Gemma Kendal

I am so tired of the way the government talk about school attendance. They have no idea what it is like to be that child terrified of school, standing at the school gates unable to breathe because they’re so anxious. Who forces themselves into school day after day until they can’t anymore. Who is traumatised by the environment - the noise, the expectations, peers, anxiety. We HAVE to reframe the idea that school is the only way to get an education. Of course education is important. But the fear, anxiety and trauma school can cause for some of us is HUGE. Please try to understand. Full attendance is not necessarily the best way to meet every child’s needs. #School #SchoolAttendance #EBSA #Anxiety #MentalHealth

Life got sweeter when I realised the magic behind childhood wasn’t because I was a child, it was because I was PRESENT.

Huge congratulations to one of our published authors Mya 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻@YoungWritersCW

@EmbraceAutism__ @Angela_May_SLT Thanks for reposting @Angela_May_SLT Something on my list to talk to you about 😊

An exploration of the relationship between autism and selective mutism. is.gd/5mWbF2

@KerrieHighcock @Spectrum0Gaming

@KerrieHighcock Great list. I also love anything produced through spectrum gaming .

As part of our supporting autistic children for practitioners training I am pulling together a resource of MUST READ links What would be your MUST read recommendation????

The Elle Macpherson breast cancer story gets even more confusing. In this article a surgeon said she had 2 operations to remove DCIS or Stage 0 cancer. She as offered a mastectomy because the margin weren't clear. She would NOT have been offered chemotherapy for non-invasive disease. Surgery alone cures many people with DCIS And yet Elle in the interview said she was offered and turned down chemotherapy. She doesn't need to tell us any of the details and it is her choice to choose alternative treatments, and she as never encouraged anyone to do what she did. But something doesn't add up. The cynic in me would say that she's only sharing her story now as she has a book to sell and owns a wellness company that sells supplements, including the one she created after her cancer diagnosis. And that makes me cross mamamia.com.au/elle-macpherso…

Thanks for watching , episode 3 Tuesday 9pm 🙏🏻

What a strange thing we do to our young people in this culture and time. We make them spend several years learning things which they often have no interest in, which they have not chosen and which they will in many cases never use again. We tell them that these things are vitally important. Then we sit them in rows and make them write about the things they can remember for an intense few hours. We compare what they have written down with everyone else of the same age, and then we rank them. We make them wait a couple of months and then we tell some that they are the successes, and others that they are the failures. We encourage them to hang their self-worth on how they performed. Newspapers publish pictures of the delighted, whilst the disappointed hide their heads in shame. We tell them that these results will determine the rest of their lives – and then we set up systems that make this true. We provide fewer opportunities for those who did not succeed. Those who did well can take their pick of courses, whilst those who did not are made to take the same tests again and again, just to hammer it home. We make sure that young people spend the majority of their adolescence focused on exams and pressure. Every summer, they sit in rows and try to remember. Each year, they’re told that their whole future rests on this. Many of them inevitably cave in under the pressure. They become anxious and depressed. They show signs of burnout by the age of 16. They lose their spark, and just go through the motions. Some of them retreat altogether. Then we pathologise them, say that they need mental health treatment or to become more resilient. We send them for therapy or give them medication. We say that they are the problem, whilst the system carries on unchanged. What if instead we stopped to think about what we are doing to our young people? Adolescence is a time of opportunity and vulnerability. It’s a one-off stage of life. What if we asked ourselves, should our young people really spend these years on a conveyor belt of high stakes exams? Imagine we allowed ourselves to look beyond this time and place, and to see just how strange this really is. What would we offer our young people then?

SURPRISE!! Teacher’s inflatarace 2024!! 🐨🦄🦖🦈🐮🦩 #sportsday

@KerrieHighcock @LartingtonHall Congratulations 🎉

And just like that….:: I am married What a magical day for with the most amazing people @LartingtonHall ❤️ ❤️

@joetracini You are bloody brilliant ⭐️

MY DOCUMENTARY IS ON CHANNEL 4 IN FIFTEEN MINUTES xx

We are offering fifteen free tickets to our acceptance matters conference next week @NEAutismSociety To be in a win of a chance just retweet this post Winners will be notified Thursday after 4pm #acceptancematters #autisticvoice ne-as.org.uk/acceptance-mat…

What a programme. What a format. What honesty. What joyous humanity. What an absolute giant of a man is #MichaelSheen #TheAssembly

A Danish kindergarten. Playing outdoors, even in mud, is part of each day. It's essential for children's sensory development. It's essential for children to be children. For the rest, grown-ups invented the washing machine. #GoodMorning, everyone

School attendance difficulties: 92.1% neurodivergent 83.4% autistic - @educationgovuk this pic is exactly what masking looks like. @AFNCCF surely you know this. #tonedeaf It’s us parents who mop up the trauma school causes. Our children deserve better. #SEND #Autism 1/2

@75ThunderRoad @milton_damian Seems obvious really 🤷‍♀️

The school attendance crisis? We could set tougher targets, blame parents, have more penalties, bring in AI technology, fund more breakfast clubs or introduce more sport. Alternatively, we could just start seeing things differently. stevebheadteacher.wordpress.com/2023/08/29/sch…

Pointing Out A Problem. I was listening to a podcast about something unrelated to parenting, or school, or autism. The guest was talking about his experiences leaving a religion with abusive leaders. He raised the alarm as a teenager, thinking that others would act.1/

Matthew Perry. 💔 Thank you for helping others.

One of the hardest things is when your child wants to go school but it makes them unwell. Realising that going back to the environment that impacted negatively will be hard for all to understand. So instead figuring out other ways to live and learn.. Finding new ways to thrive