Classroom teachers are incredibly busy professionals and have huge demands on their time. They are expected to plan lessons, teach, mark books and assessments and cater for pastoral needs of the children they teach. Teachers are struggling to manage the cognitive overload of many different teaching approaches, new assessments and levels, continuous data inputting and an increasing daily demand to manage children with a variety of needs- often complex- in a resource poor system. Teachers do not have time to read text heavy materials but do appreciate straight forward, bite sized guidance about why their pupils might present with so many different issues. In my experience, teachers respond well to tangible strategies they can practice and embed in their everyday practice and the easier and more visual the guidance is to read and digest, the more likely they are to refer to it and process the information.
 

This book is designed with classroom teachers in mind. It is clearly formatted, and the spiral binding enables readers to find pages easily. My thinking is that when teachers are planning for their classes and need to work out how to support individual pupils or groups, they will find their copy and search for the sections that may help. They can scan through the context to understand a little more about what might be going on and then turn to the strategies to see what would be most helpful. The visual pages will provide more ideas in a quick and accessible way. Maybe this page will be left open in class on the teacher’s desk as a reminder or to share with TAs or other teachers.
 

These last few months have placed even greater pressure on school and teaching in the new normal is going to be a big challenge. We will all have to adapt further for vulnerable pupils and without the proximity of TAs in some classes, the supportive strategies and approaches we choose will make such a difference to pupil progress. I really hope the comprehensive information in the book will be helpful to all teachers whatever their experience.