Surviving to thriving: sequenced learning in a PMLD classroom
How to sequence your teaching day and your pupil’s learning in a classroom for learners with severe and complex learning needs!
20 June 2025: 9am – 12.30 pm
Nick looks at how to sequence your teaching day and your pupil’s learning in a classroom for learners with severe and complex learning needs. He works from the learner’s perspective, as the Engagement Model outlines.
He asks: how do you structure your teaching day? What does your pupils’ learning journey look like throughout this? Is their learning sequenced in a way that offers the best possible learning experience in your classroom?
Recognising your classroom’s unique challenges and opportunities, Nick shares practical strategies for effective engagement, sequenced learning and resource management covering readiness to learn, snack time, The Engagement Model, anticipation and prediction skills, literacy, numeracy and movement in the curriculum.
Session 1: Waking up – getting ready to learn!
The first session is about how to get your pupils ready to learn and engage in their curriculum however they need. We will focus on different alerting strategies, how to enliven the senses and ensure everyone is in the right place to learn. Get those mats and standers out!
Session 2: Mathsy Snack
A forever-forgotten learning opportunity! We will work on changing the mundane to the extraordinary and how apples and bananas can be crucial teaching aids in developing conceptual understanding.
Session 3: Transitioning with success
If you have heard me talk before, you will know this is one of my big passions! Getting pupils to anticipate what is happening next is a fantastic skill. In this session, we will examine how we can help our pupils predict and anticipate what is happening next in a fun and multi-sensory way!
Session 4: Engagement!
Yes, that taboo subject strikes fear into most PMLD teachers’ hearts. But fear not! We will unpack the model and explain how it is straightforward, impactful, and a great way to see your pupils as their best selves.
Session 5: The Lord of the Rings
It’s time for a story! We build up this all morning, so let’s make it count! We will discuss how a well-structured and sequenced story can make all the difference to your day through a teaching and learning perspective and an organisational and preserving sanity one, too!
Session 6: Let’s get out and about!
As the day continues, our world expands, and we can become braver throughout the afternoon. Get those walkers and mats out, and let’s do some old-school moving and grooving while still learning!
Session 7: Ending the day mathematically!
It’s the last session of the day; stick on ‘Frozen’ on YouTube? Absolutely not! An excellent free-flowing session on tagging and numerical awareness is what you need to get those pupils through to the end of the day in a meaningful way.
9 am Admissions and virtual tea/coffee to start the session
9.05 am Welcome & a warm-up!
9.15 am Session 1: Waking up – getting ready to learn!
The first session is about how to get your pupils ready to learn and engage in their curriculum however they need. We will focus on different alerting strategies, how to enliven the senses and ensure everyone is in the right place to learn. Get those mats and standers out!
9.45 am Session 2: Mathsy Snack
A forever-forgotten learning opportunity! We will work on changing the mundane to the extraordinary and how apples and bananas can be crucial teaching aids in developing conceptual understanding.
10.00 am Session 3: Transitioning with success
If you have heard me talk before, you will know this is one of my big passions! Getting pupils to anticipate what is happening next is a fantastic skill. In this session, we will examine how we can help our pupils predict and anticipate what is happening next in a fun and multi-sensory way!
10.30 am Session 4: Engagement!
Yes, that taboo subject strikes fear into most PMLD teachers’ hearts. But fear not! We will unpack the model and explain how it is straightforward, impactful, and a great way to see your pupils as their best selves.
10.45 am COFFEE BREAK
11.00 am Session 5: The Lord of the Rings
It’s time for a story! We build up this all morning, so let’s make it count! We will discuss how a well-structured and sequenced story can make all the difference to your day through a teaching and learning perspective and an organisational and preserving sanity one, too!
11.30 am Session 6: Let’s get out and about!
As the day continues, our world expands, and we can become braver throughout the afternoon. Get those walkers and mats out, and let’s do some old-school moving and grooving while still learning!
11.45 am Session 7: Ending the day mathematically!
It’s the last session of the day; stick on ‘Frozen’ on YouTube? Absolutely not! An excellent free-flowing session on tagging and numerical awareness is what you need to get those pupils through to the end of the day in a meaningful way.
12.15 pm Questions and Answers
12.30 pm Thank you and goodbyes!
This course will be appropriate for classroom practitioners from special schools and colleges, mainstream settings with specialist SEN provision and early years settings, and working with pupils with severe/complex learning needs and autism, or both.
Nick Sheffield is a specialist in designing and implementing SEN curriculum and assessment, having previously worked for the DfE as an Expert SEN Practitioner on the Expert Rochford Review Group. Nick is on the London North East Maths Hub Strategic Board and is in the process of co-authoring ‘Special school wisdom for mainstream schools’ with Mike Fleetham. Nick has worked in various roles in SEN, from working in VI as a PMLD class teacher to a secondary SEN deputy head; he is also a guest lecturer at Bedfordshire University. Nick enjoys giving practical advice to teachers and leaders and loves getting stuck in!
The cost is £135 plus VAT per delegate. You can select multiple places on the booking form.
You can pay by credit card for this booking or request an invoice on the booking form.
The recording of this event will be in your account at online.hirstwood.com. You will access this using the email address on the booking form and your password (instructions for creating your password are in the joining information).
Here you will find:
a digital recording of the event
a transcript of the Zoom chat
These will be available for 10 days after the event.
NEW for 2025!
We will suggest practical reflective practice for this event to support you in implementing your key takeaways from this session in the classroom.
We’ll also offer a toolkit of additional resources to help, which may include further documentation, videos or links to valuable resources/websites.
Please join our Facebook Group, Sensory Support Spaghetti, to connect with us and other like-minded professionals – for everything sensory!
NEW FOR 2025!
