Attachment and Trauma Sensitive Schools Award
We are delighted to announce that we have had our attachment and trauma sensitive approaches receive an external sign of recognition!
ISP School
December 4 2023
We are delighted to announce that we have had our attachment and trauma sensitive approaches receive an external sign of recognition of our commitment to the steps we have taken at our school to develop a culture of compassion and nurture. This approach plays a pivotal role in getting children into a state of learning readiness.
We are proud of our final verification report which completely reflects our values and ethos across our whole school community including adults and children.
Extracts from our report show that we provide:
Quality staff care and emotional support to protect mental health and well-being is multi-levelled and provided through the leadership team. Leaders are aware of the multiple risk factors to staff mental health and well-being and are proactive in providing support to cope with the psychological and emotional demands of the job. There is an extensive range of processes and strategies to protect staff from overwhelm or burnout… Care for staff is a particular strength of the setting.
Staff are fully aware of the importance of viewing a child through a developmental lens rather than a chronological one. Throughout the interviews, staff demonstrated sensitivity to children’s histories and experiences. They were able to explain how adverse experiences have impacted development and describe how they are working with the children to support regulation and develop pro-social behaviour… Viewing children through a developmental lens is a particular strength of the school.
There is a strong focus on multi-sensory learning and play and play is integral to the curriculum. This, combined with the emphasis on making learning fun and individual attention for each child, is an excellent recipe for helping children to become fully engaged with learning. The range of opportunities offered to pupils is impressive, and again, individually tailored to each child… Such enriching experiences provide a gateway to being ready to learn, to be able to settle to learn and to eventually become fully engaged with learning… This is a particular strength of the school.
Staff are skilled in monitoring excitement and anxiety, and they have a deep understanding of survival behaviours. They make appropriate interventions to provide co-regulation, using a ‘connection before correction’ approach, so physiological and emotional comfort is restored as part of the co-regulation process… There is a recognition that children need to ‘sit with’, to fully experience their emotions, rather than being distracted from them. It is only by being accompanied and supported while feeling an uncomfortable emotion that they can learn that while the emotion is painful, it is bearable and not dangerous. Managing anxiety and dysregulation is a particular strength of the school.
Read our official awarding letter.