies. It's all about externalising thinking, right. But I really want to emphasise that thinking inside your head is a challenge for people with ADHD. Now, they are as smart as anybody else. But they need to think outside their head, not inside their head. So let me pause here for a second just give you opportunity questions. So far, is this making sense?
Simon Currigan 13:26
This is making perfect sense. And in my head, I'm imagining if you have difficulties with any of these areas, if you're a child in class, and you're being asked to work in silence, say I'm already thinking with that child needs to work outside the head where they need to write something down or talk something through, they're already going to have difficulties. So then the other part of their brain that's going to light up is going to say I need to escape this pain.
Jeff Copper 13:47
Absolutely. Absolutely. Human beings, we make observations with our senses. And so we have a tendency to watch visible behaviour, understand that visible behaviour is a symptom of cognitive behaviour.
Simon Currigan 13:59
Could you explain that a little bit please?
Jeff Copper 14:00
in the world, everything that we do we make observations with our senses, if it stimulates our senses, it's an observation. That's a tangible thing. If it doesn't stimulate our senses, it's an intangible, okay. Okay. So light colour, if you will, is tangible, it's intangible to a person blind at birth, they have no concept of what it is because they have no way of knowing it. So everything we make observations are with our senses.
Simon Currigan 14:25
Sure.
Jeff Copper 14:26
So when you are looking at some kid that is not doing what you want them to do, you see that they're not doing that and you're quick to emotionally say that person has a focus problem. Okay? Understand, you're watching visible behaviour, and you're making an observation on that behaviour. What's driving this cognitive behaviour that's intangible can't see it, which is one of the things that I do. I gave you an opportunity to repeat six words back to me. So I could put you in an experience. You still can't see it. But you have a concept of what I'm talking about. Make sense? Yep. So if we began to understand what cognitive behaviour is and we begin to pay attention to that, we can actually begin to look at what the root cause of a problem is, and problem solve for it. Let's just talk about some examples. When I gave you those six words, I asked you not to write them down, because that would have been easy. I also asked you not to repeat them. The reason for that is play is very important for children. That's where they actually practice and develop executive function. It's about planning and building stuff. Like imagine you got a three year old in a room that's building something, okay. And you and I are outside the door, just kind of eavesdropping, but the kid is in there, it doesn't always happen. But it's not uncommon for that child to be talking out loud to themselves about what they're doing. They're not talking to you and me, they're talking to themselves. And there's a reason they're saying out loud is they're working memories impaired. So by saying is making it tangible, that's developmentally normal, somewhere between age three and five, that public conversation moves inside their head, it's still going on. It's called self talk. Well, people with ADHD are not everybody, they struggle with that. So they talk a lot. And that and actually told they talk too much. And they begin to suppress it. Well, if you don't understand it, from executive functioning, they're actually talking out loud. And to tell them not to talk is basically saying not to think you'd begin to understand that, you know, they're talking out loud. And I coach a lot of people who are they're not aware of it, they talk a lot. I'm like, did you notice that you're talking out loud? And it's funny, because I've done it with CEOs before where I've pointed out in the very first call, and like, you know, four minutes later, they go, Well, we talk out loud for a second, they're gonna say, Did you see what you did? Like what, and they don't even know that they act like you say, I'm talking out loud, they have that self awareness of what they're doing. And now they're starting to manage it with intent. But if we don't understand executive behaviour, and somebody talks a lot, we're apt to say you're talking too much go off and do it, you're wrong. And that's the worst thing that you can do. Because you're basically saying, I want you to go think without the ability to think makes sense.
Simon Currigan 16:50
Yeah, absolutely.
Jeff Copper 16:51
So one of the things that I talk about a lot is somebody with ADHD has got to think about something, there's two big things that run into the way if there's ambiguity, and they don't really know what to do. Or if they're trying to do too much with their working memory, they got all the pieces, but they can't put it all together to see it. It is physically uncomfortable. For them, it is too much mental effort. And all they want to do is escape. Now, when I gave you those six words, you said I'm nervous. That was a reflexive emotional reaction. So when they have too much going on, they have an emotional reaction to escape. They want to feel good right now. And they'll go to video games or social media or whatever. It looks like a focus issue to sit there and say just try harder, is absolutely crazy. The issue is you got to make thinking easier, because that's what the root cause of the problem is. And I'm harping on this, particularly with your crowd because everybody wants a tip trick or strategy to deal with the symptomatic problems. If you notice, it doesn't work. Most of the times it doesn't work because you're not dealing with the fundamentals. And that's why it's so important to understand that and that's why I think Dr. Barkley's model is the most brilliant thing that ever come along with ADHD because in anything, whether it's physics, we have Newton's laws of motion. with electricity, we have Maxwell's equations. With evolution, we have Darwin's theory, you have to have some fundamental theory that explains it with repeatable observable patterns that make some sense. And that's why I like Dr. Barkley's model, and the fact that he defined it with such precision, we can determine what is and what is not an executive function.
Simon Currigan 18:31
I just like to take a pause for a moment and say that if you're finding this podcast useful, then you're going to love what we've got waiting for you in our Inner Circle programme. The Inner Circle is your one stop shop for all things behaviour. It's a comprehensive platform filled with videos, resources and behaviour inspiration to get you unstuck with classroom behaviour. We've got training resources on de escalation, supporting kids with anxiety support strategies for conditions like autism, ADHD, and PDA. practical ways of helping pupils deal with strong emotions, assertive behaviour management techniques for managing the whole class, setting out your classroom environment for success. Resetting behaviour with tricky classes and more. Our online videos walk you through practical solutions step by step. Just like Netflix, you can turn an Inner Circle subscription on or off whenever you need to, with no minimum contract Plus, you can now get your first seven days of Inner Circle for just one pound. Get the behaviour answers and you've been looking forward today with Inner Circle visit to www.beaconschoolsupport.co.uk. and click on the Inner Circle picture near the top of the homepage for more information.
Jeff Copper 19:47
Now we can begin to sit down and look at behaviour and look at it through the lens of executive functioning and begin to understand why people with ADHD do what they do. They talk out loud live instinctively. They do that because it's a compensatory strategy to make up for their working memory challenge. So I'm gonna pause and see if you any questions or comments.
Simon Currigan 20:07
No this is making absolute sense. Let's bring it back to the child again. And we're asking them the class to work in silence, say, we've taken away that crutch. What I find really interesting then, and I've seen this personally over and over and over, because in our role, we go into lots of classrooms. What I find really interesting then is this idea of this is actually causing me more pain, you've taken away the thing that I need, you've taken away this crutch. And now instead of encouraging me to work quietly, what you've done is put me under more pain.
Jeff Copper 20:34
Yes.
Simon Currigan 20:35
And I've got this natural propensity to move away from pain as quickly as possible.
Jeff Copper 20:38
Absolutely, yes. That's the cause and the effect. And this is a very complicated thing. And so if you understand the impact, because it's really all about problem solving, and I liked this, and we're talking to teachers, right, yeah, you know, the way I like to describe this is, you know, I hated word problems. I don't know about you, but I hated it. Because what you have to do is like, just give me the equation. But if you think about it, word problems is you got to read a bunch of information, you got to determine what the relevant and irrelevant variables are, then you have to take the variables, and you have to align them in a way that you can solve the problem. In short, you have to derive the equation. And when it comes to ADHD, everybody just wants the equation. I'm like, well, it doesn't work like that. Because there's different situational variables. And you have a hard time really deriving the equation if you don't really understand executive functioning, because you don't know what the variables are.
Simon Currigan 21:22
And every child with ADHD is an individual. Yeah, they're not all the same. They don't just come off a production line looking exactly the same, like a cookie cutter shape.
Jeff Copper 21:29
Absolutely.
Simon Currigan 21:30
Each child's ADHD affects them in a slightly different ways that correct?
Jeff Copper 21:34
Absolutely. We can talk about working memory and clutter, not cluttering a second, because two people could have working memory challenge, and one has stuff all over the place as a compensatory strategy, and one has it all put away. It's the same issue, but it's a different style. So we go back to the reason it's important to really understand this stuff is so that you can understand what's going on, you can get down in and meet the needs of an individual child, and you can begin to realise particularly now, there's so many things that are going on, that have an impact on cognitive behaviour that we are not paying attention to. We're not solving the problem fundamentally, everybody looks at ADHD as a focus issue. And it is, but most people aren't solving for the thinking problem. Thinking inside a person's head with ADHD is difficult. The working memory part where you're loading information, or you're retrieving knowledge, recall of knowledge, trying to remember something a lot of times they need something physical to make that association because they can't pull that knowledge out of their head like a neurotypical can. That's why they might leave a lot of things out. Because if it's in sight, there's a chance they'll see it. If it's out of sight, they'll never going to remember it. That's actually a compensatory strategy that they have. So let's talk about how this translates. And yet in a classroom, that's, that's really challenging. I don't know about you, but I went to college in the early 80s. There's no technology back then I bought a book. And I highlighted I have dyslexia readings difficult for me, if I found it, I highlight the important. So there's like maybe two sentences in a book, I highlight it, and I'm like, but I got my notes from class. And there's a similar type thing. And I'll sit there and I will look at the book and I will read the highlighted, I don't have to read all the book, I just I have a target, I read it, I hold that information. And then I go and I compare that to what's in my notes. Now while I'm holding that information over to compare with in my notes, I gave you six words, and you forgot one of them. So holding information in your working memory, it's perishable, you can hold it for about 10 seconds. So as I go over, I'm comparing those two and it was difficult for me back then, fast forward to today, you've got kids on a computer screen that's very small. So they're reading something, and they're scrolling down to find it. We're starting to be able to have the tools to annotate, but up until recently, you really can't highlight it. It's a pain in the ass. Sorry for my Swahili. So you read it. Now you got to do something, I gotta go click on my going browser or PowerPoint or word. So you're clicking. And now like you're scrolling down in your reading, looking for what you're trying to compare. That's a lot of instructions that are taking place. And by the time you get to where you are what you were thinking about completely evaporated like kangaroo. Now you gotta go. Oh, this is frustrating
This explains why kids get lost in a task, yeah?
Absolutely. Because their mind can't hold it. And so it's funny, I did an interview with Dr. Russell Barkley in 2018. You can just Google at attention talk radio, GPS, and he's talking about this as an executive function. I'm talking what I'm not coaching at the end of it, we talked about how papers high tech for people with ADHD, because you can spread it all out. You can see it like I used to when I was in college, yet, the way the world is it's convenient for academia to put it up online, but that's taxing. It's making a bad situation worse for some of these people. Also, you know, I used to be able to look at a book and say, Okay, it's about that thick and the fonts that big. Believe it or not, I got a pretty good idea what work there when I've got a link online, I have no visual clues to determine the level of that work and what that entails. And so it's very difficult to determine information and consuming because there's a lot of clues in the size of a book, the details and all that stuff is lost. So a person with ADHD to be able to visualise the future, they can't do that. And so I don't know about you, I'm starting to get a lot of anxiety over this thinking.
Simon Currigan 25:18
its just stressing me out.
Jeff Copper 25:20
It's just really kind of complicated. And then you go into the school room, and everybody's like, I don't know if there's a single tip, but sometimes it's these kids need to print it out. And printers are starting to disappear. I've got a high speed printer, I'm working on a programme right now called cognitive ergonomics from the inside out. And what I call attention scope. It's a way to make cognition tangible, to go about an engineering kind of type thing. And I'm putting this thing together for the last couple of weeks. And I literally have gone through a whole box of printed paper, because every time I do a PowerPoint, I make a change, I print it, I spread it all. It's like a storyboard. It's the only way that I could do it, if I didn't do that, okay. But kids don't have the permission to do that. Instinctively, they talk out loud, instinctively, they might want to print but they override that because society's telling them they're not supposed to do that, or they don't have access to it. So I'm going to pause here for a second, see if you've got any questions what we got so far.
Simon Currigan 26:09
So I'm just enjoying listening, because what you're saying is, these are like corner pieces of the jigsaw when I'm thinking back on all the kids I've been involved with and observed suddenly, and I hope this is happening for our listeners to suddenly behaviours are making sense. And when you're in the classroom, it's very tempting to focus on the behaviour, because that's the big obvious things that you see. But what we're talking about here, isn't it with digging down into the real root causes of that behaviour. And if we address those root causes, then the behaviours kind of melt away, I guess,
Jeff Copper 26:37
Not 100%. But yeah, if the root cause is thinking, and you're not making thinking easier, they're going to escape to anything.
Emma Shackleton 26:43
Okay, so listening to Jeff there, I can really see how thinking about ADHD in this way, makes total sense of the behaviours that we often see in class. And I really like his approach to thinking about pupil behaviours and executive functioning, it makes total sense.
Simon Currigan 27:03
And if you want to find out more about Jeff and his online resources, I've dropped links to his website in the episode description. And don't forget to tune in next time to hear the second half of Jeff's interview, it'll be worth it, I promise.
Emma Shackleton 27:16
And by the way, if you work with kids with challenging behaviour, and you're not sure why they're acting that way, we've got a download that can help. It's called the Sen handbook. And it's designed to help you link behaviours you've seen in the classroom with possible causes, such as autism and ADHD.
Simon Currigan 27:35
So the idea here isn't for teachers to make a diagnosis because we're not qualified to do that. But if we can quickly link behaviours that we see in the classroom to possible causes, it means we can get the right help in place more quickly and get early intervention strategies in place.
Emma Shackleton 27:50
And the good news is, this is a completely free download. So go over to our website www.beaconschoolsupport.co.uk., click on the free resources tab near the top and look for the Sen handbook picture near the top of the page. It's a picture of a little growing seedling. We'll also put a direct link in the episode description.
Simon Currigan 28:12
Before we go. If you've enjoyed today's episode, remember to open your podcast app now and hit the subscribe button or follow as it's now called in Apple podcasts. And your app will download each and every episode as it's released, so you never miss a thing. And to celebrate, why not hold your own toast masquerade ball. Invite your nearest and dearest and then before the event tell them to toast a piece of bread. Poke out the eye and mouth holes and then decorate the bread using whatever sauces or kitchen products they have to hand. Finally attach an elastic band so they can wear their creation on their face and Bob's your uncle. You've got an attractive bread based mask to wear to your ball. Imagine the excitement right now. Will you go with white bread or brown bread? Or perhaps with a generous granary alternative? The possibilities are endless. And then at the party, everyone will have fun for hours guessing which toast face belongs to which invitee it'll look amazing. And everyone will think you're totally normal.
Emma Shackleton 29:14
Simon, it sounds like you've put an alarming amount of thought into that idea.
Simon Currigan 29:19
I'm writing your invitation straight after this recording.
Emma Shackleton 29:22
I'm busy whenever it is. I'm busy. That's all we've got time for today. Have a great week and we look forward to seeing you next time on school behaviour secrets. Bye for now.
Bye
(This automated transcript may not be 100% accurate.)
