Another day, another sign our SEND system is utterly broken. At the start of this year, there were 638,745 EHCPs in place. That’s up 10.8% from the same time last year. However, it’s not just EHCPs that are breaking budgets...

Nothing says “well done” like a failed mail-merge.

I’m part of the last generation to experience childhood without a smartphone. I learned how to “swim in the digital deep” as an adult who got to play as a kid. Seems to work well.

Last weekend, a machine cut a duplicate key for me. This weekend, a machine processed my lunch order. I didn’t need to speak to another human. Is this progress?

As a care-leaver, my eldest was automatically entitled to significant benefits. I encouraged and supported him into part time work. The ‘benefits’ he’s gained from this are immeasurable.

From the Child Practice Review (CPR) looking at Neil Foden, the former head teacher and "prolific sex offender who harmed many children". Will lessons be learned?

For the families I work with… Their children didn’t play when they were little. They were too hungry, scared, terrified. They were trying to survive. I no longer have any doubts about the importance of play.

All while charging Local Authorities £85,617 per pupil, per year.

In Wales, over a period of 18 months: “...14 people have not been killed on Welsh roads because of 20mph and 98 will have avoided a hospital visit for a serious injury.” Proud to live in a country where research and policy override politics.

Ooooh... new book from Charlie Mackesy out this month. 😍

5pm, after school, on a mild September evening. This purpose-built facility in our village is empty. Not a child in sight here, or on the two surrounding playing fields, or in the two nearby playgrounds.

Keep school at school. Keep home at home. For children with trauma, this is often essential.

Why do schools do this? An email goes out asking, “Are you nervous about being back in school?” on the same day they’re putting a child into a “lunchtime lockdown” for chewing gum (a well-known regulation strategy for children with trauma).

From an interview with Peter Lamont, author of Radical Thinking.

All three of my kids were shown graphic videos of Charlie Kirk’s assassination yesterday. They’re three different ages, in three different education settings (two of which have phone bans), across three local authorities. One of my kids doesn’t have their own smartphone.

UNDERSTANDING behaviour is not EXCUSING behaviour. 👉 Going below surface-level behaviour is not dismissing behaviour 👉 Being radically curious about behaviour is not accepting behaviour 👉 Accepting what drives behaviour is not endorsing behaviour

Therapeutic bath. 🛁 ❤️‍🩹

As our kids return to school, I’m thinking of all those wonderful security blankets in the form of humans who work tirelessly with our kids. Children with trauma want a better life. That starts with never feeling that scared again.

Is this sustainable? From Lana Hempsall in The Spectator.

“A more substantial factor for me was the fact that staff and leaders said they felt safer and better trained,” [Bennett] said.

Fostering doesn’t have a recruitment crisis. It has a retention crisis. From Mary Wakefield in @thespectator1828.bsky.social.

We don’t have a behaviour crisis. We have an understanding children crisis.

The job of adults isn’t just keeping children safe. It’s helping them feel safe.

My son recently finished secondary school. He was there for 5 years. I never met any of his teachers.

We need an education and social care system that *knows* children. Knows them on an individual basis. Knows their family. Knows their story. We are moving further away from that with each passing day.

Can we normalise kids not taking mobile phones into their bedrooms? We have this as a house rule (even when friends come over), and we’re very much in the minority.

I’m watching one of my kids thrive in part-time work. After so many years in education, where the consequences of behaviour are illogical and unnatural, the consequences of actions in work make perfect sense. Seems a much better way of learning.

The news is out... following the success of the original A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting, I’m pleased to share I’ll be writing the follow-up A-Z (for teens and tweens), alongside the brilliant Sarah Naish, Sarah Dillon, and Sair Penna.

I just took an early evening walk around my village. Lots of families live here. (Our primary school has two classes of 30 for each year group.) You wouldn’t know that—because none of the children who live here are outside.

“If we want our sons, our daughters, all young people to read, we must grant them the same rights we grant ourselves.”