Who is Liam...?
Liam Kelly is an SEN Teacher who works with a diverse cohort. Liam is also trained in Safeguarding Levels 1, 2 & 3 and is Designated Safeguarding Lead at Liam The Teacher Tuition.
Whilst studying, Liam realised the importance of purpose in the effective undertaking of learning tasks and activities. Namely, that learning tasks and activities with obvious purpose led to an increased sense of meaning and fulfilment in learning; helping to increase engagement and achievement.
Something Liam later established as an important underpinning in the creation of his own learning resources and lesson content as a Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND) teacher.
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Liam has over 7 years of teaching experience across Key Stage 2, 3, 4 and 5 in SEN and mainstream settings. He has taught children with a range of special educational needs including ASD, PDA, OOD, ADHD, and Dyslexia. His specialist areas are ASD, PDA and SEMH, as well as making mainstream lesson content and materials accessible to students with special educational needs.
Liam has also led departmental SEN Drama training, and has previously studied Acting and Drama as well as Psychology at degree level and has led training sessions for Stagecoach Performing Arts and Drama Kids on SEN knowledge, understanding and on strategies to support children with SEN. Liam is currently teaching a multitude of subjects including Mathematics, Literacy, and ICT, all of which he specialises in making accessible to students with special educational needs (SEN).
Liam's Story
After graduating, Liam moved into teaching in a Special Education setting. Inspired by his experiences at university, Liam sought to make more substantial positive differences and so moved specifically into Special Education, utilizing his studies in Psychology. Liam proceeded to work alongside a variety of neurodivergent young people and over time contributed toward making positive differences to their learning experiences, with the help of colleagues and peers. Oftentimes, Liam related to the young people he worked with and recognized the experiences of his autistic teenage learners as of particular similarity to his own as a teenager, as well as an adult. This urged Liam on to further refine and develop the learning experiences of neurodivergent young people; as he recollected and reconciled his own challenges with communication and processing.
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Liam became increasingly drawn to reflective teaching in recollecting what was successful and what was not for him as a young learner, but also in observing what was successful and what was not for the young neurodivergent learners he was working with. Namely, that there seemed to be little difference between the two.
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Liam realized that, outside of specialist learning establishments, there seemed to be a deficit in knowledge and understanding about how to meet young neurodivergent learners' needs. Moreover, Liam realized that most resources available to young neurodivergent learners seemed to require significant and repeated adaptations in order to become accessible to such learners. He noticed too, that there were distinctly different communication styles between the neurodivergent learners and the available resources. Something of which seemed to remain a large barrier to their learning. It seemed as if repeated case of having translate between two very different languages and ways of viewing the world often was the case.
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Consequently, Liam began creating his own resources and he soon noticed the positive impact they seemed to have on the learners he was teaching. Moreover, it wasn't only his resources that had the positive effect upon his learners, but his manner and means of teaching. Indeed, the visually underpinned, individualized and demonstrative style of facilitating learning enabled new opportunities for his learners. What's more, it granted new possibilities for progression which many of his learners simply hadn't had previously.
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Liam soon realized too, that what made things clearer, more accessible and easier to understand for him, had the same outcome for the young people he was teaching. It was as if Liam was able to "tune in" to what enabled his learners to access and process information as best possible.
It was over a short amount of time that Liam noticed further positive impacts that individualized differentiation and bespoke intervention were having upon the self-esteem and self-efficacy of his young neurodivergent learners. Most notably, his young neurodivergent learners had realized that they could achieve that which they never before believed they could. This of course being the true value in any learning, even the academic.
Liam later founded Liam The Teacher Neurodiversity Services as a means to share resources, strategies, and interventions which had been tried, tested and notably successful within Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) settings. Liam has also used such resources, strategies and interventions for neurodivergent learners within mainstream settings with the same positive outcomes and without detriment to mainstream learners.
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In true Liam The Teacher style, Liam entered into new realms of progress whereby he was able to draw specific focus to social-communicational needs by increasing confidence, understanding and self-belief; all with an underlying sense of purpose too.
It is the ethos of Liam and Liam The Teacher Neurodiversity Services that learning should and indeed can be accessible to all learners with Special Educational Needs; however their needs may present and however they experience the world.
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