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Mr D Brian

@dbrian2.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.7K following 1.2K posts

UK primary teacher. Interested in fairness/outcomes for all children.

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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I don't feel bad about struggling to give him my full attention when he's in full flow at such length. I'm not even sure he's that bothered whether I fully understand what he's talking about.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I love giving my kid space to talk but there's a limit to my ability to actually concentrate on it (I do try)- car journeys where he's talked about some niche area of pokemon for nearly 2 hours, barely pausing for breath. I mostly enjoy that he's enjoying it. I'm good with that.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
associated MH problems - the diagnoses have been pretty helpful when considering how to support them.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I don't think it's a problem having a flag for traits. A formal diagnosis should be reserved for the most vulnerable. I was/am very distracted/disorganised and was "on report" for 4 years at secondary. I can't imagine framing this in the language of psychiatry. My children, though, have serious /1
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Not to be all maudlin, but I think "sung by a child" is the bit that has broken something inside of me.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Superb episode - great to hear a more nuanced take.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
sure how much worse they'd be than things that can happen in the real world. Anyway, he certainly spends more time talking with friends than I do.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
the way of SEND/MH support so the online world has been a lifeline. Online learning platforms and access to tutors has been invaluable. But mostly gaming platforms like Discord enabled him to maintain friendships and create new ones. There have been a couple of worrying/dark moments but I'm not /2
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Refreshing to hear some nuance over this - Pete Etchells has a good bk about it too. Also,thank you Adam for mentioning those kids with niche interests. My eldest is autistic and after a severe MH crisis in UKS2 he has largely lived in his room for almost a decade. There's been very little in /1
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Very nice to hear a sane voice from Piddington. Serious respect to this woman, who is apparently already being othered by more bigoted villagers.
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Chasbell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇪🇮🇹🇨🇦 @chasbell.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Show me a politician that’s a millionaire and I’ll show you a crook.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
How did we get here?
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Your instincts are good! I've looked into its history and it originated in small group/carpet based instruction in the US in the 90s and agree - I can see it working well in this context. Ran into problems when they tried to scale it to whole classes. I think it has run its course over there.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Yes, I like the active listening component, but I'm struggling with replacing a hand up with a thumb at the chest. I just can't see them at a glance!
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Yeah, I like the sentence starters, but just scanning the room is haaarrrd work!
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Any teachers come across this kind of thing? Chest height hand signals that replace hands up. I like the idea behind encouraging listening to each other but it's just created a huge amount of visual noise when there are 30 kids all making subtle gestures at chest height. Help!
Handle signals - thumb, a one potato 2 potato type sign etc.
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Tom Richmond @tom-richmond.com · 08/09/2026
They'll be a lot of chatter about England's PISA results this morning, but we need to talk just as much about Wales. They rejected phonics and knowledge-rich curricula in favour of 'areas of learning', 'skills suites' and barely any testing. Wales is now 40 points below England in every domain.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
🤯🤯🤯
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House of Lords Autism Act 2009 Committee @hlautismactcom.parliament.uk · 07/09/2026
🧵 1/2 Baroness Rock, ex-Chair of the Autism Act 2009 Committee wrote 🖊️ to the Minister for Social Care @allymcgovern.bsky.social urging the Government to bring forward a new autism strategy before 2026 is over. Read the letter ✉️ here: committees.parliament.uk/committee/77...
committees.parliament.uk
Autism Act 2009 Committee - Correspondence - Committees - UK Parliament
Correspondence publications for Autism Act 2009 Committee.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
This was a great chat between HT, Sammy Wright, and Caro Giles, author of Unschooled. It's unusual to hear people with very difficult experiences of school talk so openly with professionals. Love it. substack.com/@sammywright...
substack.com
Sammy Wright (@sammywright)
Fantastic conversation with @Caro Giles - although I do appear to have quite strange hair.
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⛧ Mother Suspiria ⛧ (Stina Marie) @stinasdemons.com · 25/08/2026
What a lovely and touching video, and very kind of the family to think of us in their time of grief. 🖤 I'm not religious in the least, but if there was/is a Heaven, Dolly would most assuredly be in it.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Just listened to the first episode. Makes room to explore the complexity of the neurodiversity landscape hearing from a range of opinions. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
bbc.co.uk
BBC Radio 4 - Understand, All Kinds of Minds, 1. The Language of Neurodiversity
How is the language of neurodiversity changing the way we understand difference?
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Emma Monk @monkemma.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
One of the first "outrageous" claims I saw as Jason Arday's media hounding unfolded was that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days! Wow! What a thing to claim! And the newspapers all suggested there was no evidence he actually did it. Well, they clearly didn't look very hard 🙄 🧵 1/26
Photo after Jason's final marathon taken from his archived blog showing Jason surrounded by supporters in orange charity t-shirts
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Worth reading the thread that led up to this.
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Special Needs Jungle @spcialndsjungle.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Over 70 organisations call on Prime Minister to put children's rights at the heart of Government. SNJ supports this 100% crae.org.uk/news/over-70...
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Yes, I have x2 autistic kids with anxiety disorders. Some of the behaviours have been so far off the charts I'm not sure the term "anxiety" as popularly understood really covers it.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Quite...
Damian Milton tells Sami Timimi that autism is a social construct.
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Fergus Murray @oolong.co.uk · 22/08/2026
I'm so, so tired of people thinking 'social construct' implies 'not real'. This underlies so much of the backlash against the whole idea of neurodivergence, as well as anti-trans propaganda, and it's just a really basic misunderstanding of what social construction means. 🤦🏼‍♀️🫣 rtie.org/resources/tr...
rtie.org
Trans Facts
Preamble: the “debate” is toxic.Sex is not binary.Gender is (at least partly) a social construct, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.This is not a dispute between scientist…
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Qagggy! @qagggy.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
UK transit nerds are next level.
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Alice Bennett @aliceponderland.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Lot of anxiety in the media about undeserving disabled people getting free stuff - a thread 🧵 None of the Disability Benefits being attached/panicked about are automatic, all of them have an application process, where you have to provide evidence and be assessed. 1/
Screen shot of Julie Burchill with the headline "I deserve every penny of my PIP – most people don’t" and the sub
"Julie Burchill: I spend my PIP on the expensive business of being disabled".
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
More professional commentary that should have been voiced in the program. www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-react...
sciencemediacentre.org
expert reaction to the TV show ‘The Great ADHD Myth? | Science Media Centre
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Oh dear - Katy Rubia's commentary was presented as a key piece of evidence in this program. I don't have a problem with exploring different perspectives, but this documentary was flawed from the start and not conducted in good faith. Who would have thought? ADHD community deserve better.
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 20/08/2026
There is nothing scientific about The Great ADHD Myth? ‘documentary’ | Gina Rippon
theguardian.com
There is nothing scientific about The Great ADHD Myth? ‘documentary’ | Gina Rippon
Channel 4’s programme wastes a chance to ask important questions about how ADHD is diagnosed and treated, instead indulging in unscientific methods and conspiracy theories, says author Gina Rippon
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
SEND services in Sussex, like elsewhere, are a mess. A lot of home educators do not choose it, but are forced to due to a lack of suitable provision.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
“My interview was hours long and they cherry-picked the bits that suited their push for presenting ADHD as a myth,” Rubia told New Scientist. “Biased programs like this one that push their view of ADHD as a mythical entity are irresponsible and will have detrimental effects.”
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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 19/08/2026
This stopped me in my tracks. An independent study by @qmul.bsky.social has found that after ULEZ was introduced, children’s lungs grew faster in Central London and have now caught up with children outside of the capital. Incredible.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
school, which was as it turned out the major problem.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
So, take your kid to the park and tweak the curriculum - that Lucy Mangan has come away thinking nothing "radical" would need to change if we were to ditch adhd as a diagnosis is why this documentary is so poor. All the voices came from the diagnosis critical perspective and it barely touched on /1
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Yes, exactly this.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
provision will always have a place. Personally, my main complaint is that I sent both my children to school and they've been returned with serious MH problems and everyone involved, even the schools, have said that our education system has caused this - it's not acceptable.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
the idea is largely to escape them (who wants a lifelong anxiety disorder?) or find a niche that plays to your strengths so that the difficulties associated with autistic traits are lessened and the strengths magnified. I think resource bases will work well for some but for others specialist /3
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
(anxiety driven restriction) is a useful lens as it distinguishes from anorexia (which on the surface looks similar), autism explains the rigid thinking around food and PDA guides our approach, which is to give her full control with some agreements about quantities. I view them as guides and /2
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Personally, I've found psychiatric diagnosis useful for my children - particular in the case of an eating disorder and its management (autism, arfid, pda and an anxiety disorder - useful lenses), which was acquired in separate ASDAN provision in secondary through a healthy eating unit. Arfid /1
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
it's overdiagnosed!!! I'm quite happy for these people to have a voice but it was not balanced and most of what we saw was centred in the family when the real problem, as highlighted at the end, was school.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Very biased group of professionals: Sami Timimi, Chris Bagley, Lucy Johnstone and Matthew Smith all come from a diagnosis critical approach (I've read books by most of them). Where was the balance? A pro diagnosis psychiatrist turned up for a short interview over a glass of wine to tell us... /1
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Exactly: Sami Timimi, Chris Bagley, Lucy Johnstone, Matthew Smith - all have diagnosis critical books. A short segment with a pro psychiatrist which also states misgivings. I don't have a problem with debate (and have read books by most of tonight's talking heads), but this was very unbalanced.
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Jack Churchill's Arrow @churchillsarrow.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
They were warned.
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Mr D Brian @dbrian2.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Yeah, my dad wanted companies to make a racy TV series about civil engineers to encourage more take up
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Yellow Dot Studios @yellowdotstudios.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
"There is one type of rare, gargantuan, towering lie that makes all the other mass lies throughout human history seem like frightened, scurrying, little adorable fibs. This massive lie can best be summed up as 'when it comes to climate change... we have more time.'" - @ghostpanther.bsky.social
currentaffairs.org
The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate
Thinking we have time left to address climate change, or that “Net Zero by 2050” will save us, is driving us toward full social collapse in ways that become more obvious with every new broken temperat...
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