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Are you involved in student supervision or other ways of helping people learn? If so, Neil Thompson’s The Learning from Practice Manual is for you. Neil has been involved in supporting practice learning for over four decades. This hands-on manual of practice guidance encapsulates his experience and expertise in a way that readers will find very helpful. Available for purchase along with many other books by Neil here or from the Avenue Learning Centre here.

If you cast your mind back to science lessons at school, you will probably remember learning about leverage. That is, you will have learned that a pivot or fulcrum can enable us greater lifting power – it gives us leverage. This can also apply in a more indirect, metaphorical sense. This is what I mean by the small things that can make a big difference. Smiling is a simple, but important example. Trite though it may seem, interacting with people with a smile on our face can make a huge difference to how we are perceived and how people respond to us (although it has to be a genuine smile and not a forced one). Another case in point would…

When your day gets made, how long does it last? A made day–is that different from a normal day? Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a made hour or, if we’re going to be quite truthful, a made minute. When something bad happens, we can revisit the humiliation and anxiety for months. But the good stuff, if we don’t work at it, can pass right by. We get what we remember, and we remember what we focus on. Click here to read more

Neurodiversity refers to the different ways the brain can work and interpret information. It highlights that people naturally think about things differently. We have different interests and motivations, and are naturally better at some things and poorer at others. Most people are neurotypical, meaning that the brain functions and processes information in the way society expects. However it is estimated that around 1 in 7 people (more than 15% of people in the UK) are neurodivergent, meaning that the brain functions, learns and processes information differently. Neurodivergence includes Attention Deficit Disorders, Autism, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia. Click here to read more

A few weeks ago, I decided to have a clear-out. There were several years’ worth of clutter best assigned to the rubbish, but among the old birthday cards and assorted keyrings, one box stood out: it was full of letters and cards from readers. I started writing about social issues for the Guardian in 2012, around the time austerity measures began to be put in place. The following seven years have seen the emergence of a level of poverty few of us would have previously imagined possible in modern-day Britain, from hungry school children scavenging in bins for food to the growing homeless population sleeping in tents. But somewhere, not too far below the surface, I have also seen it produce a wave…

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