During May and June I was fortunate to deliver a four-day training course I was asked to write for Middletown Autism in Ireland, entitled Using an Inclusive School Environment to Support Emotional Regulation and Resilience.

Training for SENCOs and colleagues

The course was a combination of face-to-face and online delivery, providing SENCo and teacher colleagues with an opportunity to develop existing skills in promoting inclusion in the educational setting whilst examining how an inclusive environment can be used to support students’ emotional regulation and resilience.

Course content

• An overview of the inclusive school and emotional regulation: taking a broad perspective on the characteristics of an inclusive school – demonstrated with examples of good practice.
• An exploration of the impact that a positive and inclusive school environment can have on the emotional regulation of students with autism.
• The development of understanding regarding potential pressure points during the school day: taking a look at the full school day and where the potential difficulties may lie and examining how an inclusive school will address these pressure points.

The course was well attended by colleagues from Northern Ireland and the Republic, more than 30 delegates across two consecutive days in May followed by two in June. Between both sets of face-to-face sessions delegates undertook individual projects in their settings, some of which were developing:

• personalised curriculum pathways
• video Passports for students
• developing Student Passports
• students creating own positive postcards
• developing a Whole School Approach
• starting an inclusive games club
• developing a LEGO club
• creating a personalised Student Passport booklet
• creating a school approach to visual supports
• sharing services – Occupational Therapy
• developing a Sensory Audit
• developing Teaching Assistant daily record sheets – increasing accountability

Sensory Overload

A useful element of the training was considering what sensory overload is like for young people. See my next post about a sensory audit case study.