Verity Watts

@dyzellemusic @we_aredarts Thank you for the opportunity Dyzelle. It was a pleasure to work with you, Sophie and your colleagues again sharing ideas and understanding around working with children and young people with SEMH.

What a lovely evening hosting the All Aboard Music Network for @we_aredarts ! We had the brilliant @watts_verity guiding us to better understand SEMH and the practical tips and approaches we can use in music lessons/workshops to support our pupils. #musiceducation #musiced

On this day, 13th September 2023, Stephen Lawrence would have turned 49 years old. 🧡May his legacy continue to live strong, and may his soul rest in eternal power in paradise. 🕊️ 🕊️ 🕊️ Happy Birthday Stephen 🧡🙏🏾 #HappyBirthdayStephenLawrence #RipStephenLawrence

We were held on Suella Braverman’s Bibby Stockholm barge – and we’re terrified of going back there theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

When I was a building principal, we had a group of boys who were consistently getting office referrals during lunch for aggressive and disruptive behaviors. In the past, these behaviors had led to increasingly severe consequences that did not reduce the negative behaviors (and caused some students to be sent home and to miss instruction). I sat down with the group and we worked together to come up with a plan on what to do during lunch. One of the boys asked if we could start a knitting club, since his Auntie had recently taught him how to knit. Since he was a leader of the group, the other boys agreed. I asked them to come back tomorrow with some ideas of what to knit. The next day one of the boys said that he wanted to knit little hats for the preemies at the hospital, since his little cousin was there and that a nurse mentioned that they had run out of the little hats. The boys knitted daily and we delivered the hats to the hospital. We received many heartfelt thank you notes from families, nurses and doctors (and even an in-person visit with a personal thank you and cookies from a newborn's mom). This group continued to grow as did our ability to create knitted hats for preemies. This became a huge success for the participating students. There was significant improvement in the students’ behavior, attitude, achievement, and attendance. It is so important to think outside of the box for “win-win” solutions. It really isn’t the WHAT you do that is important, it is the WHY you are doing it! Our knitting group become a team, family, and community. #maslowbeforebloom

@TheTeacherWins I am so sorry to hear that your son was subject to such abuse and that it of course impacted you as well. It is so sickening that this happens. Thank you for sharing your experience.

We're looking for an incredible limbic whispering SEMH teaching team to join our school. Do you want to be part of creating a trauma informed therapeutic classroom where children thrive, heal and plant seeds of hope for the future? Come join #TeamYA! #WeAreYA #YACARE

Schools need more training on this...a child who hates writing, is fidgety and easily flips.First step should be assessing the integration of primitive reflexes.These are the building blocks of everything else. #SEND #REFLEXES #SEMH

300,000 teachers are on strike today. Why? 📉 Real pay down by 23% since 2010 📖 Devastating austerity cuts to school budgets 👩‍🏫 Stress, exhaustion and unbearable workloads amid a retention and recruitment crisis RT if you're with our teachers 👊

Royal Mail CEO Simon Thompson earns a base salary of £540,000 plus a £140,000 bonus. Yet he's firing and replacing the workforce with people on insecure contracts and 20% less pay, and is bringing in agency staff to break strikes. Utterly shameful.

@_LisaCherry The word environment evokes shark infested waters. In education, staff appraisal and individual blame need replacing with an ecology of trauma informed containment that acknowledges the impact of systems and structures on the nervous system of both the child and the staff.

A common theme I'm hearing is that organisations on the trauma informed journey aren't focusing enough on making the enviro for staff conducive to 'the work.' Yet this is core. It can feel counter intuitive when working with crisis, challenge & low resources but it's central!

@missbevan24 Adorable! Sounds like you’ll have as much fun with it as the children!

Mick Lynch Dismantles the Media, Government and Keir Starmer @RMTunion

Social workers get a lot of abuse they don't also need it from their employers - please support this fundraiser and share... Thanks!! crowdjustice.com/case/social-wo…

Children as young as nine are getting sucked into drug dealing & violence, & the systems that are supposed to keep young people safe are "not fit for purpose". That's according to a new report from the Commission on Young Lives. We speak to its chair @annelongfield. Listen here⬇️

@Theholisticpsyc It would be great to read some threads to support parents who have damaged their children. Many feel deep shame and regret. It is very hard to parent in a different way, or if you are living in toxic stress etc. No-one is taught how to parent and it should be a priority.

This will be helpful for those of you raised by narcissistic parents (NP)

@RichardBurgon Absolutely agree, I was appalled by this too.

What a terrible decision by the BBC to interview Nigel Farage over the Manston migrant centre. What the hell does he have to offer in this debate? This is the time for a serious discussion on the impact of the Tory’s cruel immigration policies. Not more myths and scapegoating.

Birbalsingh’s commission to investigate effective teaching styles schoolsweek.co.uk/birbalsinghs-c… mmmm I think @ParklandsLeeds should have been consulted with this given the success and the total opposite to 'silence' and 'strict.' Build a School on Love and watch the results roll in

Love this.😂

Greta Thunberg on the climate delusion: ‘We’ve been greenwashed out of our senses. It’s time to stand our ground’ theguardian.com/environment/20…

Freeze state pensions and slash ‘non-frontline’ NHS and schools staff, said No 10’s economic adviser theguardian.com/politics/2022/…