The school environment

The school environment

It is important that the school environment is adapted to suit the individual needs of each child and young person, particularly those experiencing barriers to attendance.

Children and young people experiencing barriers to attendance may need:

• Consideration about physical aspects of the school that will need to be accessed, including the specifics of classrooms, corridors, outside space, eating areas.
• Consideration of how they will need to move around the site, including unstructured times and transitions between lessons, considering whether the child or young person would benefit from leaving or entering classrooms 5 minutes earlier than their peers;
• Predictability in the school environment and clear information regarding the structure of the school day and lessons.

"You can tell that the staff at college know their stuff about young people and they are specialists in people our age. They can really, really concentrate on the issues that we face" (young person).

"There are spaces that you can go to just be alone and do your work, like little café areas which are very open, with lots of windows… quite relaxing. We've got quiet areas, and places where everyone can go to just be quiet and take time, like a bit of downtime" (young person).

"There's constant support and posters everywhere. The people here create an environment of safety, and also the environment of ‘you’re growing up now so we're not going to baby you and we're not going to treat you as if you are little kids because you're not, you're responsible'. They want to teach us stuff for later life, and support us in everything that we do" (young person).

"You suggest...can I bring them in at a particular transition point during the day, we're not going to get them in for registration but could we bring them in at morning break? Because that just takes the pressure off everybody. They can come in at that time, go straight out onto a playground setting with their friends, a bit of hustle and bustle, and then go in. And it gives them kind of a sensory settling time" (parent).

“It's very gentle steps; not reintegrating students back into mainstream classrooms but enabling them to work maybe in the Student Support setting or a much, much smaller setting. Trying to work out for the child or young person what their particular barriers are” (school staff).

“We have a copy of their timetable with us; we consider, if they could come in the following day, what aspects of the timetable they might be able to come in for. Even if it's just one lesson; as long as that's okay and the parents can manage that” (school staff).