Hello, everyone. It’s been a week since I last sat down to blog, and I have to start by acknowledging the obvious: the sun is finally shining here in Stoke-on-Trent.
From a purely systemic perspective, it is fascinating how deeply our biology is tethered to our local climate. We’ve had a consecutive spell of consistently warm, sunny weather, and the shift in the collective mood is palpable. As a former Natural Scientist who spent years looking at the exchange of carbon between soil, plants, and the atmosphere, I always view these seasonal shifts through the lens of ecosystems. Just as a peat bog requires specific thermal and hydrological conditions to sequester carbon efficiently, human beings require sufficient solar radiation to synthesize Vitamin D and regulate serotonin. When the weather improves, our internal ecosystems rebalance. Everyone simply feels better.
This week has been a profound lesson in systems, energy, and endurance—both physical and cognitive.
Clocking 22,000 Steps: The Albert Dock and Experiential Learning
We kicked off the weekend with a family trip to Liverpool. We drove up on Friday and stayed at the Hampton by Hilton, a brilliantly located spot just a short walk from the Royal Albert Dock. Liverpool is a city built on movement, trade, and dynamic systems, and we certainly tapped into that energy.
After checking in and grabbing a fantastic pizza at the hotel to refuel, Saturday became an absolute marathon of experiential learning. We hit the World Museum, navigated the bustling shops, and kept moving. By the end of the day, I looked down at my watch and realized I had clocked up an astonishing 22,000 steps.
As a pragmatic SEND teacher, I constantly advocate for learning outside the classroom. The human brain evolved to map environments while moving through them. When my kids are walking through a museum, they aren't just looking at artifacts; their spatial memory, motor planning, and visual processing are all firing simultaneously. It’s a beautiful, messy, highly effective way to absorb the world.
The Skater’s VO2 Max and the Neurodivergent "Cognitive Marathon"
The main catalyst for the Liverpool trip, however, was taking my two daughters to see Disney on Ice. We saw representations of Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, Frozen, Moana, Cinderella, and of course, Mickey and Minnie. As a dad, I naturally loved seeing how captivated my girls were. But as a scientist and a teacher, my brain went somewhere entirely different: human performance metrics.
Ice skating is a phenomenally challenging biomechanical feat on its own. Now, add heavy, restrictive, full-body costumes. Then, factor in that these professional athletes are performing three highly dynamic, acrobatic shows a day.
Sitting in the audience, I couldn't help but marvel at their cardiovascular systems. These performers must have an absolutely monstrous VO2 Max—the maximum rate at which the heart, lungs, and muscles can effectively use oxygen during exercise. They are elite aerobic engines disguised as cartoon mice and princesses.
This got me thinking about endurance, which is a concept I lean on heavily in my SEND classroom.
For a neurotypical person, reading a page of text is like a leisurely stroll. But for my dyslexic and dyspraxic students—and indeed, for myself—decoding symbols on a page is a high-intensity sprint. We run a "Cognitive Marathon" every single day. Just as the skaters rely on their VO2 Max to sustain physical exertion, neurodivergent individuals rely on their "Cognitive VO2 Max" to process information.
John Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory beautifully illustrates this. When a student with a specific learning difficulty tries to read, the extraneous load (the effort required to simply decode the letters) completely overwhelms their working memory. By the time they figure out what the words say, they have zero cognitive energy left to understand what the words mean. I know this frustration intimately; fatigue exacerbates my own dyslexia, leading to mixed-up words or reading entire pages while absorbing absolutely nothing.
Hacking the Bottleneck: World Book Day and Audio Epiphanies
This brings me to World Book Day tomorrow. While reviewing the speech-to-text draft of this very blog post, I had to laugh—my dictation software hilariously translated my upcoming wardrobe plans into "Wild book day T shits." A classic piece of assistive tech irony for a dyspraxic teacher!
But the message on the t-shirt I’ve created for tomorrow is deeply serious, and it stems from a profound lightbulb moment I had years ago.
I was out in the garden, digging in the soil, listening to an audiobook. Suddenly, the realization hit me: I was absorbing complex information, visualizing scenarios, and retaining data effortlessly. Why? Because I had bypassed the decoding bottleneck.
My t-shirt tomorrow carries a simple, pragmatic message: If you have a neurodiversity barrier to reading, do not let it stop you. You can always enjoy and conquer books through audio. According to the British Dyslexia Association, around 10% of the UK population is dyslexic. If we force those individuals to rely solely on visual decoding, we are artificially restricting their intellectual potential. Using text-to-speech or audiobooks isn't "cheating"; it is a systemic hack. It is the equivalent of giving a scientist an electron microscope instead of a magnifying glass. By removing the friction of decoding, we free up the brain's processing power for critical thinking, imagination, and comprehension.
Resilience in the Print Shop Ecosystem
Back at college this week, endurance was required in a different format. We’ve been hit by a wave of staff sickness, a reality that every teacher knows well. Channeling a bit of Ernest Shackleton’s leadership ethos, I gave up my Planning, Preparation, and Assessment (PPA) time to step in and keep the ship moving forward.
We focused heavily on the vocational Print Shop, which I view as a micro-economy within the college. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the employment rate for autistic adults and those with severe learning disabilities remains unacceptably low—often hovering around the 22% mark.
Vocational education is our strongest lever to change that statistic.
We got to work improving the aesthetics of the shop. We redesigned the window displays and put up infographics that clearly showcase the professional skills our learners are developing. We also kicked off a major order of merchandise for the Canal & River Trust, using vinyl presses to create a highly professional finish.
When neurodivergent learners are placed in a hands-on, practical environment, magic happens. We bypass the traditional academic barriers and tap straight into their kinetic intelligence and problem-solving abilities. Working on real-world orders for real-world organizations like the Canal & River Trust instills a sense of pride and industrial rigor that you simply cannot replicate with a worksheet.
Looking Forward: AI, Peer Exchange, and the Chaos of Life
As I look ahead to the next month, my calendar is an intricate tapestry of professional duties and personal chaos. On the home front, we have hit the age where school friends are suddenly having birthday parties every weekend; I think we have three to attend in the next four weeks alone!
Professionally, I am gearing up for our Peer Exchange week. I’ve put my name down to deliver a session on the integration of Artificial Intelligence in education. I am a massive advocate for using AI to hack the administrative barriers of teaching. I’ll be showing staff how to use AI to streamline lesson planning, track student progress, and manage assessments.
Crucially, the focus will be on keeping the human in the loop. Teaching is, at its core, a deeply human endeavor of connection and empathy. If I can use AI to shoulder the heavy lifting of administrative data processing, I preserve my own "Cognitive VO2 Max." That means I have more energy, patience, and presence to give directly to my students. I’ve also been asked to run a workshop at a tech day for another college, which I’m thrilled about. It’s a great opportunity for outreach and puts our college's innovative practices on the map.
I have a mountain of coursework to grade and paperwork to conquer before the week is out. But the sun is shining, the systems are functioning, and we are moving forward. One step—or one audiobook—at a time.
This text was conceived and directed by a human, using Voice-to-Text and AI assistance to overcome a dyslexia induced literacy barrier.
