Support

Maresa MacKeith: Dialogue


Maresa was born in 1984 in Sheffield. She was adopted as a baby and moved to Nottingham. At age 5 she went to a special school and then left at age nine and attended mainstream primary and secondary schools from then on, with a year of home schooling between two secondary schools. She then attended a local college and went on to university.

Here Maresa talks about learning support in school.

Transcript

I think again it was not just the school alone. My PAs were as involved in enabling me to have the education they felt I craved. There would be a lot of discussions between the PA and the teacher, either before or after a lesson. Dialogue is so important to understand needs and the initiative of my PAs to talk with the school was beneficial for both me and the teacher, as they were then getting a clear understanding, even in terms of things like where I should sit in the room or how to involve me in group work and social things like involving me in the playground. I remember fondly some students would wheel me around the playground and it’s so small an act but so big at the same time.

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