Embedded Files
Opportunities for school staff and practitioners
We support schools and practitioners in engaging with and using research evidence to support children’s development.
Here are a few of the opportunities and resources we have available in the network, which we promote through our termly newsletters. Please sign up to the network and email us at sunray-network@york.ac.uk if you are interested in these opportunities.
We are often developing new materials, so if there is something you would like to see then please get in touch.
Online resources
Online resources
Developmental Language Disorder: Spotlight on Wellbeing
Developmental Language Disorder: Spotlight on Wellbeing
Target audience: Early years teachers, primary teachers, secondary teachers, practitioners
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) affects 7.5% of school age children. DLD is a condition that impacts children's oral language, but these children can also have problems with their mental health, sleep, literacy, and emotion recognition. Children with DLD may also mask their difficulties, making them harder for professionals to spot.
Through this collection of short videos, DLD researchers at the University of York put wellbeing in DLD under the spotlight.
Supporting Children and Young People's Emotional Wellbeing
Supporting Children and Young People's Emotional Wellbeing
Target audience: Anyone supporting children and young people
Mental health challenges among children and young people are on the rise, and early support can make a lasting difference. This self-paced online course (4 hours/week; 3 weeks) empowers professionals to recognise mental health concerns and respond effectively with practical, evidence-informed strategies.
This course was developed by academics at the University of York and funded by the Royal College of Nursing Foundation. It is free to access at any time (paid certification available).
Online Misogyny and the Manosphere
Online Misogyny and the Manosphere
Target audience: Teachers
This online resource for teachers has been developed by the PSHE Association and a team of researchers based at the University of York, connected to an EU-funded project to understand how the manosphere is affecting the behaviour and experiences of young people. The guide is designed to support teachers and other school staff to manage conversations related to misogyny, gender expectations, and the manosphere. You can download the free guide from the PSHE Association website.
[image from Freepik: www.freepik.com]
Language Research Summaries
Language Research Summaries
Target audience: Teachers
OASIS summaries are one-page summaries of published journal articles on any language-related topic. This includes areas such as language learning, language teaching, multilingualism, language policy, language and social justice, as well as clinical and forensic linguistics and language and the media. The summaries provide information about the study’s goals, how it was conducted, and what was found, and are written in non-technical language. Where relevant, they may highlight findings that could be of interest to practitioners or policy-makers, including teachers. You can access the summaries here.
Sessions on request
Sessions on request
Learning, Memory, and Neurohype
Learning, Memory, and Neurohype
Target audience: Primary teachers; Secondary teachers; Educational psychologists; Career advisors
This is a short talk (30 minutes) on the psychology and neuroscience of learning and memory and their implications for classroom learning from the perspective of academics involved in fundamental research but who still thinks teachers know best. The idea is to prompt discussion (e.g., 30 minutes) on what neuroscience can and can't tell us and where we should look for answers.
This is an in-person session available to SUNRAY schools upon request.
Archive
Archive
Looking quiet above? Here are some of our past events to get a sense of what we get up to:
Supporting Vocabulary in Secondary School: A Research & Practice workshop. As the national curriculum focus shifts towards oracy, how do we ensure that secondary school students have the vocabulary they need to make high-quality spoken language a reality? Thirty teachers, practitioners, and researchers joined us for a one-day workshop to share current practice and bridge the gap between research evidence and the daily reality of the classroom.
Neurodivergent Masking Training Event. The child who copies another’s work. The pupil who gets their head down and looks busy, but produces very little output. The student who nods along during your instructions, and maybe even says “yes” when asked if they understand what they are supposed to do… only for them to do something quite different. What ties these different behaviours together? They could all be forms of camouflaging an unrecognised language needs, especially for children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), a common but under-recognised neurodevelopmental condition that affects children’s language development. We held a training event at York Explore Library on masking and camouflaging for professionals, considering both DLD and autism, for a “transdiagnostic” approach to masking.
Building Bridges Between Research and Practice in Child Development. To mark the launch of SUNRAY, we held a free networking event at Tang Hall Explore Library. Teachers and researchers came together to discuss current questions in SEND, language and literacy, numeracy, sleep, mental health and bullying, alongside broader discussions about how schools and universities can work together.
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