Health and Wellbeing
Responding to Trauma: How and Why to Conduct a Sensory Audit of Your Setting
Find the sights, sounds, smells and routines in your setting that keep trauma-affected children on edge, and work out what you can change.
- 55 minutes
- Recorded webinar
- 1 CPD hour
- Certificate
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
Have a join code from your school?
Already have an account? Sign in
What you'll learn
- Audit your setting's physical, social and institutional environment for sensory triggers
- Explain how trauma can change the way a child's senses respond
- Use proprioceptive activities to help a child or class calm down
- Reduce light, noise and smell triggers with low-cost changes
- Offer children choices that help them speak up about what they need
About this course
One boy kept fighting when his class came in from lunch. It turned out he couldn't bear the smell of the room after dinner. Once he had some scented dough to hold and sniff, the fights stopped.
Children who've experienced trauma, and those with sensory processing differences, can be set off by lights, noise, smells and textures many times a day, often without knowing why. A sensory audit helps you find those triggers and do something about them. You'll look at the physical space, and also at how adults respond and at your setting's rules, from uniform to lunchtime. Along the way you'll try calming techniques you can use with a whole class, such as palm pressing and chair pushes, and learn why deep pressure works when light touch doesn't.
You'll come away with a sensory audit document, put together by an occupational therapist, to use in your own setting.
- For early career teachers, governors and 5 other roles. All phases.
Recording
- 56 min
Webinar Playback