Harberton Special School, Belfast, was established in 1959. The school currently caters for Nursery to end of KS4. There are 312 pupils based over two sites: Harberton South, and the satellite provision Harberton North. Harberton South is based in Harberton Park and Harberton North is based In Fortwilliam Park.

There are 68 teaching staff, including a Principal and two Vice Principals. Harberton employs 126 classroom assistants, who provide essential support to the teachers and the pupils of the school. The staff are highly skilled and trained in working with pupils with severe and complex needs.

There are two Outreach Departments that work across the Belfast area. The Harberton Outreach Learning Service supports pupils experiencing difficulties with reading and early literacy development in mainstream primary schools. The staff are all experienced in supporting pupils with reading difficulties and use a range of teaching and learning methods to develop these important skills. Intervention plans are written to support the pupils and one-to-one and small-group teaching sessions address the learning targets.

The Outreach Behaviour Team works to support pupils with Social, Behavioural Emotional and Wellbeing (SBEW) needs. The team provides training and support for class teachers and classroom assistants and writes intervention plans for the pupils, sharing good practice with strategies and resources to help pupils and the staff. There are several behaviour classroom assistants, who support pupils with SBEW and provide a model for managing challenging behaviour within a mainstream setting.

Provision and Connections with Outside Agencies

There is school-based provision for speech therapy and occupational therapy on both sites and counselling services are available for pupils. Harberton is linked with the Education Authority (EA) Sensory Service, and they support pupils who are Deaf and/or Visually Impaired. The service makes regular visits, and staff receive training as required to continue the support.

Any pupil with physiotherapy on their statement can be treated at Harberton School. Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) are heavily involved with the school and provide training and support for teachers in toileting, diabetes, peg feeding, anaphylaxis, asthma and CPR.

At Harberton Special School we believe in the concept of lifelong learning and the concept that learning should be a rewarding and enjoyable experience for everyone. School ethos is a crucial factor in prompting pupils’ learning and development in all areas and Harberton promotes a learning culture which recognises everyone’s potential, builds self-esteem, and rewards success at every level.

A key factor in promoting pupil self-regulation is staff wellbeing and this is central to the ethos of the school. Harberton adopts a trauma-sensitive approach towards emotional health and wellbeing for both pupils and staff. To understand and respond to pupils’ emotional needs, staff need to be able to look after their own health and wellbeing. The school supports this by providing links with counselling and support services, promoting staff activities to encourage good health and wellbeing, and providing a free gym facility on the Harberton South site. There is also at least one staff wellbeing day a year.

Our highly-skilled, knowledgeable and hard-working staff are committed to enabling every child to achieve his/her full potential. We place equal emphasis on education and care, and the staff seek to develop pupil self-worth and build pupil self-esteem through nurturing secure relationships in highly-structured and stimulating classroom environments. Many of our pupils are the most vulnerable in society, with complex needs, including communication difficulties, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and SBEW issues, and it is vital that pupils feel safe, secure, and comfortable in their learning environment. We use a trauma-informed approach, building an ethos within each classroom that ensures pupils learn ‘Social and Emotional Learning’ (SEL) skills and how best to self-regulate. They are given the opportunity, support, and encouragement to succeed and to have access to programmes of learning which match their stages of development.

Developing ‘Social and Emotional Learning’ (SEL) skills in pupils helps them develop relationships, interpersonal skills, resilience, responsible decision making, social awareness and self-management. These core competencies are skills for life.

Whole School Audit

In 2021, as part of a whole school audit, staff identified the need to evaluate how we support pupils with emotional awareness and emotional regulation. There has been a significant increase in the number of pupils with challenging behaviours and emotional needs and this was becoming more difficult to manage in the classroom. Developing SEL and focusing on helping pupils to become more regulated became a key area for development. This exemplification describes the process involved in taking this forward and successful strategies introduced by the school, including training and resourcing.

Whole Staff Training

As learner profiles had changed, and pupils’ needs had become more severe and complex, training for all staff was crucial – to empower staff and give them the necessary skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the pupils, and to help them self-regulate.

A programme of training for all staff included:

• The Middletown Centre whole school support programme.
• Staff Training, including:
  • Attention Autism
  • Autism: learning style and visual methodologies
  • Sensory Processing
  • Make and Take.
• Two staff members completed the 5-day TEACCH training programme.
• Specific staff training from AHPs on meeting the sensory and communication needs of pupils in the classroom environment, including Make and Take sessions.
• TACPAC and Sensology training, including resources for all staff.
• Developing Engagement and Interaction in Early Learners.
• Aided Language Stimulation (ALS) and Alternative, Augmentative Communication (AAC).
• Team Teach refresher training, with a focus on co-regulation and de-escalation.
• Refresher sessions from AHPs on meeting sensory and communication needs.

To embed and further develop good practice within school, a Core Team and Core Groups were set up for: Wellbeing; Sensory; Environment; Communication; and Attention Autism. Staff, in groups, were empowered and skilled to model and share good practice across the whole school.

The training developed and embedded skills and knowledge for staff, and improved the learning environment, resources and structures/routines for pupils with severe and complex needs including ASD.

Co-Regulation and Self-Regulation

For all learners in Harberton Special School, co-regulation and self-regulation are integral and essential parts of Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Many aspects of the whole school training programme created a greater awareness of the sensory needs of the pupils and taught the staff about co-regulation as a strategy to reduce pupil stress and anxiety levels. Co-regulation is a foundational starting point or building block towards pupil self-regulation. As all pupils are at different stages in their emotional development, the training ensured that staff were better equipped to respond to pupils’ emotional needs, by using co-regulation as an initial step towards pupil self-regulation.

Through co-regulation, our staff help pupils to recognise their emotions by commenting on their emotional responses with empathy and by modelling/providing coping strategies, for example staff may comment: ‘I can see your body is clenched tight and your eyebrows are scrunched, I am wondering if you are feeling angry? When I feel angry, I blow some bubbles, or I go for a walk, or I use a fidget toy.’ Providing predictable routines, structure and coping strategies help pupils develop a sense of security and they know what to expect. This practice is an everyday occurrence in all classrooms.

When a pupil is in an extremely heightened state, we have agreed steps that staff members can take to co-regulate with the pupil. It is essential that:

• The adult is in a calm state and not emotionally heightened.
• The individual pupil needs are considered, as well as the environment that the pupil requires: there are breakout spaces and sensory areas available for pupils who are emotionally dysregulated. Using a visual cue or an object, the staff member can prompt the pupil to go to one of these areas. There are also in-class pop-up blackout tents that are more appropriate to use if the pupil prefers to stay in the classroom environment.
• Through co-regulation, staff lead by example. They do this by:
  • providing a warm and responsive relationship for each pupil; and
  • modelling how to deal with different situations and emotions, for example how to stay calm in challenging situations.

By calmly modelling how to respond in various types of situations, pupils learn how to respond and self-regulate in similar situations.

Key strategies (including Attention Autism) were introduced and embedded as approaches for developing co-regulation and self-regulation and were integral to the School Development Plan.

In 2021 the Harberton Social, Behavioural Emotional and Wellbeing (SBEW) Outreach Team led the training in these strategies for the whole school. The team continue to provide advice and support to teachers, including providing interventions for individual pupils, and support and links with parents and carers.

Please note: other software packages and resources such as ‘Writing With Symbols’ and ‘Makaton’ are available to help pupils to communicate. To access a range of editable templates to create visual supports and learning materials, see Design Symbol Materials to Print.

As a result of the implementation of Attention Autism and other regulation strategies, the Harberton staff have observed that pupils have more emotional awareness and are able to self-regulate more effectively. Staff have indicated the success of the strategies in developing co-regulation and pupil self-regulation. Staff report that pupils really enjoy and engage with Attention Autism, can take on the language associated with and modelled in various situations, and as a result, become more aware of their emotions and most importantly, can regulate better. One class teacher noted that the pupils have all made progress in developing awareness of their emotions, and that many pupils can verbalise or use the Communication boards to say ‘why’ they are feeling a particular way.

Our regulation strategies, which include Attention Autism, are successfully embedded as part of the ethos of all classrooms in Harberton and are integral to all aspects of daily lessons and routines. Their success in supporting pupils to achieve self-regulation is the rationale for continuing these strategies into the future. The SBEW Outreach Team will continue to lead refresher training for regulation strategies: all training will be revisited this academic year to ensure that practices become further embedded and links with parents further developed over this year, and beyond.