Episode 66
This week we have the fantastic Kate Steer @nurturedneurokids, a former teacher turned neurodivergent family coach, on the podcast to unravel the complexities of neurodiversity in education.
Together, we talk about the changes in the education system that led to Kate's exit from teaching, the stifling pressures on creativity within classrooms, and journey that many families undertake as they step away from mainstream education. We talk about the importance of advocating for and honour parental instincts and transformative power of self-directed learning at home.
Kate's expertise shines as she provides practical advice on preparing for pivotal meetings with school officials, and navigating the labyrinth of state education. If you're looking to empower your child to flourish on their unique educational journey, let our stories and strategies guide you toward a brighter, more accommodating learning environment.
www.sendparenting.com
Episode 66
This week we have the fantastic Kate Steer @nurturedneurokids, a former teacher turned neurodivergent family coach, on the podcast to unravel the complexities of neurodiversity in education.
Together, we talk about the changes in the education system that led to Kate's exit from teaching, the stifling pressures on creativity within classrooms, and journey that many families undertake as they step away from mainstream education. We talk about the importance of advocating for and honour parental instincts and transformative power of self-directed learning at home.
Kate's expertise shines as she provides practical advice on preparing for pivotal meetings with school officials, and navigating the labyrinth of state education. If you're looking to empower your child to flourish on their unique educational journey, let our stories and strategies guide you toward a brighter, more accommodating learning environment.
www.sendparenting.com
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation alongside many answers and solutions that were never talked to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. In this episode we will be speaking with Kate Stier, a neurodivergent family coach, former teacher and mother to a neurodiverse child. We'll be exploring finding the right education setting for your child to thrive.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I know this has been a major struggle for me and my journey with my daughter, and that it will resonate with many listeners to the Send Parenting Podcast.
Dr Olivia Kessel:So welcome, kate. It is a pleasure to have you on the Send Parenting Podcast and finding the right educational setting for your child can be so challenging. Finding for the right support can leave you and your child with battle scars and trauma. I know I have them and I know a lot of the listeners who listen to this podcast also have them. So I'm really looking forward to our discussion today because we can really get into the topic of how do you find the right educational setting for your child. And I'd love to start with your view in terms of how you've evolved in terms of what education looks like, because you have a kind of unique background You've been a teacher, you're a mother of a neurodiverse child and you also coach neurodiverse parents and help them actually find the right educational setting. So I guess that's where I would like to start with is how has your view of education evolved through those different roles that I just described?
Kate Steer:Hugely. I don't think. I'm definitely not the person that I was in terms of how I viewed things and how I viewed education, and I think part of that is becoming a mother becoming a mother to a neurodivergent child. But also education is nothing like it was when I started my journey teaching and I actually set out teaching intending to become an educational psychologist that's my background but ended up staying teaching because I loved it and when I started teaching it was very free and teachers had a lot more kind of creativity about how you would teach and how you ran your classroom and we used to do what I'm planning on paper and it was just a few notes, and so there was just so much more freedom and in that I guess I got to be more the teacher that I wanted to be and was able to spend more time with the children and nurturing the children and I think the things that make me passionate and made me want to go into teaching.
Kate Steer:I was able to do that more freely when I started and then, just as governments changed and education evolved, education became narrower and narrower and more rigid, and not just for children but for teachers as well, and what we were able to do became less creative and less individual and more just. This is what we're all doing, and you will churn this out because we need to pass. You know we need children to pass this test and instead of coming in three years so you know, any minute now in the next three years we can have a knock on the door and everything just became much more. We were conforming as well as the children were being expected to conform more and more into a narrower view of what learning was. It wasn't, in my view, didn't become learning. I wasn't teaching, I was just, I don't know, following the rule book.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Almost it's like death by metrics.
Kate Steer:Yeah, because lots of the lessons became school started buying in schemes. So I was kind of head of English in three of my schools and I'm really passionate about English and books and reading, and then we started having schemes being brought in where this is the text you follow, these are the questions you ask and you say these, and so then it's just like, well, what am I doing? I'm not teaching, I'm just, yeah, I'm churning this out and you had to learn these set things because those are on the test and if they're not in the test, then you don't need to learn them. The children don't you know? That's really what it's about?
Dr Olivia Kessel:It's not about like exploring your curiosity or anything like that, it's about passing time.
Kate Steer:Yeah, and if I'm really passionate about something, you know because I've traveled the world I can't bring that into school anymore. There is a place for that and I used to do lots of yoga and meditation, but then all the timetable gets cut for all of those extra things. And so, yes, I guess me as a person, I became less of who I was in that role and I felt the needs as I was teaching the needs, the diversity of needs was greater in the classroom. What teachers were being expected to manage was greater in the classroom. So not only did the actual nature of teaching evolve in the learning sense, yeah, I guess all the admin side of supporting every child's needs was enormous, and so I just felt towards the end that I wasn't meeting anyone's needs. Really, I was doing an okay job actually.
Kate Steer:No, I think I'm doing a really good job, but I lost myself in that I had no free time. I worked every evening, all weekend to make sure I created the best lessons and the best environment in my class, and I could. But to do that as a teacher takes every single second of your day and your soul, and the school environment became a less and less happy place to be. Staff morale and satisfaction was just so low. In all the schools I went to, you know, people were leaving, turnover was so high and it's really hard to keep your motivation going in an environment like that, where and it is rewarding because you are helping children, but not necessarily in the way I felt I could or I wanted to, and after 15 years I just felt like enough, I'd given enough to teaching, and then I had my son and I just didn't want to go back. I just didn't want to go back to that. If I'm being honest, that's the truth and I know so many people in my situation who feel exactly the same about schools.
Dr Olivia Kessel:It's not an uncommon story, but it's a sad story.
Kate Steer:Really sad.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Yeah, and you're not alone in that story. And it doesn't work for the children, it doesn't work for the teachers, it doesn't work for really anyone except the people who are trying to tally up the metrics.
Kate Steer:Yeah, there's many children into one class to pass a test to make you know, so that your school sits somewhere on a league table, it's kind of all it's based on. That really is the fundamentals of school now, and meeting the needs of 30 children almost solely. And when I started we would have classroom assistants and then they were being pulled because there wasn't enough money for them. So then it's you on your own with 30 children and, yes, some children have one to ones, but, as we well know, that isn't the majority of children and it's not necessarily all the children who need that. And so trying to teach 30 children with potentially 30 different needs is, yeah, it's a really hard ask what you're asking teachers to do. So, as much as I sometimes might bash schools and things, I'm not bashing teachers at all, having been one, that's not the case but the education system, yes, I fell out of love with that.
Dr Olivia Kessel:So you left the education system. You had an neurodivergent child, and so where has your views on education evolved to now and finding the right education setting for your child? As I know, you do coaching on that as well?
Kate Steer:Yeah, I mean, I think, if I was completely honest, there'd be a part of me that, even if my child was neurotypical, that I would still see the value in home education. Because I think, having been in teaching, I just yeah, I think I just got to the point where I lost all faith in it and all trust in it to a degree and I think, because I'm so passionate about learning and what learning should be and what education should be, I really see the benefit of how that can be done in an alternative way. Now there are schools doing that, there are schools that do that, but if we're talking about mainstream schools, state schools that's much harder to find and I guess some of the things I value as a person, as well as what I valued as a teacher, just don't marry up very easily in a mainstream setting and so on a personal kind of perspective of my child and their needs. Yes, home education is the right thing right now and that's kind of through that I then have evolved myself into becoming a coach and helping other families with their journey. The journey I guess I've been through, the journey I've been involved in, even when I was studying psychology at university. In the holidays I was working with autistic children, so I feel like this has actually been part of my life since I was 18.
Kate Steer:And so, yeah, there's a huge amount, I think, from a teaching perspective, from an education perspective perspective and a parenting perspective, that I can support families with and say that's what I now feel my renewed passion for and I think it's important to be passionate about what you do and, yes, that's kind of how I feel I can help people now is to, yeah, not just school related advice, but just general everything that comes with parenting a neurodivergent child. But yes, a lot of that is either finding the right school environment or parents who come to me where their children aren't doing so well in school. They're not thriving, perhaps not quite yet at the point of unable to go to school. Some of them is at that point and it's just looking at ways how to get back into school. How can I help them to help their child access school and try to find a way for that child to thrive and be successful in the setting they're in?
Dr Olivia Kessel:Or perhaps yeah, that's one of the things you've mentioned before that I think there's an acronym for EBSA Emotionally Based School Avoidance and some of the policies within school systems. I've had Heidi Mavir on my podcast talking about how they wanted her son to go and touch the pole and some of it's like just so soul destroying for both the parent and the child in terms of what the policies are for the school. So what advice do you give to parents and how do you help parents kind of navigate, you know, not wanting to go to school?
Kate Steer:I think if their child is so traumatized and that is the reality of it, we're talking about trauma here If they are so traumatized that they're unable to go to school, then that sometimes is a very hard situation to navigate and, like I said, a lot of the time I guess I'm at the point where either parents are finding the right school or they're at the point where their child is becoming increasingly anxious and I guess that's a really good point to get some help before it gets further along the line. But I am working currently with three families who it's sort of part-time school avoidance at the moment their children seem to be able to access some. So I'm desperately working with the schools to, I guess, put in the reasonable adjustments and the accommodations that they haven't been doing. And what I do in my role is to empower parents to be able to advocate for their children.
Kate Steer:So this is what your child is entitled to, and sometimes parents don't know that and I probably wouldn't have done 10 years ago or whatever point in my journey and so they don't always know the rights that their child has. Even if their child doesn't have a diagnosis, they still have rights and they are protected by quite a few legal documents, that Education Act being one, the Equality Act, sorry, being one of them and I think it's knowing what your rights are as a parent, valuing, as a parent, that your lived experience is true and it is valid. And there's been so many parents who've got to that stage. It's not really just their child who's traumatized and anxious by that stage, it's their parents.
Kate Steer:It's a whole family yeah, and they've been made to believe quite often that their truth isn't reality and that their lived experience has been doubted and questioned. Your child looks fine in school, they appear fine. What you're telling me doesn't marry up with our experience and I think it's building parents back up to. It's not qualifications over lived experience, which sometimes people feel quite daunted with not confronting but discussing things with a head teacher or a STEM coordinator thinking well, they know way more than me, but I'm a doctor, okay, which you would consider to be and literally in front of the headmistress of my daughter's primary school, I'm like yes, yes, you know what I mean.
Dr Olivia Kessel:It's absolutely ridiculous. You know what I mean. Like completely lose, you know, you turn back into a child yourself, you know, and you're like I think that's what it is.
Kate Steer:You have to fight against it. People's only experience of school is when they were there and, based on their own experience, they might be carrying trauma from school themselves. And you just have this thing of a head teacher. What they say goes, and so I think for some parents it's having somebody saying to them what you're saying is the truth and your lived experience is the truth. That is the reality. You are the expert of your child.
Dr Olivia Kessel:And to trust your gut, I mean. I think the number one tip on the St Parenting podcast is to trust your gut. You know your child better than anyone, Better than any professional. You know your child.
Kate Steer:Exactly, and I think that's the thing. You are the expert in the room. Those other people are professionals and they are experts in their field, but they are not an expert of your child you are. So you go in there and you have to advocate hard for them, and I will be. You know the voice in your ear and I leave people voice notes before their meeting and I do lots of work like preparing parents for meetings, because I think at that point a lot of parents, like you say, are really broken and they don't have belief in that ability to change anything. And I also really realistic.
Kate Steer:I don't have a magic wand, I can't change everything, but I can help parents to know what to ask for and what maybe they haven't been asking for, what schools can do or should be doing. That's not necessarily got any financial implications, which obviously is the difficulty. If you're asking the school for something that has a monetary attachment, like a one to one, that's difficult. But if you're asking for you know my child really cannot cope with wearing school uniform, you know fight for that. They shouldn't have to go in, and so that's just a small example. But there's things that you can do to help remove, where you can some of the stress and some of the anxiety and put in what psychologists call as protective factors to try and, I guess, protect them as best you can. And sometimes that's whilst awaiting, you know, an assessment for any HCP or whilst awaiting a diagnosis. And I have two families who have been waiting for diagnosis, you know, for nearly 18 months and in that time it's you know what but actually so much time in a child's life.
Dr Olivia Kessel:It's so much time in a child's life. You, just, you can't wait, you can't wait, you can't wait, no no.
Kate Steer:And then, and there's two very different schools, and one school is brilliant and is doing everything they can and another school, I guess, knows that they don't really have to. And I was talking to somebody else. It's not like schools sit on pots of money that they're not willing to spend. It's not like that. It's not like teachers are holding back resources or headteachers are holding back resources. Most schools are in the red and are hundreds of thousands of pounds, you know, overdrawn themselves. So it isn't as if schools are sort of purposely withholding that, but often they just don't have the extra adults. And so when we're saying you know, my child needs support at lunch and play times, sometimes there just isn't the extra adult to do that. So it is very hard.
Kate Steer:But there are things that we can do, and every bit of advice is so dependent on the child that I'm talking about. There's no one size for that. But there are things, yes, that I can help parents with in terms of the school, how the school runs, that maybe I as a teacher know better because I'm in there, and it could be things that they've not thought about that might help their child just manage better, which isn't necessarily what we want. We want children to be thriving, but I guess that's in the short term and sometimes the discussion might then lead to okay, do we need to be looking at another setting? Is this actually the right setting for your school? Sorry for your child long term.
Kate Steer:Is there a better setting? Now, sometimes there isn't within where the family live, but sometimes there is, and it might be that their child started mainstream school and actually seemingly appeared fine in reception in year one and then the wheels start to fall off as the expectations increase and so then maybe mainstream isn't the right place for that child anymore. You know, we know that everything is dynamic and children's needs change and that changes with the environment and the expectations. So if your child starts in one setting, it doesn't mean that that's where they will kind of stay all the way through. So and that can sometimes be a hard discussion to have with the family, and it can- be hard, even for the parent, I know.
Dr Olivia Kessel:for myself too, like even you know my preconception of, oh, a specialist school, you know what I mean I really thought high need. My daughter isn't high need, you know, she doesn't need that, but actually she did really need that and that's where she needed to go, you know. And actually they're all lovely normal children who just need smaller classrooms and need more one on one support. And it wasn't what my perception was of leaving mainstream education to a smaller education, you know, but it was the right decision for her.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I think that's the thing so the parents got to go on a journey.
Kate Steer:Yeah, it's a huge journey and you know, a lot of my sessions feel like therapy sessions and there's always a lot of tears and you know, I think that's a huge part of it as parents is is going. You have to go through it and you have to kind of acknowledge maybe your stereotypes of things and your preconceptions and you have to have that conversation with someone Maybe who's independent and isn't your family and isn't a friend, because sometimes they might admit things to me they don't feel they could admit, you know, to somebody else. So I think you're right.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Another thing I think that was really important for me was actually going to visit the schools, because what your perception is and your preconceived idea, when you actually go and visit a school, and even when you go and visit other mainstream schools, you get a feeling just like you know your child. You can go in the environment and you're like I'm going to go to the mainstream school. You can go to the mainstream environment and you're like I could see my child fitting in here or not fitting in here. So I think it's, you know, super important to test the waters. You know it's really important to actually go and make a visit to the school.
Kate Steer:Yeah, because websites are selling. You know they're just a sales thing they don't actually give you the same.
Dr Olivia Kessel:They all look alike.
Kate Steer:No, exactly, and even as a teacher I'd apply to schools thinking, oh, this school sounds amazing. I go for the interview and think, oh, this is nothing like it, it doesn't suit me, and I think, yeah, one school search I did for a family and they were actually relocating so often. That's the best scenario. I get to kind of have a bigger field to look at and I did a short list of schools and actually one of the schools that wasn't necessarily the top and my advice obviously was to go and look at them all and have a meeting with the send coordinator, because I believe that that's, you know, that is going to be your biggest relationship in a school, so that has to be a good start. And one of the schools that wasn't necessarily a favorite, but when she went there, the send coordinator was so amazing and, just you know, she clicked instantly with this lady and she just said I want my child to go here. This one was incredible and that's what you need, that's what you say. You can't get that.
Kate Steer:I can help maybe go through a process of thought and narrow things down for parents, but ultimately the decision is based on going to view it and who says they can meet the needs of your child, because what you don't want is to be fighting for a school that says I can't meet their needs, because to a point they're being honest and if that's a mainstream school saying that, you know, for whatever reason, they probably can't fully meet the needs of your child, and that's when parents get into, you know, just constantly battles every week and needs not being met. So, yes, that's sort of you were right. The advice to go and see a school, of course, is the. You know it's like looking at a house You're not going to buy a house.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I don't know if you watch Kristine Phil on TV with location, location. You know they meet these couples who, like we've seen. You know we've looked at a thousand properties online, but we have. You know we visited one.
Kate Steer:Oh, they discounted properties online. And then they will say, well, actually we wanted you to go and see it. And they're like, oh, we love it, so yes.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I think schools are the same thing and I think it also, like it, changes your mind. Like I, my daughter goes to the unicorn and when I met the headmaster there and he got me do you know what I mean? I was like, wow, I don't have to fight this man, he sees the potential in my child. I went and cried in the parking lot, you know, because it was just like an aha moment for me. Yeah, so it's, you know, it's it. The struggle is to find the right school and sometimes you can't find the right school, you know or there isn't a place at the right school or there you know.
Dr Olivia Kessel:So it's hugely challenging.
Kate Steer:And it's challenging and I think it's it's managing your expectations of that, because some parents sort of come with, oh, if only the school could do this and if they could do that, and like, but with the best will in the world, if that school is given a million pounds, they might be able to, but right now, if they're telling you they can't, they can't and we'd all love mainstream schools to be doing that, but this is the reality. So, based on that reality, what is your best option? What is the best fit? And sometimes for some children, yes, they will find somewhere that just gets them and is perfect for them, and that's what we all would want for our children. As we well know, that isn't the case and and that's really dependent on where you live and the schools in your area.
Dr Olivia Kessel:So, yes, and then the other option is home education, which is on the rise and it's, it's. It's what you've chosen to do and probably would have, as you said would have chosen to do whether your child was neurodivergent or neurotypical, and it's also really challenging, I think. I mean you know you've got to balance work life Educating. It's not an easy road either. I take my hats off to all parents and you know that are that are able to do that. How did you adjust to to juggling all of that?
Kate Steer:Yeah, it is, of course, always a juggle and you know everyone I speak to, particularly families who have to work around it, and they might be in a two-parent family and that might be an easier Way, but there's there are families with just one parent doing it and I think for me, I work in the evenings. I managed to do emails and all that sort of stuff in the day, but yeah, but all my coaching is in the evening and and it works because actually most of the people I chat to are either at work themselves or home educating or whatever. So it works really well in that sense, but it just, it just means that I get to meet the needs of my child and you know, it brings me the greatest pleasure in life and joy to know that I can do that and the opportunity I'm creating for him, I guess, to not be, you know, a Square pegging around whole and to not feel less of anything. It's just the most rewarding thing in the world. I you know as hard as it is and it is really hard, you know. I'll never regret it for that reason and, and, like you say, home education is on the rise.
Kate Steer:So many people who are home educating teachers themselves and Are home educating not necessarily I'm neurodivergent children. Just they don't want their children in the education system. I Guess they've lost their belief in it too. So yes, I think For neurodivergent children it is wonderful For so many of them and it wouldn't suit every child just like it wouldn't. You know, every single child Neurodivergent, neurotypical, also different and for some children they really do thrive in school and they love that. But for a great many neurodivergent children, home education Just allows them all the things that's hard to To get in schools and the things you're fighting for in schools can be given so much more easily Through educating them at home. Not necessarily in the home, but you know, home education, unschooling, whatever it's called so many I believe that's a contentious point in terms of what you call it.
Dr Olivia Kessel:You know the politically correct term, it terminology. There's a, some people I think it's unschooling is the correct term. Is that right? No, well, there's so many different. No, I don't know. I don't know. I get confused a bit.
Kate Steer:I think is the official term, but okay in that you can do Unschooling, which is where you're not really following any sort of guide. You're literally just okay life is learning, and then there's child led learning. So you kind of, yeah, and some people are home educating and following quite a clear kill them. Yeah, and they buy in Sort of programs of study and learning and then, as their children get older, they might have online tutors for specific subjects or they might go to tutor groups and a lot to do that I.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Was really impressed with dr Naomi Fisher, with self-directed learning, and I think if I had to do it over again which I'm not, I'm way, I'm way beyond my child bearing days or wants, but I, you know she really it really cracked my head around education and thinking, wow, that's such a Interesting way to let your child and actually I let my parenting I've changed my parenting to be more Let her direct it versus me directing it, and it's, it's been very powerful. So I could. If I were to do it over again, I could see myself going down that path.
Kate Steer:Yeah, that's the path that I, you know, that's the path of my parenting. And, yes, and that's what it's called child led, self-directed, and you're letting your child's interests guide how they're learning and make sense. You know, of course it makes sense, especially with you know Neurodivergent children and adults are so interest-driven. You know that's.
Kate Steer:Focus yeah and for them it's not. They don't see learning as school. There's no kind of learning, is just life and there's no distinction. People say to me in the school holidays Are you still learning, doing I'm like, but we don't sit down. It's not school at home, it's not. I'm not replicating school and I think that's what people think it is. It's not at all. It's a totally different philosophy of how we learn and it's and it is lovely to let your child lead. That and I Guess because as a teacher I'm more confident maybe than some people are in how I might kind of approach things or, yeah, I guess I'm really creative in my head, having taught for so long of how that can, how we can explore different things. But you don't need to be a teacher to Time educate your child, especially if you're allowing it to be child led, because the alternative of the COVID Online learning.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Literally. That also left scars on me as well, for yeah, that's what that was not a good experience and made me value teachers.
Kate Steer:You know beyond, above and beyond but I think that you know that contributed to a lot of the. The shift is that people saw how much happy their children were at home and suddenly we're thinking, oh actually, my child being autistic or, or you know, dyslexic, they actually don't have to be unhappy, you know. Is it the school that's making them as anxious or as stressed as they were? You know, is that what's affecting their sleep every night? And I guess for some parents that's what Maybe triggered a change in in in that, and I know home education has risen hugely since COVID and for some people it was positive. I know, no, everyone. You have to. You have to.
Dr Olivia Kessel:You have to realize your strengths and your weaknesses, and definitely a weakness, and if you have one child.
Kate Steer:It's really, it's really difficult. And I know families who might want to educate, who have more than one child, don't know how to balance that because they think what? I can't just have one child at home and Then can I take on all three at home. And so, yeah, I think that is there's. Obviously with everything there's always pros and cons and a lot to juggle and work out and Very few things are perfect.
Kate Steer:And when I speak to families I always say you know, you have to prioritize the greatest need and work out what you're, you know, the biggest driving factor is and that should be, you know, obviously is your child. But the greatest need for your child is your driving factor. That is the center of everything. And and every school looks different. And even you talking about specialist provision schools, they're all so different and they cater for, you know, very different profiles of neurodiversity. So, yeah, it's not just all a specialist provision school, they're all so different and, like you say, they cater for very different profiles now than maybe 20, 30 years ago. So I think that's what perhaps some people maybe haven't. Until they get to that point, they don't necessarily know that. And there's amazing schools popping up all the time. Not enough of them, but yes, there is some light.
Dr Olivia Kessel:There is some light, I agree.
Kate Steer:There is some light.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Talking about light, and I do this with all of my guests because it's been a wonderful discussion we've had this evening. If you could give three top takeaway tips to parents listening today, in terms of education, what top tips would you give?
Kate Steer:them. I think it's so hard to think of just.
Kate Steer:I think, yeah, like I said, to put your child at the centre of all your decisions, because when people are deciding on schools there's so many factors but your child's needs and I've seen there's so many times of children being put in situations based on their parents' sort of wants and desires or hopes for their child, and so I think it's really carefully thinking about where your child is at and putting that at the centre of your decisions is a really good kind of starting point.
Kate Steer:I think valuing your knowledge as the expert of your child when you're having discussions with headteachers or send coordinators and asking for those meetings and going in and just being really brave to have that belief in yourself that you do know your child best and the school has to fit your child rather than you know your child has to fit into the school.
Kate Steer:So I think that would be a kind of another sort of all-encompassing, trying to cover all angles. And I think along with that is, as we sort of discussed, finding a school that values parental input and values the relationship between parents and the school and what parents can bring to that and that they meet you know they're reassuring that they can meet the needs of your child. Like you said, you know the headteacher of the school where your daughter is instantly kind of made you feel like she could, he could see her and he saw her for who she was and all her potential. And I think that's what you need is to have faith that where you're sending your child will understand them and do their best for them. And that's all you can hope for. And it might not be perfect, but if they're doing their best and the lines of communication are open and respected, then I think that's a really good starting point.
Dr Olivia Kessel:I think those are three very good broad tips that people can put their back in the leg away.
Kate Steer:Yeah, there's like three or four other ones, but no, those are the four. I was the three. I'll stick to, I won't, I won't.
Dr Olivia Kessel:No, I think those are three really good ones, and if you get those three right, you're on a good track, I think.
Dr Olivia Kessel:Yeah, I think so, yeah, I would agree with you. Well, thank you so much, kate, for coming on the show, and it's been lovely having you Take care. Thank you, bye. Thank you for listening Send Parenting Tribe. If you haven't already, please follow us on Instagram, tiktok or Facebook at Send Parenting Podcast. We would also love to hear your comments. Please reach out to our website, sendparentingcom, that's S-E-N-D parentingcom. You can leave comments after every episode. I'd love to hear what your thoughts are and if there's something you'd really like us to talk about on the show. Wishing you and your family a peaceful week ahead.