Jenny Hicken

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Specific learning difficulties identification - Durham University

A major study has found that specific learning difficulties (SpLDs) like dyslexia are not being identified equally among school pupils in England.

www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/latest-news/2026/02/specific-learning-difficulties-identification/

Despite all the chatter, social media bans for teens lack evidence! New paper out in Nature Health.

(1) Harms from social media are real & serious.

(2) We need regulatory action but bans are not nuanced, do not empower youth, & are not supported by evidence.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Can someone explain what they mean by being "paid a wage with no requirement to work"? Makes zero sense. And then it says migrants can work with no restrictions as if that wouldn't mean making a contribution to the NHS they are all using for free apparently. MAKE YOUR MINDS UP DAILY MAIL

Also important to remember that the average reading age for adults in the UK (at least in the North East but suspect it will be similar all over) is 9-11. Most will never pick up a book in their life but may listen to audiobooks as it is the only way they can engage with books full-stop.

Labour’s Send revolution is a high-stakes experiment. It also threatens precious parental rights | John Harris Bridget Phillipson’s 10-year plan is generous in places, but it has its problems. Not least that it could be trashed by a Reform government, says Guardian columnist John Harris

And here it is: the SEND reform plan, and why - for all its good intentions - it threatens a terrifying loss of rights, just when the worst imaginable govt might be newly in power www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Perhaps a minor point given the scale of the Send system’s out of control costs, but these were the sorts of “hidden” things that went first when councils began cutting budgets post 2010. It’s taken 15 years, but the consequences of local govt cuts are increasingly a national problem

There are nowhere near enough of these roles currently to provide level of support being proposed. Some of the biggest workforce holes are in Ed Psych, SALT and OT - many families never get the chance to access any therapy at all. Will take a long time to fill gaps to provide an on-demand service.

We will launch and fund two place-focused missions – Mission North East and Mission Coastal. Our ambition is that these programmes will transform outcomes for young people locally and provide a blueprint for change nationally. Mission North East will focus explicitly on radically improving outcomes for white working-class children and young people, in communities where attainment gaps are too often accepted as inevitable. It will bring together clusters of schools facing similar challenges, diagnose shared barriers to progress and develop a clear strategy for sustained improvement, backed by strong leadership and practical support.

This is significant for North East colleagues - proposed launch of focused 'Mission North East' in the SEND white paper:

Screenshot from Schools White Paper - Chapter 2: Narrow to broad Chapter 3: Sidelined to included Chapter 4: Withdrawn to engaging

I see DfE have adopted a similar "three shifts" approach to #SENDreforms that DHSC used for the NHS 10 Year Plan

The drive to reduce the number of EHCPs is not a surprise - the devil will be in the detail of how the proposed 'Individual Support Plans' are developed and delivered. This could get quite messy where schools and parents are not in agreement over support needs, as happens a lot now.

The leaks show no understanding of autism/ADHD being dynamic disabilities - neurodivergent kids with spiky profiles are not "predictable" or can be easily put into neat little categories when their day-to-day needs can vary widely (even hour by hour). There can be no arbitrary threshold for support.

GROUNDING FLIP FLOPS

People just want to know what any changes might mean for their kids and nobody has any confidence that what seems to be proposed can actually be achieved within the education system as it stands. A worrying time. 2/2

This is causing so much anxiety for SEND parents - the government should be carefully managing comms around something this significant yet here we are with another leak and no further context. 1/2

LAST CHANCE TO APPLY! As we head into half term holidays across the region over the next couple of weeks, our Arts and Creativity Advisor Martin Wilson MBE is reminding primary schools and arts organisations to apply for the 2025-26 Chris Drinkwater Creative Health in Primary Schools Awards. 🧵

I don't even need to read this to know it will be yet another lazily ignorant, ill-informed, un-researched hit job on neurodiversity. It is all so tedious.

😐

📚Taskmaster Book Club

@alexhorne.bsky.social introduces a 90-minute Taskmaster Club session where young people tackle book-inspired tasks in teams—designed to promote reading for pleasure.

Perfect for #WorldBookDay and the #YearOfReading

taskmastereducation.com/buy-resources
#Taskmaster #goallin

Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.

Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

🤢

Not to mention those men who would take advantage of the cover provided by the bar crush to have a little grope and pretend it wasn't them or that they couldn't help but press up uncomfortably close to you (or even to just be blatant about it). Much harder to be a perv in an orderly queue.

"See pages 4,5,6,7 & 14"

I'm so tired 😫

a close up of a cartoon character wearing glasses and a scarf . Alt: GIF of Velma from Scooby Doo being surprised by a floating "ghost" in a white sheet

And I would have gotten away with it without you meddling human rights laws

I was struck, seeing this on the tube, by the contemporary resonance of Auden"s Epitaph on a Tyrant in this phase of the global projection of Trump’s sociopathic narcissism

I have had to remove a few FB comments from people who demanded to know why Aliya Rahman, the autistic woman who was pulled from her car by ICE in Minneapolis, didn’t “just follow instructions.” These comments, unfortunately, reveal lack of understanding about being autistic. Here is why. 1/

This is the worst example ever of a woman having to appease a fragile egotistical man to her own detriment in order to try and get the minimum she deserves

Donate to Duvet Know It's Christmas, 2025, organized by Rhodri Marsden Unbelievably, it's the 15th year of this thing. What is it? Improbably, the nig… Rhodri Marsden needs your support for Duvet Know It's Christmas, 2025

Unbelievably, #DuvetKnowItsChristmas generates such good will on social media that over the years we've raised somewhere approaching a quarter of a million quid for homeless charities. If you can spare a bob or two, sling some to Centrepoint, and here's the link: www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...

I grew up in Blackburn and still consider Rovers my team, but this is bang on. It is just sad more than anything. A town like Blackburn doesn't have a huge amount going for it in general - its football club should be its heart. If local supporters can't get behind it anymore, what is the point?

Casual reminder that the myth of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” is a cruel hoax designed to convince poor people from all walks of life that the injustices they face are a result of their own actions, rather than an oppressive system rigged against them.