OMATAS Blog: Resources, Articles & Podcasts

Moving a child who is struggling into a smaller class feels like the ultimate fix, but it’s actually just the starting line.

In this episode, Lauren Edmunds breaks down why a smaller environment isn’t a magic cure-all.

While fewer kids in a room gives your child better access to the teacher, it really just grants the space and time needed to uncover the actual barriers to learning.

Lauren shares her “onion” analogy, explaining how solving the first obvious issue often unpeels a deeper, trickier layer underneath that was being masked.

Real, lasting change doesn’t come from rewards, punishments, or making someone feel small.

In this episode, Lauren Edmunds shares a gentle and highly practical approach to helping children, friends, and even ourselves break out of automatic habits.

True transformation can only happen when we move away from unconscious reactions and step into deliberate thinking.
Lauren breaks down her step-by-step method for highlighting unhelpful habits without triggering defensive shame.

By building a kind, conscious awareness and teaching new skills alongside a child, parents and teachers can guide them smoothly from automatic mistakes to genuine self-reliance.

It is a longer journey that requires patience, but it is the ultimate way to build real capacity and independence for adult life.

Your attitude to life and learning becomes your child’s truth.

Lauren Edmunds discusses how parental perspectives on subjects like maths or daily habits like brushing teeth directly impact a child’s ability to overcome challenges.

Drawing on insights from experts like Professor Jo Boaler and Gordon Neufeld, she explains how to move from a “burden” mindset to one of curiosity and encouragement.

Learn how to “collect up” your children at the end of the day and use the school run to set them up for success, ensuring they enter the classroom with a willingness to learn rather than a combative spirit.

Lauren Edmunds challenges the modern tendency to overcomplicate parenting with endless books, social media advice, and podcasts.
Using the analogy of consuming “twenty chocolate cakes,” she warns against the overwhelm of seeking answers in external sources while neglecting the basics.

This episode is a refreshing call to return to the essentials: connecting through eye contact, modelling good manners, and maintaining consistent routines for sleep and nutrition.

Lauren reminds parents that they don’t need to be perfect all the time, but doing their best in the moments they are with their children is what truly makes the difference.

In this episode, Lauren Edmunds explores why accountability is a value taught at home rather than at school. She discusses how a parent’s reaction to homework and daily chores can either “rob” a child of the opportunity to develop character or help them grow into self-led adults.

Lauren explains that by fostering responsibility early on, even through simple tasks like clearing a dinner plate, parents can equip children, particularly those with special educational needs, with the depth of character required to navigate life’s challenges, manage relationships, and lead productive lives.

In this episode, Lauren Edmunds explores the powerful link between choice and consequence in parenting.

She reflects on how lasting change in children often begins with a shift in our own behaviour, encouraging parents to model positive habits, embrace change, and focus on small, consistent actions that make a meaningful difference over time.

Lauren Edmunds, founder of a school for children with learning delays, explores how to reduce auditory and sensory sensitivity in children.
Rather than simply removing the stimuli that cause distress, she explains how to build tolerance gradually through grounding techniques, body awareness and guided exposure.

She walks through practical tools, including the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method, and outlines how to read whether a child is coping or overwhelmed.

Lauren Edmunds draws on the story of Michelangelo’s David to reframe what it really means to support children with learning difficulties and neurodiversity.

Rather than trying to mould children into something they are not, she argues that the real work is in removing the barriers that are getting in the way: the anxiety, the overstimulation, the emotional dysregulation that stops their true selves from coming through.

Lauren Edmunds, founder of a school specialising in learning delays, delivers a candid warning about the real cost of unchecked screen time.
Drawing from her classroom experience, she makes the case that screen addiction is reshaping how children think, learn, and engage with the world and that the first step towards change starts at home.

In this episode, Lauren Edmunds explains how reclaiming two simple evening habits can reverse the decline in a child’s academic and social abilities.

By dedicating just 15 minutes to a family dinner and 20 minutes to reading aloud, parents create a “safe space” that fosters the vocabulary, empathy and critical thinking skills children need to thrive.