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!
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.
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.
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 🙂
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.
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.
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!!
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.
Thanks to “Mum” for permission to share this epic pic 🙂
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!
This was us trying to help the WHOLE school with their Christmas lunch….I was warn out 😉
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.
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.
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 🙂
This week has been a very mindful one for us as a team. Any neurodivergent family will tell you that there are great weeks and there are those that are just a bit tougher. Sadly, this week was one of the harder ones and so we had to really focus on our mental well being. Something that as a family we take very seriously.
Part of our ethos is to not sugar coat things. We ALWAYS try to find the positives in life, but will always share how we’ve negotiated the negative bumps on the road .
By pure coincidence, one of the lovely teachers we know asked us if we had created a mindfulness journal for kids? This made us realise that not only did we want mindful support, but so do many others.
So, they asked and we listened.
We have created a little mindfulness journal to help us and support us to get through the rough patches. We will keep you posted as to how it has helped . We will be uploading a link to it on our resources page soon. Feel free to check it out.
Recording 2 podasts for The SENDcast!
The SENDcast is a one-stop-shop for SEND content, with information all in one place for teachers, parents and anyone else supporting children or young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. https://thesendcast.com/
Dale Pickles- The SENDcast creator tells us ” Keep up to date with best practice, policy changes and improve your knowledge around SEND with our free weekly podcast and CPD online training sessions. Having worked with thousands of schools, the B Squared Team understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We created The SENDcast to support teachers, other professionals and parents. “
So it is AWESOME that Archie and I have been invited to come and record not one, but TWO podcasts with him. We won’t reveal too much right now, but in January 2025 you will hear and see all about it! Thank you Dale for this amazing opportunity 🙂
Our guide to a more “neurodivergent considered” Christmas.
Christmas can be a really challenging time for neurodivergent families like ours. We have put together this guide to support any families that may feel unsure about facing yet another MASSIVE holiday season. Believe me when I say that as a family WE LOVE CHRISTMAS, so we want to share the hints and tips that we have gathered over the years to keep us in that happy space and not dreading any part of it! Do please check out our live recorded guide here .
And finally…..IT SNOWED!!!!
Now I realise that this content is in no way educational or informative to you, but it was just too much fun for me to not share! Check out some of our silliness here .
We hardly ever get snow here and when we do, it rarely settles. So imagine my excitement when I was volunteering at WG school and the snow started tumbling down. The kids were all elated and I have to say, us adults were too. The head teacher told all the staff that we could take the children outside to play in the snow and it was MAGICAL.
These are the moments in a school day that will stay in the children’s memories forever. For that brief flurry , maths and english had a momentary pause and the kids learned how to make snowballs and enjoy their very own winter wonderland! For many children, this was their FIRST experience of real snow! Thank you to all the staff at William Gilpin for giving all the kids ( and me) a wonderful playtime 🙂
Wowsers, both Archie and I are feeling over the moon with the fantastic week we’ve had. Now I know that we go on and on about how much we love doing what we do, but some weeks this just hits harder. This week was jam packed full of AWESOMENESS and we are truly grateful. So, here we go….
Our Positive young minds publication.
Positive young minds is a resource blog for all things related to positive child mental health, SEND and staff well being by the epic Lynn How.
Lynn explains
“These areas have always been of interest to me throughout my 23 years in education and has been at the heart of the various roles and further postgraduate learning I have undertaken in that time. I have noticed over my time in education a marked increase in mental health issues in children and colleagues in various institutions. As professionals, we are never short of work supporting children and families in this area.
I am also the editor of Teacher toolkit (https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/author/l-how/) and I have behind me a wealth of experience writing academically for qualifications. Currently I hold NPQH, MA Education with SEND and Mental Health focus, NASENCO award, FCCT and Elklan Speech and Language award. I have also undertaken training in Trauma in Education and accreditation and coaching qualification.
Through my SENCO work, I have been training new SENCOs with SEND Station as well as developing my own SENCO training programs. I am a practicing SENCO for one day a week as well.”
So, I am sure that when you see the list of Lynn’s remarkable qualifications and achievements you can understand that we were ELATED that she would even consider publishing little old us.
Career wise, this is HUGE for us and we are forever grateful for the remarkable opportunity to speak on such an epic platform. Thanks Lynn, we are truly thankful!
Check out our piece ( and the brilliant positive young minds website ) on the link below 🙂
When we started our non profit journey back in early 2020 we had one aim. We wanted to support pupils that were ( for whatever reason) not able to access the 1:1 funding and support that they needed in their mainstream schools. Here we are now in 2024 and thankfully we have been able to evolve and grow, something that we aim to continue to do moving forward .
However, I must admit that the hours of 1:1 support that we donate each week is very often one of my personal highlights. Selfishly, it takes me back to a TA role which ( for the most part) I LOVED. It means that I can still feel like a school team member but not lose ANY of my (occasionally loud and bubbly) personality. I have genuinely made friends for life along the way, for which I feel very lucky.
One of these lovely friends wrote a public review of the work that we do and I was moved to tears. It has been a privilege to support this family on the TOUGH diagnosis journey and to provide educational support and 1:1 care. Thank you for such beautiful words!
Our first BEACH appeal fundraiser.
Our followers will know that we have been lucky enough to be asked to be official fundraisers for the BEACH appeal. Last Friday our little Daisy hosted her first ever assembly. She discussed the importance of the work that our NHS do here locally. With almost all of us having had to access A and E, treatment, therapy or meds, it’s hard to believe that we get this for FREE!
Archie, Herbie and I depend HEAVILY on our local services. They help us support, manage and treat all of the complications that come along with having a neurodivergent brain. We are so proud to be able to say thanks to the UHD charity by fundraising and spreading awareness in this way.
Our first fundraiser ( Daisy’s Bake sale) was a hit!
With the help of her school pals and her super supportive teachers, we were able to raise £102.70 . It was AWESOME to be able to donate such a lovely amount into their account. Hopefully the first of many donations over this academic year.
Thank you to Adrian, Sheila, Daisy and Ian for making, donating or buying the many cakes, sweets and treats that we were able to sell. It was brilliant fun for a very worthy cause.
What a sprinting start we have had to our first week back. 🏃♀️
We began our week by producing another FREE school staff resource to share with ALL educating staff. One of our key drivers is that we don’t want the lack of school funding to be a reason for school staff to not fully understand the needs of their SEN pupils.
There is a wealth of FREE information out there (if you have the time and energy to seek it) but we know that school staff are already so busy, so we are here to help.
There is no payment needed to use our resources and no strings attached. All we ask is that if you have found our resources to be helpful, that you give us a shout out online. This way, we keep our Neuro-affirming, advocacy message going….that’s our ONLY aim!
Please see here a link to our school staff training, the EBSA training itself and our YouTube channel as a whole- it is new, small but MIGHTY!
If you have any questions or would like more details, please do drop me an email on awesomearchieontour@gmail.com
Giant Rainbow Chair at the NEC
Massive thanks to Dave and Martyn from Reformed plastics for all you do to help Awesome Archie. The UK’s first giant rainbow chair, created in Archie’s honor, has been having a jolly old time up in Birmingham.
The fact the there are thousands of people who pose on the chair for pictures and us knowing that Archie’s face is in each and every one of them, means a lot. We know that there have been many conversations had, after seeing this awesome piece of kit and so we are forever grateful to you.
Our youngest team member Daisy, leads her FIRST EVER Awesome Archie assembly- in conjunction with The BEACH appeal.
The UHD charity are calling everybody across Dorset and the surrounding areas to help them fund a variety of additional items that will ensure the new BEACH building at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital has everything it needs to take their healthcare into the future – above and beyond what the NHS will fund.
Over £500million has already been invested to reconfigure the services at University Hospitals Dorset to improve the way care is provided for the hundreds of thousands of patients that depend on their hospitals each year.
The new six-storey building is the size of 115 tennis courts and is known as the ‘BEACH’ for Birth, Emergency, Critical Care and Children’s Health Department. This building will provide new purpose-built maternity and children’s units, an improved major emergency department and one of the biggest critical care units in the country.
So, imagine our excitement when the UHD charity asked if we at Awesome Archie non profit would like to be official fundraisers! We of course said YES!!! What a privilege to be able to support such a worthy cause.
To put our support plan into action, we kicked off by adding lots of little local fundraising events into our diary ( details will follow) and added the BEACH appeal information to our in school assemblies. This week we made an assembly it even more exciting!
Daisy (Archie’s baby sister) has always been one of his biggest cheerleaders. Superhero siblings like her, have to compromise so much to ensure the correct care of their loved one. She has FOREVER been a support for Archie and wants to continue as she grows older to help others like him.
Daisy decided that she wanted to organise an after school bake sale to not only raise money for the BEACH appeal, but to spread awareness of neurodivergency. She launched this by hosting an assembly that she incredibly presented ON HER OWN!!! We are obviously enormously proud. See her in action here ⏬
Now, the Bake Sale itself is only open to school pupils and their families however, if you would like to contribute to the fund then you can scan the QR code below. No amount is too small, it all makes a HUGE difference!
Just mention in the comments that you have donated because of Daisy’s work with Awesome Archie 🙂 THANKYOU SO MUCH!!!
So our regular readers will remember that it wasn’t so long ago that Archie was in hospital. Now, being neurodivergent means that we are very regular visitors to the NHS children’s services but this one was a tad tougher.
Archie had to have his first surgery and so we had to get ourselves prepared.
Like so many autistic people, Archie finds the unknown extremely frightening. This anxiety then impacts his eating , which effects his bowel meds, his sleep is disturbed, his school life is then impacted and our home life has to become more insular to balance things out.
Where the majority of people can put their worries to a back burner, Archie was anxious about his surgery for 6 whole months. Its what he thought about, talked about and researched about 24/7!
This sparked an idea in my mind to not only support Arch but to help kids like him too!
We decided to write our 5th book “Awesome Archie has Surgery” which we dedicated to the Bearwood ward for their outstanding care throughout Archie’s stay. This lead to the book being picked up by United hospitals Dorset to support not only the neurodivergent children in their care, but to support the enormous fundraising efforts of the BEACH appeal.
Not only that, but the lovely Harry Redknapp agreed to sign three copies of our book to help with the fundraising efforts. We believe that the UHD will hold an auction to raise funds, but final plans haven’t been made yet.
We must say a HUGE thank you to Harry for giving us so much of his valuable time. We are so grateful for all you do to support kids like Arch. THANKYOU!
We will keep you posted with all the details moving forward but please find attached a link to the lovely message that harry left for us and the fun we have had filming for the fundraising page 🙂
