Greenfields Academy in Grantham has been awarded the prestigious ADHD Friendly School Award by the ADHD Foundation for their work with children with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental conditions. The staff at Greenfields Academy have gone above and beyond to ensure that their learning environment is inclusive to all children, whatever their needs.
The school has considered all of the main barriers to learning for children with ADHD and has sought to address them in their everyday practice. Their curriculum has a bespoke element of outdoor education, and each class has outdoor education once or twice a week. It also has alternative provision in place for those pupils who really struggle with a classroom environment. The school has a rota each day for lunch times that offer two different spaces for physical activity opportunities, selected out of a series of options. This offers the pupils structure, but it also allows the activities to be pupil-led.
Supporting the well-being and mental health of learners was a key feature of the submission for the award with a whole-school approach this. On top of quality first teaching, Greenfields Academy staff are trained in strategies that assist with regulation for the pupils, such as moments of reflection, helpful visuals, and comforting spaces that allow pupils to relax and calm down.
They have three specific rooms pupils can use to co-regulate with staff. As part of this co-regulation, staff often use de-escalation strategies such as CALM talk and use multi-sensory tools to support the regulation of pupils’ parasympathetic nervous system, such as massage rollers, weighted blankets, and positive touch. They have structured interventions, targeted and in response to each pupil’s needs, which also prevent the dysregulation of others.
In addition, children who need to move and learn have had this need met by being provided with a
variety of tactile resources in the classroom. These tools enable the children to feel more stimulated, supporting their concentration and focus. Each class has its own personalized box of resources tailored to the pupils in the class, including fidgets and tools to support deep pressure touch like massage resources, head massagers, and handheld ball massagers. Alongside this, the school offers weighted blankets, chair therapy bands, wobble stools, and is looking into standing desks. The reading area in every classroom offers a space for pupils to take some time when feeling overwhelmed, offering a sofa in each classroom to allow pupils to feel more relaxed and have a brain break when needed.
The school has also done an incredible job of celebrating neurodiversity through their displays and assemblies, which showcase and promote the positives of ADHD and other conditions.
Acknowledging and recognizing positive traits of ADHD has been showcased through one display
centered around famous faces and the positive traits they have thanks to ADHD. The school really embraces the range of needs across their pupil population and seeks to promote the positives of the variety of conditions.
Parents and carers of children with ADHD and other neurodivergent conditions have also been supported well across the school, particularly through the use of newsletters; this covers a range of topics including helpful strategies, the positives of ADHD, and signposting parents to pre-existing forums (CHADD) that allow them to interact with other parents in the same situation;
their social media is used similarly, as well as helpful signposting. The Academy is also now offering “parent consultations,” an alternative to parents’ evening which is accessible to offer support and guidance to those who have diagnosed ADHD or those showing/ demonstrating traits.
Andy Rush, Headteacher of Greenfields Academy said “The whole Greenfields community are really
proud to have achieved ‘ADHD friendly status’, this assures the quality of our neurodiverse
supportive provision and gives confidence to parents and pupils that these complex needs are well met by the expertise, resources and training of staff at Greenfields Academy”.
Arron Hutchinson, the Education Training Director of the ADHD Foundation said, “It has been a pleasure to work with Greenfields Academy. The school is clearly an environment that places well- being and inclusivity at the heart of their ethos and culture, which is represented in all of the fantastic work they are doing.”
The ADHD Foundation, based in Liverpool, works in partnership with individuals, families, doctors,
teachers, and other agencies to improve emotional well-being, educational attainment, behavior, and life chances through better understanding and self-management of ADHD, ASD, and related learning difficulties.
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