Sarah M
Primary Tutor
Chertsey, Surrey
I have 28 years of teaching experience. Most of my career has been dedicated to pupils with additional or special educational needs within mainstream, specialist, and alternative settings.
I specialise in developing language and literacy skills through a personalised learning and holistic approach. I believe that the first steps towards developing a child’s confidence and self-esteem is to build on personal strengths, provide gentle encouragement and offer activities that are practical and fun.
"She is an amazing tutor!"
Kate
Availability
Face-to-Face sessions only
Monday to Friday 9am - 1pm
£110 per hour
Autism
As Family Wellbeing Coordinator with the National Autistic Society, my role included supporting families living with a child with autism through bespoke one-to-one consultations and informal drop-in
sessions. Listening to parents’ experiences and offering strategies and signposts in a friendly and non-judgmental way was hugely satisfying. Throughout my career I have worked extensively with children with verbal autism and understand how important it is to respect the child as an individual, follow the child’s lead and offer strategies that will allow them engage and thrive e.g., visual prompts, memory aids, reduced language, comic strips, social interaction games.
Speech, Language and Communication Needs
As a KS1 teacher of a speech and language provision, I had the privilege of working alongside many very experienced speech and language therapists. Consequently, pupils’ SLCN targets were included into my teaching plans, allowing children to practice and develop skills as part of the whole learning process. In this role I worked with children with specific language disorder, language delay, verbal dyspraxia, and autism.
Social and Emotional Health & Wellbeing
As manager of a Primary Alternative Provision (PRU) I was tasked with setting up a safe and inclusive environment for children either at risk of school exclusion or had been permanently excluded. Working alongside a dedicated team, I supported the social and emotional development of vulnerable young children by providing an alternative and enriched learning environment in which children could feel safe and thrive as individuals. Outreach support was also a part of my role to help prevent identified children from mainstream school exclusion.
Specific Literacy Difficulties
Understanding what the barriers are to developing reading and writing skills is key to providing the right support. I believe strongly that a child should be allowed the opportunity to explore different, or alternative, learning approaches if a particular approach is not working for them. For example, if a child is not responding to learning phonics, it may be because they have reduced phonological awareness skills or require a more visual approach with letters with the focus being on letter patterns.
Specialist Teacher/Advisor for SEND
My role as Specialist Teacher for Inclusive Practice (STIP) with Surrey County Council involved establishing professional relationships with school SENCOs to support the upskilling and confidence building of staff working with children with SEND. Identified pupils would also be referred to the service where my role was to then assess the language and/or literacy needs and report back to parents and school with identified barriers and suggestions for moving learning forward.