New Thoughts on Assessment, Dr. Who & New Knitting Project

I am currently reading a book (Helping 5 to 8 year olds with special educational needs by Chazan, M Laing A.F. & Davies, D 1991) that devotes its first 7 chapters to the assessment of children with possible special needs.  Already it has hi-lighted to me that often in school we only use assessment for what the child can or cannot do.  The words "assessment should aim to discover how a child learns" are making me realise that this is probably the most important reason for the observations I will do in classes as SENCO and how that could help focus everyone on how we get these children to proceed in their learning.  It's at this point I would really like some contact with others in education or parents with children with S.E.N. that are helping their child learn and could give me more ideas.

This will be a short post as Dr. Who begins tonight and it's a ritual in our house that we all watch it together.  Harks back to my own childhood, spent watching from behind the sofa!

Lastly, have decided to begin knitting jumper for daughter with wool donated by my mother (Wendy Naturelle in brown/white 1980's?).  Of course, daughter has idea of what she wants it to look like, slash top, simple cables, but can I find a pattern for it in chunky - no.  So it looks like I will be creating my own and fingers crossed it will turn out alright!

Dyslexia, Knitting and Feral Cats

Last night, I watched the BBC programme, Growing Children that focused on children with dyslexia.  Having trained as a specialist dyslexia teacher last year I know something about it, but the programme really brought it home to me about how lost these children can be in our mainstream school system and how little maybe my specialist teaching can really help.  The young girl that had received three and a half years of the same specialist teaching instruction I deliver was still struggling so much that her parents decided to pay for her to attend a special private school for dyslexic children, where classes are very small, noise levels for concentration are minimised and all teaching is specialised; conditions that I don't think can be replicated in mainstream school.  

The two hours I have timetabled for specialised dyslexia teaching within my school now looks miniscule and will it really, actually help?  Of course, I know it will help them in terms of self-confidence, being given the chance to talk about what's happening in their head without fear someone is going to think of them as odd and allow them to have an hour where they are truly happy in their learning environment, this I have discovered from the child I have been giving specialist instruction to after school for the past year (in my own time), but I also know her grades did not improve in class with her class teacher or for the end of year tests and this is what my headteacher is going to be expecting for funding for lessons like this to continue.  Slightly depressing, I think!

So to cheer myself up I will post some photos of my latest knitting project, that I hope to be sewing up today, to create a hat for canal boating during the autumn and winter months.

This pattern I found in a charity shop for 20p.  It's the pinky, stripy one I've knitted.

I also found the Jaeger wool at the same charity shop, 5 balls for £2.50!!  100% pure wool.  Bluey-grey with multi-coloured flecks in.  The hat took just two and a half balls, so I'm passing the left overs and the pattern to my mum who wants to knit something for the soldiers' xmas boxes.

Last of all a plea to anyone out there who could possibly help a friend out who is being over-run with feral cats.  Over the years a cat colony has formed based around the abandoned out-buildings of the old house she owns.  She is now becoming too ill to look after them properly and needs to find loving homes for them to be rehoused to, preferably in pairs or more and to people who understand that they are not lap-cats.  As you can imagine the cat shelters are all full to bursting and cannot take on anymore.  The cats have been neutered but not vaccinated and the ones to be re-homed range in ages between 9 months to 5 years (of which there are about 15!!).