This post is about my personal experiences of teaching in a SEMH School.
Firstly what is SEMH?
SEMH is short for Social Emotional & Mental Health.
The students are there for a variety of reasons, and some are autistic, though certainly not all.
I started there part time in January 2025, via an agency, who asked me if I wanted to work there.
Being totally honest, I almost took another job, teaching electrical installation, at a college.
But something about the SEMH School, sounded appealing, and challenging.
So I started there.
Safeguarding and confidentiality is important at all schools, but the school I work at, seems to take it to another level.
In fact for the first two terms, I knew little officially, about why individual students were there, or much about them.
This actually turned out to be an advantage, as I had no preconceived ideas, about the students.
Of course physical clues are easy to spot, such as evidence of prior self harm, or emotional distress.
But how I found out about individual students, was largely from observation, and interacting with them.
What breaks my heart sometimes, is that some students feel that they aren’t as good as students in mainstream schools. This is nonsense of course.
There are students at the school, that would be an enormous asset in the right employment environment.
Autism for example is a superpower, and the unique individual abilities of the students, never cease to amaze and inspire me.
I’m not just saying this to be faux politically correct.
If you are an employer, you would be mad not to employ, and support neuro-diverse employees. But you need to understand their needs, rather than expect them to just fit into your standard company blueprint.
Literally world class game-changers among them, with the ability to think differently, and passionate about what interests them.
Ever heard of ‘Temple Grandin’!
If we all thought the same, we would still be living in caves, because ‘that’s what we do around here’.
Yet the employment statistics are shocking for anyone not fitting the majority of the populations norm.
Ive recently been reflecting on my TEDx talk, and how lack of a school to attend, would be affecting those with neurodiversity worldwide.
Is there any statistical information on the lives of neurodiverse children, growing up without access to education worldwide?
I doubt it, as neurodiversity is still under-diagnosed in developed countries, especially in women and girls.
I’m curios what these children are doing in life.