S2 E6: Masking, Tuition and the Education System: Nicole Bateman chats with Kevin Wrenn

In Season 2, Episode 6 of "Conversations with a SEND Mum," host Nicole Bateman engages in a conversation with Kevin Wrenn, a Dad whose daughter is dyslexic, former school senior leader, and tuition business owner. Together, they delve into the topic of dyslexia, masking in primary school, and the education system.

Episode Highlights:

• Dyslexia and Masking in Primary School: Kevin shares his personal experiences and insights into his journey to dyslexia diagnosis with his daughter, discussing the challenges faced by his daughter in the transition to secondary school. They explore the phenomenon of masking leading to struggles in the classroom.
• Tuition and the Education System: Nicole and Kevin discuss the role of tuition in supporting students with dyslexia and other learning differences. Kevin draws on his expertise as a tuition business owner to share strategies and approaches for providing personalised support and empowering neurodivergent learners to thrive.
• Navigating the Education System: The conversation extends to navigating the complexities of the education system and advocating for all students. Kevin reflects on his experiences as a former school senior leader, highlighting the importance of inclusive practices, early intervention, and collaboration between schools and families.

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Check out our Season 1 and 2 sponsor The Super Sensory Squad who support kids in understanding the eight sensory systems and emotional regulation using their penguin squad at: www.thesupersensorysquad.com and www.instagram.com/thesupersensorysquad

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to Conversations with a Send Mum podcast. I'm Nicole, your host, and today I'm joined by Kevin Wren, and he is the Principal of Conexus Tuition in the Preston Groups area and he is also a dad. So thank you so much for coming. Thank you for having me on, Nicole. Much appreciated. That's all right. So first of all, can you tell us like, what's your connection to the SEND community? I have a few different connections, but starting out with the number one, really, as a dad my daughter in year nine was diagnosed as first centile dyslexic across the board with traits of ADHD. And so on a personal level, that's my connection to With with additional needs. Also, I was a primary school teacher for 16 years. Senior leader for a decade and, and always worked in environments where, where, and, and, and chosen environments where additional needs was something I, I came across a lot. So yeah, both personal and professional. Yeah. Linked with SEND. Yeah. Excellent. Like myself, they say who's personal and professional. What's something that, as first of all, looking at you as a dad, with your daughter, you said she was diagnosed in year nine how did you get to that diagnosis process? What, what did you see like before that? My daughter spends a lot of time around primary schools. Obviously with me, she went to nursery in the same school I worked in. So she was in dad's classroom after school and before school. So I think she kind of worked out the game of primary school, if you will. And she had a fabulous, fabulous time at primary school. She had wonderful teachers in key year groups. So I think my daughter learned how to get by at primary school. So to get all the way through to year nine. I think it was behavior that really led to it. I think she'd reached the point where she could no longer mask, where she could no longer use the strategies. Think of the amount of work that the children like her do just to, just to keep up, they're working so much harder than other children in their own ways. I think it all just caught up with her. So I think it was behavior. My daughter became very frustrated and very fractious at school. And she's not one for taking a backward step. She's, she must peak her mind. And I think that began to show up as, hang on, this, this isn't, this isn't the child we've known before. And to be fair, it was kind of a relief that someone said, you know what, you know what's going on in your mind a thousand times in a lesson. There's reasons for that. And there's things we can do to help you. So there was an element of relief in there as well. So yeah. I think that was where we first sort of looked at it and went, okay, what, support can we give her? Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that's the thing that's amazing that she had to work so, so much harder to mask that, to be able to, do that all throughout primary school. What strong girl, but it's great that, that different support things can then go in place after that and in your kind of professional career, senior leader for a decade, what kind of things do you see in the mainstream primary school I worked in schools that had really good reputations for taking children who were, for, for, for want of a better phrase, they were mainstream with bells on. Yeah. And some schools wouldn't want to take on the challenge of, of their additional needs. Now, I always worked in schools where we were well known for our ability, our ability to manage very complex needs. Early on in my career, I, had children with, with ASD needs in, in my early classrooms and just really dealt with them as human beings because I wasn't that experienced as a teacher to say strategy, strategy, strategy, and kind of just went on the human element of this isn't working for you right now. Let's do something else. And I think that stuck me in really good stead as I got more experienced, as I did, training courses and awareness courses. Yes, it gave me the skills to perhaps be a better practitioner, but I maintained that actually I was just dealing with a human being at the, at the simplest end of things. And I tried to remember that where, when emotions were high, when red lines have been gone over when days were ruined and, and we always brought it back to, come on, how was that? How was that little person, that young person feeling? And I think that's still being really good said but there are schools out there who don't want to, and aren't set up for that kind of thing. No. Yeah. No, absolutely. And that's, yeah, that's great. It is. Every child is an individual. Like every child. And so looking at them as a human rather than a number or rather than a statistic or rather than anything else is so, so important. And as you mentioned, like your schools that you worked in, great. Some schools, unfortunately are not set up. So to parents listening, let's say their school, and not providing for their child's needs. Their child is not thriving. How would you say the best way to approach senior leadership what advice would you give to parents to, to approach that? That's a very, very double edged. As a parent, I am vastly frustrated in a lot of ways. And I try my best not to be an educator when I go into schools. Yeah, i'm trying to talk on that human my child level, but then I also hear things that schools say and I know Actually, that's not the whole truth. You are giving me an answer It's convenient to you. You get wrapped up in, in the, the way that schools are very, this is the rule. This is the rule. This is the rule. And even though you know, there are ways around it, you as a person can't get around them because it's so good at putting them in place. Educate. I am no longer in teaching. I know what the teaching mainstream teaching. I think that stays a lot and I have to be careful in so much as. I'm a massive advocate of schools. I think schools do an incredible job. Schools are continually the lead agency on so many things and It is an impossible job. It's it's actually unmanageable for a school Take i'm going away from the person centered part at the moment and the people you are speaking to are being asked to be the lead On almost everything, behaviour, additional needs there's only so much that one building full of people can achieve. And if your child's in a building where it's not working for them, is there an alternative? Can you find a place that works better for them? Is, is one thing I would say. We don't want to do. There are two bits to this. My daughter is a circular peg in a square hole. She fits, but there are gaps. You know, so you can, you can place a circular peg in, in a square hole. It's physically possible, but those little bits around the edge, they, they annoy and things get in there and it doesn't quite work. If you're in that position, I think then you have got a conversation with school to try and ease these, these gaps. Yeah. What I would say, if you look at your situation, you've, your child is, is feeling more like a square peg in a round hole, where it doesn't matter how much shoving you do, you're not getting that peg in. That's a case of, is the environment right? So I think those are, are two. Sort of quite similar, but distinctly different situations. Yeah, I think that's really helpful, like having that round peg in a square hole or square peg in a round hole. So thinking and approaching it in different ways because yeah. Yeah, that's really helpful. So, obviously you left the mainstream teaching and now you run a tuition business, what, for education and like learning, what's your ideal, what do you now, offer for students and with that kind of understanding of additional needs, all of those things. Yeah. We have great success with children who have. A wide wide range of different needs and I will never turn a child away from a tuition class Just because they have an additional need If, if they come into the class and it's not the right environment, Yeah. that's fine. That's a very easy and honest conversation because it's a private enterprise. And I can literally say this isn't the right environment. It's not working with respect and in the right way. But one of the beauties of the way that we do is it connects us, is that everything is child centered. There's no benefit to me as a human being, or as a company, if a child passes or not. I'm not at the behest of results. You know, the wonderful phrase of standardized attainment tests. Standardized? I mean, immediately standardized across a country of children. I mean, I know the curriculum. My tutors know how to get children from A to Z. You know, that's the beauty of it. We can do that till the cows come home because we're educators, but the environment is low threat. It's first names it's where, what you want. We are literally purely there to say, what is it that you're struggling with? Well, guess what we're going to do. And as an environment for children with additional needs, I think that's very powerful for them because the, inherent threat of standardization just isn't there. You come in, you slot in where you fit, we'll, make the groups work and you get to where you need to get to that, that level of threat being reduced, I think is one of the number one things that we offer. And it's really nice. Because I came out of education to run something that was exactly what I'm running. So it's really nice to look at that and say, yeah, I might not be a teacher, but I'm sure a sugar is still an educator. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the thing, the threat level, you know, I love to, look into a lot of the nervous system, understanding neuroscience because of my son's epilepsy and just because of sensory things with the super sensory squad. That often, I look back when I was teaching and I didn't know as much as I know now and you think, yeah, they were actually in fight and flight mode. They were or freeze. My son freezes when when when there's a threat. And so. It's looking at how we can adapt and it's great that you have that flexibility now to still being an educator, but actually being able to take away that threat level because it's so important, like the most key thing for all of our kids is that they feel safe, in an environment. Absolutely. Not to, not to go quoting Maslow's at all. There is a reason that most of those theories are based on what comes first. Security. Yeah. I mean, when, I think about my daughter in sort of the fight flight, she was actually, I think she learned form as in ah, yes. Very close with the she always preferred the company of the TAs and the teachers sort. And so she was the one that would always want to help or put things away or be there. So I think she learned to fall and be close to those who made the decisions in the classroom, which in a primary school is lovely, isn't it? It's a lovely, it's an environment that suits it. And it was a very, very caring school, but then when she got to high school and things just started to fall apart, then she went into fight mode and she very much went on the front foot to try and get away from it. So, yeah, it's very interesting, the difference between primary, and really, if you think between early years foundation stage, key stage one and key stage two, are all quite distinctly different, and then the link to high school. Yeah, absolutely, because I think of high school or secondary school down here, you know, is, That's what I, for my son, seven, he's in year three. You've, you've seen again to key stage two, that step up right now. And you think that's why we want to get that support in now so that then we can be proactive. But then you think, secondary school with even, there's some kids that if they're executive functioning skills. Maybe, you know, maybe, yeah, like they need, they're looking at the timetable, they're reading the two week timetable. It's got loads of codes on, it's got loads of, I look at secondary school two week timetables and I'm like, how can you know where to go? We've run projects in schools and they'll produce us an overlay on top of it and I'm kind of Yeah, as long as somebody in this building understands that, we're grand, but yeah, yeah. There's, you know, there's so much, there's all of that to deal with, isn't it, for kids, you know, trying to be like, I've got to be here at this time and this place, and then next week I'm actually in a different place, and all of those things in your head, no wonder that, you're on high, high alert, because you're like, I don't want to be late, I don't want to go to the wrong classroom on this Monday, because it's week two rather than week one, all of those things. Lay heavy. And I think when you see children that come to their first few sessions with us, or the first session, you will see the ones who are nervous, the ones who are having a difficult time at school, whether they have additional needs or not. we've got children who are, is trauma too strong a word? They're really bogged down in their environment and it's not working for them. And you can see just as they approach a building, now we work at church halls, village halls, Community centers. So they're not education places, but they know they're coming to something they think is education and that they associate it with school. And you can see that classic red line. They're, approaching the building. They're not that far away from their red line. They're, they're shut off or they're fired or whatever it might be. Something I really pride myself in, and this is more difficult as I've expanded because I can't be everywhere all the time, so I have to rely on, on the staff I work with, but just letting them know. We go by first names. This isn't school. There's no punishment. There's no detention. You turn up and you can't be bothered for an hour. I'll still charge you the same. And I think that jokiness and that sort of being flippant and going, come on, come in, crack on, have a go. We'll have a drink of water or whatever at halftime and all the rest of it. And you see them physically lower and they're like, Oh, Well, this sounds alright. And then they ask the tutor something, the tutor goes, Yeah, give me two secs, I'll flick you onto the right bit and show you on the whiteboard. Oh. And all of a sudden you've got a child whose education experience is very close to the red line at the best of times. And they've come right the way down, just like you're going, come on in, here we are. And I think that, for whatever pluses and minuses there are around other things, that's the company I run, that's what we've set up and that's who we are. And you, I think you, you know, a lot of the Connexus backstory and the network. And I think that's, that's something that's replicated right from the top. Yeah. Through everything that we do. And it's lovely to be able to do it. Yeah, absolutely. So this is a big question that I haven't said that I was going to ask you. But anyway the future of education, if you could change one thing, this is such a massive question, but like, what, would you, what would you say it should be? Right. The prime business things about it, I think everybody's point of view. So parents of children without additional needs, children with additional needs. From the educator side from the leader side to take everybody into one microcosm of education It would be that schools start being a place that is almost entirely about education Because I don't know that sounds daft and it made people maybe thinking well, of course they're about education But I'll tell you now from from from a decade and a half of working in schools Education is not the only thing by a mile that goes on in that building. So all the all the other roles that people play all the other i've said it before the lead agency on so Many things is school. Yeah, and I think I don't I don't think that's right. I think if you strip it back and make education And schools about education first and foremost, I think you'd get better retention of staff. I think you'd have happier and more robust staff. Because they're leaving in their tens of thousands a year. Tens of thousands a year. We're at a point now where retention is about to tip over to a negative figure. So we are not far away from that. And that's been trapped for years. The trend has been ongoing. So if you were to say to somebody who loves teaching, just get on the teach. Yes, we need leaders. Yes. We need people to manage. Yes. We need senior staff. But senior staff in charge of education. And then it is agencies who are experts on these things who will lead. I think at that point, you'd have an awful lot more, to give as a teacher. And you'd be. Out from under a lot of paperwork and that for me, whatever angle you're coming at it from would only be an improvement. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Useful having the specialists to specialize in education specialists in mental health specialists, so you can do and you can be in your zone of genius, for teachers to educate. I mean, mental health is mentioned an awful lot around schools and all. Yeah. I don't think there's ever been a point in time where it's been as needed. But again, mental health approaches however a school chooses to disseminate it, again, it's on the school to do that. And as a teacher, again, something so critical as being able to give a child positive mental strategies at a young age is put upon the same person who needs to be able to. Explain Circle Theorem. Yeah. They're not the same person. You know, it's something I absolutely loved, but I'm a particular type of teacher. I loved that growth mindset. So yeah, the last school I worked in, fabulous school, fabulous people. They did growth mindset. That was mindset and they did it really, really well. It was meaningful and it was impactful, but it can be piecemeal and that's nobody's fault. Because it's just another plate and somewhere over here. There's one that's about to fall Yeah, just take away a few of those plates and they'd all be spinning much more comfortably. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. So if people want to connect with you, if they're up in the kind of Preston surrounding areas, especially where, where's the best place to connect? For tuition, I'd say just type in Connexus Preston and you'll get me on Facebook. Yeah, I've got several pages covering the whole area. So Connexus tuition on Facebook LinkedIn. I think you'll find a little bit more of me as a business mentor. So that's something that I'm really enjoying at the minute. People sort of going from where I was a couple of years ago, wanting to get out, wanting to get into business, but having no idea, how to tackle a mammoth task. So I'd say, yeah, Facebook for the tuition. If you're interested in Kevin, the business mentor I'm all over LinkedIn as well. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing your insights as a dad, as an educator, as a, all of the hats. It's really, really interesting and lots that we can take away from listening to you. So thank you very much. Thank you for having me. That's all right. So remember that conversations with Send Mum, an episode drops every Wednesday, and you can follow along on Instagram at conversationswithasendmum, where you'll see little sneak peeks of the episodes coming up. So have a lovely week and I'll see you next time.