1) The document discusses underachieving GCSE geography students and the potential role of executive dysfunction. It notes that executive functions like planning, organization and working memory are necessary skills for problem solving. 2) It provides examples of teacher complaints about students' disorganized work, inability to follow instructions, and lack of focus. These could potentially be signs of executive dysfunction rather than laziness. 3) The document argues that mild or moderate mental disabilities should be recognized and accommodated similarly to physical disabilities. Labeling symptoms rather than students could help target interventions to improve outcomes.

1. Deborah Syme
dsyme@skinnersacademy.org.uk
Head of Geography and
Travel and Tourism BTeC at
Skinners’ Academy Hackney
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

2. Underachievers in GCSE Geography .
The stuff that gets left behind …. are the pupils that get left behind
“His written work is a mess” ,“ he’s lazy” , “totally unmotivated”
“He never remembers the homework, when it’s done, it’s rushed”
“He doesn’t focus, gets easily distracted”
“He never sets work out properly, I have to remind about every step,
even putting a full-stop in, but when I show him he knows it, does it”

3. Executive function – Dawson and Gare 2004
Executive functions are those skills
necessary to solve a problem,
including planning , organisation, time
management, working memory, and
metacognition, combined with those
that control our behaviour in order to
apply those skills, specifically response
inhibition, self regulation, task
initiation and goal directed
persistence.
Your
face
here

4. Executive (dys)function – is it a FAD?
• Working memory and short term memory Impulse control
(inhibiting) , emotional control, flexibility, shifting , self monitoring ,
task initiation, organisation.
• 6 year difference in working memory capacity (Gathercole and Alloway 2008) .
• Cannot hold information in head and use it to complete a task.
• Loses train of thought , easily distracted, disorganised.

5. For an area of tropical mass tourism you have
studied explain the positive effects on the
economy and environment (8 marks)

6. MLD - a moderate impairment? Would
you ask this (right handed) student to take a
written exam?
The visibility of the problem here is clear.
We have NO problem with physical disability.
We cannot see mental disability, therefore we need to
watch carefully for it.
We need to have a culture that accepts it.
We need to move to an educational system where a
diagnosis of mild or moderate mental disability is akin to
seeing a person’s wheelchair, crutches, guide dog, or
hearing aid and recognising their need.
Could this actually be an
issue about RIGHTS ? of
rights?

7. Solutions and interventions – (no money back guarantee)
SHORT TERM MEDIUM TERM
• Pace
• Number everything
• Buddy – what's she doing ?
• Check in often
• End of lesson reminders
• One instruction at a time
• Retesting
• Test ONE skill / criterion
• ‘I know you might find this
hard but …’ understanding
• Bag check
• Redo pre-planned /marked ES
• Allow novel media / listen again /
watch again / list / photograph?
• Timers
• Teach list making / prioritising
• Mid point checks
• Mnemonics / visualise / emote
• Coaching on how to tidy /create
size order/ sort papers / file pages

9. The LONG TERM interventions
• Culture of boredom! Downtime
• Teacher takes more responsibility
• Address the culture of neurological disability,
champion the child, create a common language
• Allow course work or VIVAs
• As well as accurately assessing a child’s difficulties
in learning it is essential that teachers assess the
memory demands of the strategies they are using.
• Use evidence based interventions, and evaluate the impact.
• TAs as consultants – team around a child – on site expertise.
• Track, monitor and compare progress across subjects
and between transitions (0-25).

10. The difficult questions.
• Are teacher complaints about disorganisation and poor short term
memory akin to institutional blindness?
• Will our A*-C 9-1 exam systems be seen as the educational racism of the
C21st, as we fail to consider neurodiversity.
• Why are we as teachers not trained to read recognise and implement
specific medicalised test analysis / recommendations .
• Why is executive function in DSM only related to adults? VITAL for pupils.
• Is it a working memory issue that prevents pupils for thinking through
behaviours, their consequences and making predications .
• On a personal note: If pupils don’t remember process sequences , or
maintain connected thinking , and cant plan, then these are my failing
Geographers.

11. Deborah Syme
dsyme@skinnersacademy.org.uk
Head of Geography and
Travel and Tourism BTeC at
Skinners’ Academy Hackney
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

12. The answers are there….

13. But not everyone has
access to them………….
Headlines
1/3 of the staff I asked had NEVER heard from a speech
therapist, edpsyc or OT
½ the staff were not sure what K meant on SIMS register
Only 1/5 staff were aware that 10% of the population is
dyslexic. That should be 3 in every classroom.
½ the staff recognised the symptoms of executive
dysfunction as an SEN issue
Over half the surveyed staff felt that pupils were not
equipped or confident enough to talk about their special
need.

14. SEN 1. Doesn’t know where to start
2. Starts and gets distracted
3. Starts and gets stuck
Overcome. QFT. Teaching and learning. Delayed learning /
immaturity. Reread aloud slowly. Confidence. Buddy. Lead
learner . TA . Teacher. Sentence starter. Work list.
Overcome. QFT. Teaching and learning. Delayed learning . CATS
issue. Reread aloud slowly. Confidence. Buddy. Lead learner .
TA. Teacher. Sentence starter. Word list. Brain book buddy boss.
Much harder to overcome. Pupil loses train of thought , off task,
loss of focus. Confusion. Short term memory issue. Exhaustion
from concentration. Becomes a behavioural spiral. Organisation.

15. Clearly an effective opportunity for schools

16. Prompt questions pupil asks themselves to stay ON
TASK , and over come confusion.
• Where was I?
• Where are my instructions.
• What does number 1 ….. ask?
• What are the KEY words I have written down?
• What are my neighbours /buddy/lead learner doing ?
• What's the most important point I want to say?
• What word am I stuck on?
Pupil loses train of thought , off task, loss of focus. Confusion. Short term memory
issue. Exhaustion from concentration. Becomes a behavioural spiral. Organisational
issues .

17. • The San Francisco-based market-research firm SharpBrains estimated
that between 2005 and 2009, the global market for "brain-fitness
software," including working-memory training programs, rose 31
percent, to $295 million, with $148 million of those purchases coming
from the United States.

18. Most pupils with SEN have a moderate learning
difficulty. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/447917/SFR25-2015_Text.pdf
http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/13820/2/handouts3.pdf
MLD may need support with:
• understanding instructions and the
requirements of tasks
• acquiring sequencing skills
• understanding how they affect and relate
to their immediate surroundings
• personal organisation over the short,
medium and long term
• visual and auditory memory for
information, processes and instructions
http://scotens.org/sen/types/mld.html
If the IQ is 70 or below, give or take a few
points, then the child is considered to have
MLD. A teacher usually can tell it's MLD when
the pupils are 'slow' in all areas

19. The elephant in the room

20. To label or diagnose a disease
• Means to discuss and define symptoms
• Means to give a vocabulary to interventions
• Means to specify the need and therefore target an outcome
• Means to work early to rectify a issue.
• Means keeping people well, or recovering , or improving.
To label

21. To label or diagnose an SEN
• Means to discuss and define symptoms
• Means to give a vocabulary to interventions
• Means to specify the need and therefore target an outcome
• Means to work early to rectify a issue.
• Means keeping pupils learning, improving and focussed.
To label
Creates clarity, systems
and responsibility.

22. Executive (dys)function – Dawson and Gare 2004
Executive fuctions are those skills
necessary to solve a problem,
including planning , organisation, time
management, working memory, and
metacognition, combined with those
that control our behaviour in order to
apply those skills, specifically response
inhibition, self regulation, task
initiation and goal directed
persistence.

23. Moderate intellectual disability is immense. Adults who need assistance on a daily basis.
Mild intellectual disability. Adults cannot use their executive function : planning , sequencing , prioritising , short term
memory is impaired. But what if this is also a problem for school aged children?
Intellectual disability
has a number

24. What do you label?
http://www.terapiacognitiva.eu/dwl/dsm5/DSM-5.pdf
• Don’t label the child
• Label the symptoms

25. For an area of tropical mass tourism you have
studied explain the positive effects on the
economy and environment (8 marks)

26. Most pupils with SEN have a moderate learning
difficulty. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/447917/SFR25-2015_Text.pdf
http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/13820/2/handouts3.pdf
MLD may need support with:
• understanding instructions and the
requirements of tasks
• acquiring sequencing skills
• understanding how they affect and relate
to their immediate surroundings
• personal organisation over the short,
medium and long term
• visual and auditory memory for
information, processes and instructions
http://scotens.org/sen/types/mld.html
If the IQ is 70 or below, give or take a few
points, then the child is considered to have
MLD. A teacher usually can tell it's MLD when
the pupils are 'slow' in all areas

27. Approx 12% all pupils will have SEN
1.3% require external assistance
Incidence refers to the number of pupils with SEN , without statements,
expressed as a proportion of the number of pupils on roll.
SEN 12% of school population
20% prison population
70% of PRU population (School census 2014)
Why would we label? – HIGH stakes