Anjali Patel, Lead Advisory Teacher, Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE)

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) is an independent UK charity, and English Association, dedicated to raising the literacy achievement of children by putting quality literature at the heart of all learning. 

It is a charity with a national and international reputation for providing excellent literacy training and resources for primary schools, based on extensive research and best practice.

CLPE’s core beliefs and mission align with those of NACE in that we believe it is every child’s right to achieve and to be given the opportunities and experiences necessary to thrive.

What is Power of Reading?

CLPE’s research around the importance of using quality texts as the basis for English planning and quality teaching, and to provide reflective professional development, is embodied in our flagship training programme: the Power of Reading. 

Built on 50 years of CLPE’s research, the Power of Reading explores the impact high-quality literature has on children’s engagement and attainment as readers and the link between reading and children’s writing development, supported by creative teaching approaches to develop a whole-school curriculum, which fosters a love of reading and writing to raise achievement in literacy. 

In short, we recommend the kinds of books that provide challenge and opportunity for sustained shared study in whole-class English lessons with detailed teaching sequences that enable teachers across all primary Key Stages to work in depth with the best children’s literature being published today. 

When ‘broad and balanced’ became overloaded and surface-level

So why do we believe should Power of Reading be at the heart of any English curriculum? 

At CLPE, our school members are integral to our work. We benefit from thousands of schools and teachers being part of that CLPE community and this means we can draw on our relationship with and research in these schools to design professional development programmes and teaching resources that remain relevant.

The Power of Reading programme is refined each year, informed by the evaluations of participants and to take into account new research or statutory guidance or developments from the DfE and Ofsted and to support our schools to interpret and implement policy and guidance with confidence and integrity to what we know works.

In recent years, the issues raised with us by teachers and leaders on our INSETs and training sessions has been overridingly related to concerns around understanding how to use language to communicate meaning and for effect, both orally and in writing; and in editing, refining and response to writing. Perhaps their views resonate with you?

“Children are not motivated to edit their work beyond proofreading for spelling or other ‘surface features’.”

“There is so much curriculum content, we are teaching too much at a surface level rather than teaching at depth, particularly in writing.”

“The EYFS curriculum is too constrained for periods of sustained shared thinking to happen. Reduced time is spent at play, with more carpet time ‘sitting and listening’.”

“Responses to texts don’t have depth, children aren’t able to go below the surface and be reflective and evaluative.”

“Some set structures and routines, e.g. ‘we have to do writing every day’, ‘we have to do grammar on a Wednesday’ are barriers to developing effective practice, particularly in writing.” 

“Not enough time and expertise in how to respond to writing as readers (teachers and children) – text references are features-based, not drawing on language and composition for effect.”

Providing depth to close the disadvantage gap

It is interesting to explore these commonly shared views through the lens of inclusion and to make the connection between being ‘more able’ and the kinds of experiences that lead to this opportunity to thrive and become highly literate.

Children from privileged backgrounds are more likely to experience the kinds of book ownership and book sharing experiences that support them to deepen their reader response and understanding of the world so that – in school – they can begin to explore how authors, illustrators or poets can achieve this response and how they themselves can make meaning for a reader in their own writing.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more reliant on classroom routines and resources to be able to access and make connections with high-quality, representative children’s literature; to engage in daily book sharing experiences; develop deeper reader response through sustained book talk; and, as Frank Smith (1982) put it, ‘join the literacy club’ (1).

If teachers are saying they are constrained by an overloaded curriculum or lack opportunity to develop subject knowledge through quality professional development (2), the English curriculum will become increasingly disjointed and ‘surface’ level with a disadvantage gap that grows ever wider. When what all teachers want is to give every child the opportunity to work at greater depth whatever their starting point. 

The last thing we want is for only privileged children to be afforded the benefits of challenge and so we must provide an equitable curriculum that enables all children to be motivated to make and create meaning with rich texts through non-reductive teaching approaches and with expert teachers.

And this is why we believe at CLPE that the Power of Reading is as necessary today as it was 20 years ago, if not more so.

The impact of a reading-rich English curriculum

The Power of Reading programme stems from CLPE’s seminal research publication The Reader in the Writer (3). This research aimed to investigate how children's writing might be influenced by studying challenging literary texts in the classroom. 

The findings from that research serve as the backbone to CLPE’s training programme and they are at the heart of the Power of Reading teaching sequences that support our members to develop an evidence-led literacy curriculum in their own classrooms. 

After 20 years, and with thousands of teachers trained across the UK and internationally, the programme continues to evidence impact on teachers and children whose schools have participated in the training. All the evidence we collect to measure impact continues to teach us how powerful reading can be for both children’s academic attainment and wider learning and development.

An independent evaluation by Leeds Trinity University reported on the impact of using Power of Reading in 11 Bradford schools from Autumn 2018 to Spring 2019 (4). The report shows that children in these schools made accelerated progress and the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils was significantly narrowed.

 
More recently, in evaluating the impact of Power of Reading on children in the Early Years (5), the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers was smaller in research schools compared to all pupils within the local area. And when we compared the engagement and attainment of project children at the start and end of their Reception year, the findings were significant with double the number of children working at age-related expectations in Language and Literacy Areas of Learning.

 

Key recommendations for a challenging English curriculum

So what can we learn from this research to support classroom practice? 

If we can create an English curriculum that is evidenced to close the disadvantage gap through exposure to and engagement in high-quality texts leading to increased world and vocabulary knowledge and writing outcomes in which children make deliberate choices for their own readers, we are creating a curriculum in which all children have access to experiences that increase their self-efficacy and the chance to be more able.

Our Associate Schools – in some of the most disadvantaged communities in England – observe children working at and achieving greater depth and this is articulated beautifully in a recent case study from the team at Miriam Lord Community Primary School in Bradford. 

The Power of Reading practice and provision at Miriam Lord – and the outcomes observed – connect deeply with NACE’s core principles and can be framed as key recommendations for a challenging English curriculum:

• Ensure teachers have strong subject knowledge of high-quality children’s literature so they can give children access to a range of literary forms within and across all year groups.

“[The children] can talk with a greater depth of knowledge of authors… so their ability to compare themes, characters, likes, dislikes is so much better than it ever was and then that communicates into the writing.”

Find out more about our Power of Reading English curriculum maps.

• Choose books in which they see their own and other realities represented so that you can build authentic reader and writer identities in all children which allow them to develop and demonstrate their abilities. 

“The children need to see themselves in books – or at least an element of their lives – in books. They need access to books that they can connect to and that will draw them in and I think the book choices we give them here give them a bigger hook, certainly than the book choices I had when I was growing up.”

Find out more about CLPE’s Reflecting Realities Research.

• Use a range of non-reductive, social and creative teaching approaches to deepen children’s understanding and broaden their experiences, including drama, artwork and storytelling.

“It provides lots of opportunities for immersion and exploration which is really important for a number of children that come to our school because they’ve got deprivation of experience so they don’t get to have those exciting days out or lots of real-world experiences so the books give them that and then they get to participate in role play and activities which enthuse them which then feeds into their writing process.”

Find out about CLPE’s recommended teaching approaches.

• Follow an authentic writing process in which children are making meaning from well-crafted written language, then engage in making conscious choices with their own writing. Focus not on the ‘what’ but the ‘why’ when making such choices, within a community of readers and writers. 

“It puts children’s enjoyment at the centre of everything. It’s not focused solely on the final written output and the success criteria which was the case for a number of years and it made the whole writing process quite onerous and quite boring for children.” 

Find out more about CLPE’s reader into writing research.

• Make explicit the connections children can make between growing literacy knowledge and skills and in wider curriculum work so that children have opportunity to thrive across a range of contexts and throughout the curriculum. 

“It has wider themes threaded through it like geography, history, citizenship so it’s not just English as a stand-alone subject.”

Find out more about the Power of Reading books recommended for each Key Stage.

References
(1) Joining the Literacy Club. Further Essays into Education, Frank Smith (Heinemann, 1987)
(2) Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools: phase 2 findings (Ofsted, May 2024)
(3) The Reader in the Writer, Myra Barrs and Valerie Cork (CLPE, 2000)
(4) Leeds Trinity University report on the impact of Power of Reading in the Exceed Academies Trust, Bradford (2019)
(5) The Power of Reading in the Early Years (CLPE, 2023)

Additional resources and support

• Find out how you can get involved in CLPE’s Power of Reading programme
• Join NACE and CLPE for a free live webinar on Tuesday 17th June

Plus: save the date! On Friday 3rd October NACE and CLPE are collaborating on a “member meetup” event (free for staff at NACE member schools) exploring approaches to sustain pleasure and challenge in reading and literacy across Key Stages 2 and 3. Details coming soon to the NACE community calendar.

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Ten top tips to build learners’ sense of belonging and status

1. Welcome them to the class, ensuring that you make eye contact, address them by name and give them a smile – establishing your positive relationship and helping them feel noticed, valued and safe in the learning environment.
2. Go out of your way to find opportunities to give them responsibilities or assign a role to them, making it clear to them the skills and/or knowledge they possess that make(s) them perfect for the job. 
3. Reserve a place for them at clubs and ensure they are well inducted into enrichment opportunities.
4. Arrange groupings for activities to ensure they have supportive peers to work with.
5. Invite them to contribute to discussions, to read and to give their opinions. Don’t allow confident learners to dominate the discussion (learners with high status talk more!) and don’t ask for volunteers to read (students with low status are unlikely to volunteer). 
6. Show respect for their opinions and defer to them for advice. e.g. “So, I’m wondering what might be the best way to go about this. Martha, what do you think?” “That’s a good point, Nitin. I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you!”
7. Make a point of telling them you think they should put themselves forward for opportunities (e.g. to go to a football trial, audition for the show, apply to be a prefect) and provide support (e.g. with writing an application or practising a speech).
8. Connect them with a champion or mentor (adult or older peer) from a similar background who has achieved success to build their self-belief.   
9. Secure high-status work experience placements or internships for them.
10. Invite inspiring role models with similar lived experience into school or build the stories of such role models into schemes of learning and assemblies.  

• Closing the attainment gap – part 1: diagnosing challenges and barriers
• Closing the attainment gap – part 2: eliminating economic exclusion

Do academically strong pupils at your school who are on the Pupil Premium register progress as quickly and attain as highly as academically strong pupils who are not? 

Do these students sometimes grasp new concepts quickly and securely in the classroom and show flair and promise in lessons, only to perform less well in exams than their more advantaged peers?

If so, what can be done to close the attainment gap?

In this series of three blog posts, Rachel Macfarlane, Lead Adviser for Underserved Learners at HFL Education, explores the reasons for the attainment gap and offers practical strategies for supporting economically disadvantaged learners who have the potential to access high grades and assessment outcomes to excel in tests and exams. 

This first post examines the challenges and barriers often faced by economically disadvantage learners and offers advice about precise diagnosis and smart identification of needs. Part 2 explores strategies for eliminating economic exclusion, while Part 3 looks at ways to build a sense of belonging and status for these learners to enhance their performance.

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The problem with exams

The first point to make is that high stakes terminal tests and exams tend not to favour learners from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. These learners often lack the abundance of social and cultural capital that their more advantaged peers have amassed. This can result in a failure to recognise and connect with the cultural references frequently found in SATs and exam questions. 

Students on the Pupil Premium (PP) register have a lower average attendance rate than those from more affluent backgrounds. Those living in multiple occupancy and/or crowded housing are more exposed to germs and viruses, and families in rented or local authority housing move accommodation more frequently, resulting in lost learning days. With packed, content-heavy exam syllabuses, missed lessons lead to less developed schema, less secure knowledge and less honed skills. 

The families of economically disadvantaged learners are less likely to have the financial means to provide the personal tutoring, cramming and exam practice that their more advantaged peers benefit from. And if they have reduced levels of self-belief and confidence, as many students from underserved groups do, they are more likely to crumble under exam pressure and perform poorly in timed conditions.

But given the fact that terminal tests, in the form of SATs, GCSEs and A-levels, seem here to stay as the main means of assessing learners, what can school teachers and leaders do to ensure that economically disadvantaged learners who have the potential to access high grades and assessment outcomes excel academically?

Precise diagnosis of challenges and barriers

The first step is to get to the root of the problem. Schools which have closed the attainment gap tend to be skilled at diagnosing the precise challenge or barrier standing in the way of each underserved learner. Rather than treating all PP eligible learners as a homogeneous group, they are determined to understand the lived experience of each. 

So, for example, rather than talking in general or vague terms about pupils on the PP register doing less well because their attendance rate is lower, they drill down to identify the precise reason for the absences of each learner whose attendance is below par. For one it might be that they are working at a paid job in the evenings and too tired to get up in time for school, for a second it might be that they don’t come to school on days when their one set of uniform is dirty or worn, for a third that they sometimes cannot afford the transport costs to get to school and for a fourth that they are being marginalised or bullied and therefore avoiding school. 

Effective ways to diagnose challenges and barriers faced by economically disadvantaged learners include:

• Home visits, or meetings on site, to get to know parents/carers and to better understand any challenges they face;
• Employing a parent liaison officer to build up relationships based on trust and mutual respect with parents;
• Allocating a staff champion to each underserved learner to talk with and listen to them in order to better understand their lived experience;
• Administering a survey with well-chosen questions to elicit barriers faced;
• Completion of a barriers audit, guiding educators to drill down to identify the specific challenges faced by each learner.   

Moving from barriers to solutions

Once specific barriers have been identified, it is important to ask the question: “What does this learner need in order to excel academically?” This ensures that the focus moves from the ‘disadvantage’ to the ‘solution’ and avoids any unintentional lowering of expectations of high-performance outcomes. The danger of getting stuck on describing ‘barriers’ or ‘challenges’ is that it can excuse, or lead to acceptance of, attainment gaps.

Encouraging staff to complete a simple table like the one below can assist in identifying needs and consequent actions. In this case, an audit of barriers has identified that the learner, a Year 7 pupil, has weak digital literacy as she had very limited access to a computer in the past.

Barrier/challenge	Details of the issue and identification of the learner’s or learners’ need(s)	Strategies to be adopted to meet the need
Weak digital literacy	Student needs to be allocated a laptop and to receive support with understanding all the relevant functions, in order to ensure she gets maximum benefit from it for class work and home learning and can confidently use it in a wide range of learning situations.	1:1 sessions with a sixth former to familiarise the student with the range of functions. Weekly check-ins with tutor. Calls home to monitor that she is able to confidently use the laptop for all home learning tasks.

 

You can read more about strategies to close the attainment gap in Rachel’s books Obstetrics For Schools (2021) and The A-Z of Diversity and Inclusion (2024), with additional support available through HFL Education.

More from this series:

• Closing the attainment gap – part 2: eliminating economic exclusion
• Closing the attainment gap – part 3: developing a sense of belonging and status in economically disadvantaged learners

Plus: this year's NACE Conference will draw on the latest research (including our own current research programme) and case studies to explore how schools can remove barriers to learning and create opportunities for all young people to flourish. Read more and book your place.

Bob Cox, author of the Opening Doors books, shares some key principles and strategies for a challenging primary English curriculum – based on the latest addition to the series.

Every school’s intent is to be ambitious for its pupils. In the privileged role I have as educationist, consultant and writer, I so often admire displays, website quotes, inspirational messages and exhortations to pitch high and achieve dreams; yet I also realise how complex this can be to apply in the classroom on a day-to-day basis.

Primary teachers are expected to be experts in many subjects, so detailed support is needed in specific domains. Along with my team of ‘opening doors’ consultants, and with case studies being explored constantly with the schools in our network, we have been able to condense and express into a new publication some of the key principles and strategies needed to develop high-quality, ambitious primary English from which every pupil can benefit. This means that pupils who are already advanced and need regular immersion in literature, language and ideas are provided for in rich and creative ways: not by discrete divisions from others or by labelling, but through a challenge culture which encourages and enables all pupils to aspire and reach further. 

It's not just a question of talking about risk-taking, the unexpected, the wonder of top-class thinking skills, philosophy and quirky writing; it’s using the resources and strategies to make this all happen. How many keynote speeches have I attended over the years receiving deserved rounds of applause for charisma and style and social justice – but giving little indication for teachers who are not subject experts of where to actually begin.

I’ve seen schools hugely idealistic, wonderfully caring and totally committed, wandering in the dark for pathways to subject-specific depth. It’s all too easy then to adopt a package, a linear routeway, a stepped process which often tends to leave high performance learners revisiting concepts previously mastered. This can leave teachers de-skilled in the longer term too, as the delivery stages can dominate thinking and planning more than creative ideas. The latter needs the constant fuel of new challenging texts, quirky possibilities and curiosity. That starts with the teacher’s autonomy and nurturing of ambition. I am seeing this happen across our network and it’s very exciting!

In short, personalising approaches in any way can becomes harder if teaching to the middle rather than beyond the top takes a cultural grip. If models of excellence and ambition start to be squeezed, teachers themselves may lose sight of their own potential and ‘age-related’ notions become a goal rather than a starting point.

Our new book ‘Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English’ provides the guide that schools have been asking for to confront that key issue of HOW ambition expresses itself in English, with a mixture of research, case studies, ideas and examples of pupils’ writing.

Essentially, high performance learners will benefit from being in a school where challenge for everyone is a priority! 

Five key principles for achieving this:

1. Pitch lessons beyond the level of the most advanced pupil.
2. Scaffold and intervene as appropriate for others.
3. Link quality texts from the past to the present and across the globe.
4. Exploit the potential of literature, including poetry, to give scope for new learning and deep knowledge acquisition as well as general knowledge.
5. Plan for sequencing and progression of knowledge via concepts in English.

Five key strategies for successful implementation:

1. Access support is needed continually, even for advanced pupils; this could include chunking stages; visual literacy; music; drama; questioning as a culture.
2. Productive group work and structured classroom talk provides the explorations of style and language needed for in-depth comprehension of quality texts.
3. Diversify the question layout to meet the needs of the pupils.
4. Develop quality writing via taster drafts which can link into sustained writing.
5. Zoom in to teach the specifics of English; zoom out to offer linked-in whole-text reading.

This is just a snapshot of the exciting work which we facilitate and activate. It’s very fulfilling. Our work is particularly in tune with attempts to inject high aspiration by matching intent to resources and approaches which will lift pupils’ standards and confidence.

Visit our website to read more about the five resource books in the series and the new book which will become the lead one, as it puts into words what schools have already been achieving to inspire so many more to follow. It’s time to make your primary English that much more exciting! 

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“Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English: Pitching high and including all” is available to order now from Amazon or Crown House Publishing.

NACE members can benefit from a 20% discount from all purchases from the Crown House Publishing website. Log in to our member offers page for details.

More from Bob Cox:

• Opening doors to challenging English for every pupil: quality text to quality writing
• Recorded webinar: Developing an ambitious English curriculum for all (login required)

Denise Yates shares her expertise in the field of dual and multiple exceptionality (DME) through 12 practical steps schools can take to ensure learners with DME are effectively identified and supported.

Pupils, parents and professionals may all have different perspectives on what effective dual and multiple exceptionality (DME) education looks like, both in general and at different stages in a pupil’s journey through school. That said, there are some underpinning characteristics that should be common to all DME education, regardless of the setting or content offered to nurture and inspire pupils at all ages. 

This blog post explores the kinds of things that teachers and other professionals should consider in the classroom. Notwithstanding, it is important to remember that getting DME right involves professionals at all levels – including national and local governments and policymakers, those at governor or trustee level (or equivalent) in school, and within the senior leadership team.

For professionals who work directly with pupils, it is important to:

1. Be aware of dual and multiple exceptionality (DME).

This includes understanding what it looks like in the classroom and at home, and how this can often differ. Look at the whole child in different contexts and settings to build up a holistic picture of their strengths and areas of struggle. 

2. Know how to identify a pupil with DME. 

These children are often hard to spot. They can often show ‘flashes of brilliance’ in one or more areas, whilst at the same seeming to struggle with often the most basic of activities. Alternatively, their high learning potential can mask any special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). In this case, they may gain average or even above-average scores in tests or work, meaning no concerns are raised about either their high ability or their SEND. Yet, if the barriers to their learning are removed, either through approach or content, these children can fly and be the best they can be. 

Linked to identification, it is also important to recognise the kind of behaviours and actions that pupils with DME can present, both in the classroom and in the home environment, when that DME is misdiagnosed for something else or when it is not recognised or supported in the right way.

3. Understand and implement individual, classroom and whole-school approaches for DME. 

Focus areas should include: supporting children’s academic achievement, nurturing their gifts and talents, encouraging interpersonal relationships with other, like-minded individuals, and promoting their own understanding about themselves. 

Some of these things can be incorporated into a universal approach, such as providing differentiated learning opportunities alongside personal choice. Some provision may need to be more targeted, such as working in small groups on specific issues. Some provision may need to be more intensive and individualised. Putting in place a patchwork of different approaches will enable professionals to identify and evaluate what works best for each pupil with DME.

4. Believe in, speak up for, and give pupils with DME a voice to speak up for themselves. 

Children and young people with DME often have strong opinions and need a positive approach and guidance in the classroom so they are able to voice those opinions positively. 

As with some more able pupils, those with DME can have a strong sense of justice and fairness, and perceived lack of these can lead to emotional or behavioural outbursts. Such incidents (whether the injustice is real or perceived) can have an incremental impact on a pupil with DME’s self-confidence, wellbeing, performance and achievement levels in the long-term; addressing them is therefore well worthwhile. Developing systems for actions such as asking questions in class which are transparent, inclusive and fair can have a real impact on learning and wellbeing.

5. Use the child’s high learning potential (HLP) to overcome their learning difficulties – don’t get stuck repeating basics. 

Repeating the basic building blocks a child needs to learn before moving onto higher level concepts can be a recipe for disaster. More of the same can frustrate a child with DME. It is often more rewarding for the pupil with DME to tackle the problem in reverse, giving them higher level work and using this as a hook to put the basic building blocks in place.

6. Adapt the tools you use for pupils with SEND and HLP to inspire pupils with DME to use their intelligence to learn. 

For example, don’t be frightened to use complex language and descriptions, but give this context and then use the work to address any challenge the pupil faces.

7. Explain the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ to pupils with DME. 

This can help them to understand the context within which they are working, which can promote their learning. For example, explaining how the brain works and using growth mindset theory to help pupils understand how making mistakes can be a useful tool in learning can be effective. Praising the effort a pupil with DME puts in – instead of or as well as focusing on the results they achieve – can also have a positive impact on their learning and self-esteem.

8. Understand that a child or young person with DME can present very differently at home and in school. 

This can work both ways; a child who is quiet and studious in the classroom and who presents no cause for concern can be a child who is out of control at home, exhibiting poor behaviour, meltdowns or worse – like a pressure cooker exploding which has been kept in check at school. Likewise, a child who is the class clown or who exhibits behavioural problems at school can seem an angel at home when they can learn what they want at their own pace with no expectations placed on them. This makes it vital for professionals and parents to listen to each other, accept the different descriptions of the same child, and work together to problem solve solutions.

9. Develop a positive relationship with parents and carers. 

Reinforce this with a transparent communication process and open-door policy. Many parents or carers do not come into school until they are absolutely desperate to sort out a situation. By then they are looking for a sympathetic ear, a chance to talk about their concerns and a speedy resolution. Sometimes this desperation can result in parental outbursts and negative behaviour. Recognise this possibility, listen to the parent or carer, and work positively with them to problem-solve their concerns. 

10. Be honest about what can or can’t be done. 

Supporting pupils with DME does not have to be resource-intensive. In fact, supporting DME effectively can save resources. For example, where DME goes unrecognised or is misdiagnosed for other things, it can result in a range of behavioural, social and emotional problems which are more resource-intensive to tackle than addressing the DME would have been in the first place. Notwithstanding, if the school is not able to put provision in place, it is better to be honest and to work with the parents on what can be done.

11. Pilot approaches to DME in the classroom and beyond.

Some of these may work for all children – such as differentiated learning tasks in class or at home that the child can choose from themselves, through to open invitations to all pupils to attend out-of-school activities and then seeing who shows up and is enthusiastic about the event. 

Explore the pace and content of learning, both inside and outside the classroom, and question how you can adapt an exercise or piece of homework to test what the pupils know rather than what they can do. Instead of a written submission, could they record their homework in a song? On a PowerPoint presentation? On a video? When setting homework ask yourself: do you want to test their handwriting or their knowledge? Is it better for your pupil with DME to write three lines on what they did in the summer break, or two pages on fossils or Harry Potter?

12. Look for DME in unexpected places. 

The brightest child is not necessarily the one sitting at the front to the class listening to your every word. They may be the class clown, the one whose behaviour deteriorates easily, the one who has a wicked sense of humour or is sarcastic and questions everything. Keep an open mind and adapt your behaviour.

Navigating the maze relating to dual and multiple exceptionality is not easy. However, there are books and materials to support teachers and other professionals, and organisations both in the UK and overseas that run online and face-to-face training to help SENDCos, teachers and other school-based staff to gain and build on their skills in this area. Notwithstanding, in working with pupils and parents/ carers in this arena, the key is to keep an open mind and an open door and help problem-solve to find long-term approaches and solutions which work to maximise the potential of these children and young people. 

Read more: 16 tips for effective collaboration with parents and carers – including those with DME children

About the author
Denise Yates has worked in education and training for over 38 years with a focus on enabling all individuals to maximise their potential. After 10 years as CEO of Potential Plus UK, she left in 2017 to pursue her passion, which could be summarised as ‘hidden potential’ – focusing on supporting children and young people with DME, those with mental health problems and those who have been failed by the system, for whatever reason. Denise is currently a Board member of The Potential Trust, Nisai Education Trust and Potential In Me. She is also an adviser with Citizens Advice in her local area. 

Denise Yates is co-author with Adam Boddison of The School Handbook for Dual and Multiple Exceptionality, and author of the new book Parenting Dual Exceptional Children. You can follow her on Twitter @DeniseYates_

Special offer: To benefit from a 20% discount on Denise Yates’ new book, Parenting Dual Exceptional Children, enter discount code Yates20 when purchasing the book from the Jessica Kingsley website by 31 August 2022.