🧠Trauma & Education🏫

How can educators support those children and young people who have experienced trauma?

Unfortunately, an increasing amount of children and young people (CYP) have experienced trauma. For these CYP, the school environment can be really challenging. Luckily, there is one really easy thing educators can do to support them!

I read a lot and listen to a lot of podcasts on the way to and from work. Recently, there’s been a topic that keeps cropping up in my reading around trauma and I thought I’d write a post about it.

🏫 Authentic Relationships in Education 🤝

For CYP who have experienced trauma, “building relationships of trust and safety that support the development of social and emotional foundations for cognitive learning can not be underestimated”

This is a direct quote from a journal article I’ve recently read. The whole journal focuses on how relationships are the key to unlocking academic potential for CYP with Social, Emotional & Mental Health (SEMH) needs and those who have experienced trauma.

From my own experience as a teacher in an SEMH school, I can say this is absolutely true. I learnt the hard way. From September to October, my class team and I attempted to pull out academic learning from the students. After 3 lots of smashed windows, several calls for support from the CareTeam and lots of phone calls home. We decided something had to change.

We stopped the usual classroom routine and started each day with a cup of tea or juice, some toast or bagels and a card game. Over breakfast, we would chat with the pupils about what they have been up to and what they were interested in. I must admit, from October to December, there was a minimal amount of academic learning that took place.

After the Christmas holidays, it was like an entirely new class. The students would come into the classroom, choose the order of the lessons and complete them without any fuss. Here’s an example of the impact it made; There was one young person who struggled to write and I had been told “You’ll never get any engagement with him in English.” This same young person produced a 13-page story (scribed by one of my amazing Teaching Assistants) and refused to go out to break or lunchtime until it was finished.

The class went from strength to strength and by the end of the academic year, we were being asked how we managed to turn it around. It’s only now that I can understand how impactful those couple of months of building authentic relationships with the students really was.

Obviously, this cannot be recreated in mainstream settings as the pressure from the Senior Leadership Team is immense and the curriculum is so condensed, to miss two months of teaching would be catastrophic. However, there are some easy shortcuts educators, parents or anyone who works with these CYP can implement into their routine.

Relational teaching tips

🍪 Food 🥤Having some biscuits and juice on offer at all times in your classroom is such an easy win! This also links back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need

🧏 Active Listening 🧏‍♂️CYP know when you’re faking an interest. Take a genuine interest in their hobbies and likes/dislikes.

🎮 Fun 🃏Learning should be fun! Where possible, try to make the lessons engaging an interactive. Alternatively, put some time aside to play some easy card games.

🏫 Environment 🎒The environment where you see CYP should be welcoming. If this is a classroom, spend a couple of lessons designing and creating your environment as a class. For example, getting the students to choose their favourite Pokemon or appropriate emojis to go on the new display board.

Take the time to care and you’ll see a huge difference.