Don’t panic, this is not a holiday blog! ( Although, if that is your bag do check out our holiday youtube channel “Awesome Archie’s Vacay Vlog where we will be sharing family holiday content over the next few weeks!)

This is The Awesome Archie guide to Disneyland Paris as a neurodivergent family. The good, the bad, the things we learnt and the little hints and tips that made our holiday magical!

It is going to be a long one so I am going to get as many subheadings in as possible. This way you can just scroll on past until you find the info that is relevant to you 🙂

4 Weeks before – The pre-Disney prep.

We have been parent carers for almost 17 years now. This means that we have learned ALOT through our mistakes and lack of preparation is THE BIGGEST and the most damaging one for us as a family. Without fail, if we don’t prepare we have unregulated children which equates to a very overstimulated Mum and a lot of precious time wasted on holiday.

PREP IS EVERTHING!

Youtube has been our most valuable tool for getting the boys ( and myself) ready. 4 weeks before we go anywhere, we get the videos up online and each day we simply have them on the TV as we are eating our supper. So far, from the comfort of our dinner table, we have had a DLP hotel room tour , ridden on Crushes coaster, looked through the menus and seating at various restaurants, been in the famous LEGO store on mainstreet and seen the parade.

To many people, the lack of surprise would feel like a negative but to us as a proud neurodivergent family… it is AWESOME! Archie, Herbie and I feel safety in familiarity and so knowing a little about what the ride looks like, or what the restaurants food choices are, eases our anxiety. Many Autistic people feel security in routeen and predictability, so this is a winner for us 🙂

We also use this time to start the packing. This one is less for the kids and more for my own anxiety. Having children with medical needs means that you have to be super organised. You have to ensure that the prescriptions will be ready on time and an up to date Dr’s note is provided ( if required). We have to prepare multiple sets of clothes for ALL eventualities along with all of the boys support aids like wheelchair, ear defenders, fidget aids etc. This takes a HUGE amount of planning and it starts by me making a detailed list and plan of action 4 weeks before. Thankfully, much of the list is repeatable holiday after holiday so I have a PDF saved that I simply add too each time…brilliant time saver!

Join a Disneyland FB ( or similar ) group.

This one does come with a little warning! You will definitely read the odd post of an unhappy visitor, but we have found these groups super handy. People leave buggies for other families to use, leave snacks, arrange ear exchanges…it’s AWESOME! It’s within these groups that you can ask the real life questions and get other parents honest opinions. It’s also a GREAT way to get some updated tips on the day as people still post in real time 🙂 It’s very useful…. but you will get hundreds of daily notifications so be prepared!

Take your Tech!

I can’t tell you how many times when our kids were little that I would say ” no tech this holiday, we are going to play board games and read!” Honestly, WHAT WAS I THINKING?! I will justify this by saying that at the time, I didn’t have even a quarter of the knowledge and experience as I do now but my gosh….NEVER AGAIN. Archie and Herbie NEED to have a brain break and a rest from the real world and we are elated to fully support them with this. Sometimes, they may wear their ear pods with an audio book playing or the soundtrack from Zelda ( Archie finds that calming). We always take a pocket device , the old fashioned gameboy is a great one for when we are waiting in restaurants etc (as it needs no wifi ) and an in car DVD for the long journey is a sanity saver for us all 😉

At this point I will say that there is still ( unbeliveably) the odd occasion that people will make those age old, uninformed comments like… ” they are always on that tablet etc”… years of this has taught us to not waste our time defending our parenting choices as our kids needs will ALWAYS be our full priority, we don’t need to appease others!

Create a visual routeen/ plan or social story for the trip ( we try to be as accurate as we can) and don’t forget to say that there may be things like traffic as an unknown factor. I keep sweet snacks handy for that moment. If you need a template we have created one for you to use here, print out and fill out the blanks as required 🙂

Hotel Check in and collection of our Priority passes.

We drive to Disney via the channel tunnle. This means that we can bring lots of things with us as apposed to trying to stuff it all into a cabin bag. The journey takes around 7 hours but we all find space for a little nap along the way and try to enjoy our ” on drive movies” thanks to an ancient portable DVD player.

We have always been a Disney family because they have NEVER let us down with the care of our neurodivergent family. From the Disney cruiselines ( we have now done 6 across 3 of the Disney Cruisechips) to the parks themselves, they have always had great accommodations and support for us and our individual needs.

We applied for The DLP Priority Card. Both boys qualified so we had 2. These cards…

Who can get a priority pass?

How we applied.

Hello lovely readers / followers / friends. As always, thanks for giving us your time and we really hope you enjoy this week’s installment. Another busy week so lets get into it 🙂

As both a mum and as a non profit founder I have been volunteering “in school” 1:1 support for the last decade. Firstly, for Awesome Archie himself and now with any student that has yet to have a fully funded 1:1 when they deserve one. I am now privileged to support a young child in the beautiful William Gilpin School and it’s here that we were introduced to SCARF.

We celebrated with a “wear a scarf to school day” and in WG’s morning assembly the headteacher – Simon Croutear – explained…

“Children’s mental health week is about celebrating ALL children. It’s about reflecting and respecting that we are all unique, different and we all have something to give back to our community. You could be a great leader, a problem solver, a supporter of good. The SCARF values represent us all -Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience, Friendship.”

He then went on to announce that many of the children had shown these values throughout the week. These pupils had been praised for keeping spirits high, not giving up with blending of CVC words, helping friends, sharing ideas, being inclusive and kind… I could go on!

To be honest, I felt a bit teary as it reminded me of a quote that we, as a team stand by.

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” – Wayne Gretzky.

It’s a tough old world when you are growing up and when you are neurodivergent, it’s even tougher. There have been MANY times in my life where I have felt like a complete failure. I’ve been misunderstood, told I’m too loud, too wacky and, each time, I have felt less and less valuable, less able to contribute to society and less accepted… until now of course 🙂

The WG pupils are so lucky to be reminded that having a go, trying and not succeeding (yet) is a valuable opportunity for growth. It’s so much better to try and even when the outcome is not as expected, it gives you a chance to reflect. To see that you’re still ok, even after things haven’t gone as planned.

So, let’s celebrate ourselves. Embrace our unique brains, our individuality, our own gifts and talents and share them as best we can for the benefit of our community and our own mental health.

Thanks for allowing AANP to take part 🙂

Archie’s latest hospital check up.

As many of you will already know, ADHD medication changed not only Archie’s life, but ours as a family too. Not every child will need to be medicated for their ADHD but for Arch, it was genuinely his life saver. After 8 years of therapy, vitamin supplements, hours and hours of parenting courses, multiple books read… it was our last resort.

THANK GOD WE DID!

Because of his type of medication we have to abide by many very important rules, one of which is attending a six monthly in-hospital check ups. Archie is weighed, measured and his blood pressure is checked. He has a chat with his incredible pediatric team and they support and advise us in which ever areas we are struggling in. Massive thanks to the team and the CDC, you are AWESOME!

Archie flew through all of his recent checks with flying colours 🙂

It’s also on that same note that we want to personally thank Alex Partridge. His latest book “Now It All Makes Sense” is a must read for ADHD’ers, particularly those not yet or late to being diagnosed. I am only half way through and, already, I can confirm that it is simply brilliant and we highly recommend it. Rich and Roxanne Pink have called it “a powerhouse of a book” and I have to agree.

When I have finished it I will be writing a full blog to celebrate.

Have a great week all 🙂

What a busy week it’s been for us here at Awesome Archie 🙂

Our week started with a meeting at Bournemouth hospital with The UHD charity’s high flyers Janine Golding (community fundraiser) and Jessica Tyler (fundraising manager).

You may recall that in 2024, Archie and I were invited to become official fundraisers of “The BEACH Appeal”, one of the UHD charity’s MANY fundraising missions. This is something that, as a family using the children’s wards rather regularly, we of course were elated to support!

So, we started spreading awareness in our school assemblies, on our website and in our content. We wrote “Awesome Archie has surgery”, a book that has been donated to the charity, that the LEGEND Harry Redknapp signed and that will also be used to support neurodivergent kids having surgeries to get prepared at pre-op 🙂 We also launched our world book day event as a BEACH appeal fundraiser… everyone welcome!

Janine and Jessica spoke so passionately about the work they do and so I felt that I needed to share. The UHD raise money and this is used in a variety of ways.

Current Projects / Children’s Health – Donate Now

As part of The BEACH Appeal, we will be raising funds for the additional items that will further enhance the new purpose-built Children’s Health Department in the new BEACH Building at Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

This includes the special extras for the classroom and new indoor and outdoor play areas to help ensure 1,800 young patients do not miss out on their education each year while they need hospital care.

The new classroom will need items that aren’t covered by NHS funds such as:

Some patients between 3-17 years old need hospital care during the time of their education. We don’t want to see them miss out.

We need your help to raise £12,000 to install enhanced technology in the children’s department in the new BEACH building at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

The Quay School at Poole Hospital provides full-time education to patients who are unable to access mainstream schools and to ensure education contributes positively to patient recovery.

When the Quay School moves to our brand-new children’s department, there’s an opportunity to fully equip the classroom with technology that is beyond NHS funds to help transform patient care and their education.

The impact we can make:

You can see why this fundraising mission means so much to us and why we are so honored to be a very small part of it!

If you think that you could help us on our AWESOME mission then please scan the link or simply google “The BEACH appeal UHD Charity” to find out more!

Identical diagnosis= different presentations.

This week has been a tough one for many of our families. I have had so many conversations with parents that simply feel overwhelmed and out of their depth. To reassure you all, I think that this is how most parent carers feel… I know I often do!

The common theme though, is how different their autistic child appears to be in comparison with EVERY other autistic child that they have met.

WELCOME TO THE AWESOME AUTISTIC WORLD!

This is one of the many reasons that autism fascinates me so much. Did you know that the only thing that an autistic brain has in common with another autistic brain is that they have NOTHING in common. AWESOME!

Now to get an official autism diagnosis, you are assessed by highly trained professionals who are using the DSM5 criteria . They look for differences within your child’s behaviours and that of the predominant neurotype and although the criteria of assessment is the same for all , the presentation of each child will be vastly different!

No wonder so many parents get confused!

We have created some visuals, that are free for you to screenshot and print out or save on your phone if you need a reminder that YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!! This is a tough gig! Just follow us on our socials for daily updates, hints and tips like this one 🙂 Links to our socials are at the top of our home page 🙂

And lastly …

OUR AWESOME MERCH… donated by my dear friend Bex.

Bex has been a friend of mine for over 35 years… yes she really does deserve a medal 😉 Although she now lives up in Surrey she still pops by now and then and usually with something AWESOME for us to use in our work 🙂 This week she came with personalised Awesome Archie school bags and a super cool T-shirt AND an electronic standing desk!!!! She’s the best!!!!! We also have a phenomenal comic written for Archie by her lovely son.

All of this merch will be donated or used to keep supporting the Autistic children in our community.

Bex, THANKYOU!! We can only continue doing what we do because of the kindness and generosity of people like you!!!

https://www.facebook.com/reel/926059216354328

We at Awesome Archie spend so much of our time trying to keep up with recent neurological developments and sharing any news , hints and tips with the many mainstream schools and families that we are blessed to support.

We are fortunate to have many phenomenal connections now both across the SEN industry and with life long experienced families who share their knowledge to help us support others.

That is what has prompted this week’s blog. We were approached by a family looking to get support with Speech and Language for their child. Innitially they believed them to have DLD but are now recognising the additional signs of their child being autistic.

Their question to us was… “But how can you tell ? They are so similar from the speech perspective!”

SO… obviously we can only take you from an Autism perspective as we are in no way equipped to share the brilliant knowledge of a qualified speech and language therapist ( we know an EPIC one…. more on that later ) but we made this for you to help break it down an little. What astonished me were the ” crossovers”, no wonder people get confused?!

We hope that by creating this little graphic, you may feel more empowered to head towards the right diagnosis path for your child. From our Autism perspective, we would say that speech is the commonality but when you look past the speech and perhaps see other presentations you may get a clearer picture.

Heaven knows that its a long and drawn out process in the first place, the last thing you need is to head one way and then as your child grows and develops, you start to recognise things that no longer fit the DLD profile and are far more relevant for Autism.

However, speech delay from any root cause needs to be supported by a trusted and experienced Speech and Language therapist and fortunately for you, we have one that we can personally recommend …HIGHLY!

Jill Thornton is our local SaLT of choice!

Private Speech and Language therapy services for schools and families in Bournemouth, Poole and around Dorset

Jill Thornton is a private Speech & Language Therapist, with over 30 years experience, offering therapy services to schools and children in Bournemouth and Poole and around Dorset.

Jill can provide high quality speech and language

sessions whilst providing a practical model to parents, teachers and teaching assistants. 

We have attached her website details for you to check out as we have seen great things from her work! BLOOMING WELL DONE JILL 🙂 Link to her website is below ⬇

https://jillspeechtherapy.com/

This week has been another busy one for us here at Awesome Archie. We have launched our world book day competition (there will be a detailed post nearer the time), written a “neuro-inclusivity in the leisure and entertainment industry” guide and customised our very own Awesome Archie wheelchair.

The wheelchair prompted me to create a presentation to explain why, occasionally, Archie needs the use of a wheelchair. Unbelievably, we still face the odd comment which, from the asker (who often isn’t intending to be hurtful or offensive), can negatively impact us as a neurodivergent family. Questions or statements like…

It’s been 5 years since we started supporting families and schools to navigate what feels like an impossible SEN system. Our own journey, now nearly 17 years in the making, has taught us so much about how to fight for the awesome Autistic children in our community. Although this latest PAC report is distressing and disappointing, I don’t believe that anyone in this profession or any parent to a child with SEN will be in the least bit surprised.

“The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said too many families are struggling to access the help their children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) “desperately need”. In a damning report, the committee said whether children receive support depends too much on their postcode, or how well families can navigate “an often chaotic and adversarial system”. It highlighted “long waiting times” for assessments and support and an increase in the number of parents who are appealing education, health and care (EHC) plan decisions via tribunals. Nearly all (98%) of the cases taken to tribunal were found in favour of parents – which the PAC report said, “undermines families’ confidence in the system”. The Send system remains “unviable” with current piecemeal interventions doing nothing to provide a financially sustainable system, according to the cross-party committee. The PAC has called on the Government to urgently take action to improve the system which it warned is putting nearly half of councils in England at risk of “effectively going bankrupt”.

It is at this moment we want to reassure you that WE HEAR YOU, WE SEE YOU and we are happy to help.

Please do feel free to drop us an email if you want some advice or to just be pointed in the right direction. We are always open for TV, radio an Podcast interviews and have always remained transparent but empathetic to the current SEND struggles.

My Mum always used to say ” things have to get worse before they get better” lets hope she’s right!

Our SENDcast Podcast recording.

So, we usually try to take you through our blog on a fairly accurate timeline however, this one, I simply can’t… we are just too excited!!

Our regular readers and followers will know that one of the highlights of our year is attending and filming at the TES SEND show in London. We have done this for a good few years now and genuinely love it! It was back in 2023 that we met two lovely guys, Dale and John at the SENDcast stand.

They enthusicatically told us all about their podcast that focuses solely on neurodivergency. Having apoplogised for not knowing anything about this, I promised that we would follow them online and listen to the odd podcast now and then.

WOW was I undersimating how much this chance meeting would literally change not only our family life, but also our career path too?!

Archie and I have always stated that our aim, as a small non-profit is to advocate, celebrate and educate. Our work is constantly evolving, having started by writing five childrens books to support familes and schools. We are always trying to raise money for charites that are close to our hearts and more recently, have provided a FREE “back to basics” school staff training option. It’s this most recent shift that we thank the SENDcast team.

The listening hours of podcasters with INCREDIBLE knowledge, experience, on paper qualifications and real life testimonies that are available to us for FREE, is astonishing.

Can you imagine our elation then, when Dale Pickles (who I will forever remember as Dave Piddles, a story for him to tell 😉 ) asked if Archie and I would like to record our very own?! (I recieved that message whilst sat on an open top bus in central London and genuinely screeched which, unsuprisingly unnerved a few tourists, sorry about that! )

OBVIOUSLY the answer was YES, YES, YYYEEESSSSSS!!!!!! So yesterday was the day that we hit the M3 and spent the day with Dale at the SENDcast recording studios.

Although Archie is no stranger to being interviewed (he has done radio and local news in the past) this was his first SOLO (with me sat alongside, at his request) lengthy interview. Dale and Arch spoke about his own personal insight and sad past experiences and approached as a true professional! I was beyond proud of how calm and measured he handled it. He was way cooler than me… at all times 😉

Here is a link to a short vid of our truely AWESOME day, if you wanna check it out.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/968868395290893

We will of course keep you updated as to when we air, but I know that Archie’s will be first…. QUITE RIGHT TOO!!!!

Our ED- Psych success

One of the facets of our work (one that we are very proud of) is supporting families to navigate a really tricky SEN system. We do this either in a “getting evidence together for potential diagnosis” way or a “breaking down the EHCP process and the legislation behind that” POV.

This week, one of our AWESOME students finally got that much needed and LONG awaited Educational Psychologist in-school review. For anyone that has even tried to get started on the autism diagnosis pathway will testify, that THIS WAS HUGE!

We want to thank the wonderful (unnamed for obvious reasons) family and their primary school for trusting us with such an important task. We cannot wait to hear the outcome of that assesment 🙂

And finally our new work expericence student.

Our third son Herbie is like so many children that we support on a daily basis.

He is awaiting his own NHS assesment for what we believe will be an AuDHD diagnosis. As parents, we respected his original decision to not go down the formal diagnosis route (even though we explained that we believe a diagnosis brings more clarity on your own identity and better future mental health). However, here we are in year 9 of mainstream senior and Herbie has decided that it is now the right time to offically “name” those wonderful differences.

Herbie finds mainstream senior really tough. Not the academic side I might add. It’s the social expectations, the noise, the eye contact, the uniform, the rigidity etc., His school SEN team are doing wonderful things with him. We are so grateful for everything that they put in place to support him. However, there are still many days whan he simply cannot face another school day, even with all of the amazing adaptations they have put in place for him.

As an educator myself, I know first hand that every day counts and so I made a suggestion to him that he unbelievably took me up on. If you can’t do work at your school, come and work in mine! He is now (on occasion) my work experience student working with me in the schools that we support.

Herbie would like to be a geography teacher when he is older and so watching him support a young, fellow autistic student was simply wonderful. Who knows, this may lead to something great in his future! WELL DONE HERBIE!

As always, thanks for reading and here are some relevant links from today’s blog.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/3650909864922453 – Our FB support group

Podcast and CPD around SEND for schools and parents

https://www.tiktok.com/@awesomearchie_

https://www.linkedin.com/in/awesome-archie-018935217/

You may have spotted that in the lead up to Christmas we made many videos, clips and posts stressing the importance of doing Christmas YOUR way as a neurodivergent family.

This is a lesson that we learned very early on our Autism parenting journey. It involves us taking cues from what our children need, not whats percieved to be “socially acceptable”.

For example, our kids dont have to hug or kiss relatives, its their choice. They are not expected to look enthusiastic or to respond in the same way as their siblings do. They dont have to wear ” fancy christmas clothes” for photos. They don’t HAVE to eat at the table OR eat the same food, its in their control. Yet, they DID eat with us, they ate Christmas dinner ( no sprouts), they said thanks unprompted ( awesome) and Arch managed to bite his tongue when the odd insensitive comment was thrown out …as they so often do in large family gatherings!

Now we know that there will always be bumps in the road, but I have to say that on the whole, we had a fantastic Christmas! ( athough I ate far too much and weigh day was a nightmare 😉 )

We started our personal Christmas celebrations with our Awesome Archie carol concert with the Salvation Army.

You can find details for this in our previous blogs and on our youtube channel.

We were thrilled with the turnout and so grateful to have the opportunity to host such a wonderful event, thankyou to all involved.

Then that was it… FAMILY TIME!!!

As a family we donttend to buy the children lots of presents , we have always preferred to go on a little break to Centre Parcs . Going away, even for just 3 days meant that we were all together, no work, no distractions, just family fun 🙂

(We will be adding lots of detailed video’s about our trip, hints and tips on our Awesome Archie’s Vacay Vlog channel, click on the link below 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7yhe8J7kwIcbECJOZdBIIg

It really is the highlight of the Christmas season for us.

Just being together with an open fire ( closely monitered of course) lots of fresh air and time as just us. Personally, it’s the silly things like not feeling the need to put on makeup or blowdry my hair because I dont need to wear my ” mask”. We dont have to stick to a rigid schedule and can have much more autonomy than in the real world. There is no opportunity for big home projects at the last minute, something that my ADHD brain LOVES at the most inconvenient times 😉 ITS AWESOME!

We also had the privelege to meet many other neurodivergent families as we left teddies and lego sets around CP for kids to find , which of course had all of our details on and an affirmation message from us all at Awesome Archie. Thankyou to ALL of the wonderful families that we met and I hope that we can be of support to each other moving forward.

If you were one of the lucky teddy or lego gift recipient’s , dont forget to post your picture on instagram …. link here ➡ https://www.instagram.com/awesome_archie_official/

• 

• 

We hope that however you decided to celebrate , that you had a lovely time and we wish you the happiest of New Years !

We will be be back with you after the new year to start another EXCITING year as Team Awesome Archie. Here’s to 2025!

• 

So, this is our last official “in school” working week of 2024! What a year it has been and that is all down to YOU!

THANKYOU ALL SO MUCH!

This week we held our annual ” carols on our diveway” with the support of some of the members of the Boscombe Salvation Army band. Without question, this is one of the highlights of our year. It is amazing to be able to bring family, friends and community all together to share what we do AND to celebrate the important message of Christmas.

Thankyou to Howard ( Band master) Kev , Steve, Ray, Jenna, Elsbeth, David, Stuart and Ian for giving us so much of your time in what we know is a VERY busy period for you!

The Concert gave us a time to personally thank those that go above and beyond to keep us being able to support the Autistic community. Whether it be by talking about AANP, donating plushies or by simply liking and sharing our posts, it all makes a remerkable difference.

It was also the perfect moment to introduce our official mascot for 2025 – Purdy the PDA panda. PDA is an extremely complex and individualised profile of many Autistic people. Our gorgeous son Herbie is one of those Awesome people!

Herbie is not one for being in the public eye, infact he rarely allows us to talk about him in our work and even less, share a picture. So imagine our surprise when Archie and I said we needed a volunteer to be a public mascot and Herbs jumped straight in!!! We are so proud and gratful to you Herbs. What a brilliant Mascot you are!

To see the carol concert( and Purdy) in action, simply click on the link below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DDbnfrRPR9d/

As you may remember, back in November we made an appeal for no longer needed teddies and Plushies. We wanted these to be used for Our very first Santas grotto to give to kids in the community. Well , I was staggered that we had multiple binbags FULL kindly given. There were so many that we were able to share the teddies amongst the Grotto, familes and some of the local primary schools that we support. THANKYOU!!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DDfHRZaPERa/

Being a non profit means that we rely heavily on people that are ok with us ” regifting” preloved items . So if you do recieve ANYTHING this Christmas that is simply not going to be useful to you, please do drop us an email. We are fortunate to work with The Salvation Army, The UHD charity and Autism Unlimited, not to mention hundreds of families and schools, so we can ALWAYS find a grateful recipient. This way you know that that gift is going to be used and really appriciated.

Santa Dash.

This was a new one for me 😉

I have been so lucky to be able to regularly volunteer 1:1 support at the beautiful William Gilpin School in Bolder. Since September I have been working really hard with this awesome dude! ( pictured above). Together we tackle tricky lessons, work on our mental health and self esteem. But this week we did something altogether different!

WG Head teacher Simon Croutear, asked us if we could perhaps create the feel of a Christmassy racetrack for the annual Santa dash 🙂 IT WAS BRILLIANT!

Together we covered as much as we could in tinsel ( even old lorry tires on the field) and made the signage. Apparently, the race went down a treat!

I share this because to me, this is true inclucion. It’s ensuring that EVERY child feels that they have something to offer and that their voice is not only heard, but matters. Thankyou WG for being THAT school! I am looking forward to working with your incredible team again in the New year!

And finally Jeremy Vine Christmas Star nomination.

MASSIVE thanks to the lovely Claire for nominating us for a Jeremy Vine Christmas star award. Now, we havent heard anything yet but, you never know 😉 To be honest, just knowing that you took the time to nomintaed us was simply WONDERFUL! THANKYOU for being so thoughtful, its kind gestures like that that keep is going! Jeremy, if you are reading this please do check us out 😉

Before we begin we need to share with you some rather sad news. We are currently having to rearrange a number of meetings, training sessions etc because I am taking some time out to support my father.

Not long ago he was diagnosed with non Hodgkins lymphoma and we also heard that his Chronic kidney disease has reached a stage where we now need to be seen by the dialysis unit.

Having lost Mum only 2 years ago, Dads news has really taken a toll on my mental health and I have recognised that I need to slow down, not only for Dad’s sake, but for mine too.

So please know, if I am unusually late with an email response or have to re-organise events with you, this has not been done lightly. With Dads permission, we will keep you informed with his cancer journey in the hope that it helps someone else in the same position.

Right , onto GOOD NEWS!!!

Awesome Archie supports the Salvation Armys’ Toy appeal 2024

This week has been jam packed FULL of CHRISTMAS. From making a magical fireplace that elves pop down into, to building an entire Santa’s grotto for children of the community, it’s been brilliant!

On Friday we spent the day creating a Grotto for the Christmas fair at Boscombe Salvation Army. The fair itself is organised by a lovely lady called Claire and all the money raised goes to supporting Boscombe’s youth program.

When Claire asked if we would create a grotto, we of course jumped at the chance. Check it out by clicking on the link below.

www.facebook.com/reel/2283667515330421

The Boscombe Salvation Army are contacted by local schools and asked for some support for the Children that they know will not receive a present without their help. With enormous thanks to our generous fundraisers, gifter’s and supporters, Archie and I were able to donate a dolls cot, some aeroplane making kits and two google fire tablets.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/567435832669720

I don’t mind admitting that I had a wobble the moment that we were privileged enough to give the gifts to “Santa” ready for the kids in our community.

Please know that everything you give us, every time you interact with our socials and every word of mouth you share is genuinely changing the lives of so many.

THANKYOU!

Epiphany schools EPIC reasonable adjustments!

One of the highlights of Christmas for me is attending the annual carol concert that is organised by the Rotary club. The Ephiphany C of E school choir were there to perform and it was AWESOME!!!!

Although I was not there in a work capacity, I couldn’t help but get my note pad out and jot down some of the amazing reasonable adjustments that I saw the school staff implementing to support ALL of their pupils.

A reasonable adjustment is a change made to remove or reduce a disadvantage that a person with a disability, neurological difference or sensory sensitivity might face. 

The concert was incredible but at times, loud for little ears. Yet, the school had ensured that the children they knew would need ear defenders , had them! These lovely kids were also placed the furthest away from the band to reduce the noise impact on them 🙂

Not only that, but when a couple of the kids became overwhelmed ( the concert was FULL with hundreds of people ) the teaching and support staff treated the kids with respect and real empathy. They even allowed them to sit in the audience with their own families and jump onto stage for each number.

To you, these things may seem obvious, but you would be surprised at the number of school events where pupils are STILL made to all wear the same or hear the words “sit still, don’t fidget, parents are watching”.

Thanks to their wonderful music teacher Simon Woodley, the kids were smiling, singing dancing and looking as if they loved every moment. IT WAS INFECTIOUS !

WELL DONE EPIPHANY SCHOOL! Archie and I would love to come and visit you in the new year to say thanks in person 🙂