Pascale Scheurer

Enjoy School Again: Using SF with parents, when their child is unhappy in school

Pascale is a former “school refuser”, parent of teenage twins (one in school, one homeschooled), and award-winning architect specialising in the design of mainstream schools, and alternative provision for children with “social, emotional and behavioural difficulties” (SEBD, or SEMH.) Children have a right to enjoy school, access their learning, and feel safe and supported.  Trained in SFBC with BRIEF (Certified 2020, UKASFP member), Pascale mainly coaches parents, and is writing the forthcoming book “Enjoy School Again: How to Help When Your Child is Unhappy in School”, which uses SF practices to help parents have effective conversations with their child, and with school, co-parent(s), and external providers.  Pascale is especially interested in neurodiversity within education, and how mainstream schools can learn from specialist alternative provision. A voracious “lifelong learner”, they love reading widely about child and teen development, relationships, affective neuroscience, the impact of technology on mental health, and AI in learning.   Pascale also teaches mindfulness to adults, and enjoys a variety of non-competitive sports, creative endeavours and travel.

pascalescheurer02@gmail.com

In this lively interactive session, Pascale introduces their work with parents, using SF practices to help when a child or teen is unhappy in school.   With a simple model of “Downward and Upward Spirals”, we start catalysing positive improvements (solutions) immediately, without necessarily “solving” the downward spiral (“problems”).   

Session includes:  -

• specific examples of scenarios 
• sample SF dialogues - discussion of the challenges and joys of working with parents, kids/teens and schools, and  
• an interactive SF exercise inviting participants to reflect on their own experiences of school through the lens of “downward and upward spirals”. (Participants can actively take part or simply observe, as they prefer.)  SF notes:
• Specifically SF dialogue practices are discussed and demonstrated. 
• The challenges of how to stay solution-focused when parents want to talk at length about “the problem”. 
• Using the “spirals” analogy to help parents understand how this solution-focused approach works alongside more “problem-focused” processes, which typically take months or even years, eg. getting a medical/neurodiversity diagnosis, SALT/OT, applying for an EHCP/IEP.

Participants can expect: - 

• A clear understanding of this specific application of SF in an education and parenting context (ie. how can we help this child/teen enjoy school again, and better access their learning?)
• Understanding from an architect and school designer, how the physical environments and social interactions of school can either support joyful learning or create “barriers to learning”. So, how can SF help when these barriers are present?
• “The difference that makes a difference” - how SF micro-conversations and single sessions can catalyse an “upward spiral” faster than parents and schools expect.
• Understanding how parents come to this work via different routes, and how the framing and expectations they (and we) have can be put to good use. 
• Why schools value this work, and how educators can also use it.
• Opportunity to try an exercise for themselves and get their questions answered. (Optional participating or observing.)
• Creative solutions for accessibility, for parents who would benefit from SF but can’t attend in-person sessions. For example, asynchronous text-based SFBC coaching.  - Creative SF ideas they can use in their own work.