Fantastic Progress

Bella wearing Somewhere Over There Spectrum
by www.squarepegclothing.com

This little legend may be approaching 9 and may be in year 4 but yesterday I got some news that couldn't have made me prouder...for the first time in her school life she is working ON National Curriculum for English!

This is big!

She has always floated around the top of the P levels (the levels before you enter the National Curriculum levels) mainly because it's so blinking hard to get her to do anything she doesn't want to do. Communication becomes a real issue when reading becomes comprehension, she can read and can do it well but can't relay what she has read or discuss it which is vital on the curriculum. There is very little way to check she has understood it and not just memorized words.

Somehow her teachers have coaxed enough out of her, they've thought way outside the box...and then managed to tick the boxes which put her working at Year One for English.

Today I'm proud is an understatement, to say I'm grateful to her school and staff is another.

Let's hope she can keep it going with English and maybe other areas such as maths where she teeters around level 9.

Go on Bella, you've got this!

Square Peg Family

Alongside being mummy to Bella and Logan I also run Square Peg Foundation in a voluntary capacity. Over the last four years we've seen our clothing line grow from 3 T-shirts being sold at local events to a whole clothing range being sold worldwide from our online shop.

All our clothing slogans are designed be fun conversation starters about disability, not just autism like many think.

Over the last two years we've seen our main goals come to fruition and we've started running community events for disabled children and families. The aim was always for the clothing to fund our charitable work and for a long time it felt like it would never happen.

Last year we launched a Christmas jumper which was super fun and appealed to many of our YouTube obsessed customers. This year we ran a competition for slogan suggestions and we couldn't be more thrilled with the winning design.

#BeMoreRudolph is an idea I truly stand behind and believe we could all do with being a little freer, a little less constrained by the norm. We could do with taking a leaf out of Bella's book and sing Jingle Bells at the tops of our voices in a busy supermarket in June, or be more like Logan and when you don't feel like being yourself for a while then just throw on a superhero mask and be someone else. 

A lot of our kids stand out whether that's because of behaviour, a wheelchair, a physical disability or a whole list of other reasons. But this is why we love them and why they are so special and unique to us.

If you want to buy a Be More Rudolph Christmas sweater then please jump over to our website, if not please share so that we can sell even more and spread awareness and just as importantly make loads of money to use for more fun activities next year!

CLICK HERE

A letter about "mild autism"

Dear people who know my son,

Sometime for families like mine disabled is the norm. With Bella her difficulties are clear, it's obvious to everyone around that she has some very severe needs. Logan on the other hand for the most part appears very "neuro" typical, other than the fact he is head and shoulders taller than his peers. He is doing well and loving reception and educationally and socially is coming on leaps and bounds.

He is doing well.

Controversial or Cute

Controversial or Cute?

The clothing arm of Square Peg Foundation has now been running for well over 3 years and has in the main has been received  very well. Every event we have attended (which in the early days were many) we would watch as people read our design slogans and smile as they "got it."

There have however been people along the way who haven't liked us, they don't like putting labels on they children...they don't like some of our more "controversial" slogans (More Special Than Needy being a particular trigger)