Marc Bowen, Deputy Headteacher and Year 5 Class Teacher at NACE member school Raglan CiW VC Primary School, shares how he has developed his classroom environment to remove potential barriers to learning for neurodivergent learners.

It has long been my experience that a proportion of the more able learners that I have had the pleasure of teaching, have also experienced the additional challenge of neurodivergent needs, whether they be diagnosed or not.

With this in mind, over the past few years I have been proactively exploring means of making my primary classroom more neurodivergent-friendly for the benefit of all learners, including those more able children that might find concentration, focus or communicating their understanding to be a challenge. 

Here are a few ways in which I have tried to ensure that our learning environment enables effective learning conditions for all the children in my class, as well as benefitting those who are particularly able.

Flexible seating

Over a number of years, I have been able to increasingly vary the workspaces available in our classroom. These include:

1. The Cwtch (a well know Welsh term for a ‘hug’), which comprises a low-slung canopy under which children can sit on an array of cushions, as well as choosing their favoured colour of diffused lighting through the use of wall-mounted push-lights. This not only helps to create a more enclosed space for those who need it, but it also helps to suppress ambient noise and echoes, for those that might have sensory needs. Some of my more able learners who are challenged by distraction routinely use this space to help channel their focus.

2. The Standing Station, which does what is says on the tin! We have a high-level table which the children can easily and comfortably stand at to work. This has proven to be one of the most popular spaces and I have noted that some of my more able learners will make use of this space during the early stages of an independent task, when they might need to order or distil their thinking. The ability to move from foot to foot and move more freely appears to aid this level of thinking.

3. The Carpet Surfer Seats are ‘s’ shaped plastic seats, designed to be used when working on a carpet space. They compromise a seat, which when sat upon offers a raised work surface in front of the child. These really helped to increase the flexible seating options in the class, as the children can now easily make comfortable use of any carpet/floor space rather than struggling to find a comfortable working position. I have noted that my more able learners appreciate these when they want to work in collaboration with others but, due to their neurodivergent needs, might find the free-flow of collaborative working a challenge. The Carpet Surfer Seat gives them a defined workspace of their own, allows them to move to any more comfortable position when working collaboratively, and also provides needed stability for those more able learners I have taught who are challenged by coordination-based neurodivergence. 

4. Beanbag Corner offers a solo working space on a structural (high-backed) beanbag which is close to my teacher’s base within the class. I find that this is regularly used by those more able learners who do find concentration and focus a challenge, whilst also requiring the reassuring proximity of an adult for a sense of comfort and/or to allow for informal check-ins with the teacher to tackle low-level anxiety issues.

Lighting

As with most school settings, the standard lighting fitted throughout the school is overhead, downward channel cold-white LED lighting arrays. I have noticed personally that when this is combined with the stark white table surfaces, the effect can be quite dazzling when working at these tables. The children themselves had commented on how ‘bright’ the room was, with one more able learner commenting that he ‘felt better’ during a dressing-up day when he was wearing sunglasses. This got me thinking of ways to mitigate this and, as a result, I have explored a number of different light options:

1. Dimming the overhead lights: I discovered, by accident, that if the classroom light switches are held in they act as dimmer controls for the overhead lighting. (Might be worth a try in your classroom!) It has now become standard practice for me to dim all the lighting by about 50% at the start of each day, which immediately creates a less harsh lighting environment.

2. Colour-changing rechargeable lights have also been a huge benefit. I have placed a number of these within and around my flexible working spaces, in the form of wall-mounted and table-top tap/push lights which the children can use to choose their favoured lighting conditions when working in a space. I have noticed that my more able learners typically opt for softer tones of yellow, orange or purple light.

3. Uplighters, purchased with the benefit of some funding from a local business, have had a huge impact. They allow us to create brighter working areas for those who respond well to those conditions, whilst providing diffused light, rather than overhead lights that create shadows over workspaces. In addition, these have helped to define our flexible spaces, such as the uplighter which includes a secondary directional light that sits above the Beanbag Corner.

4. Natural light is essential! We are a newbuild school but the natural lighting options are limited. As such, I make sure that all our blinds and curtains are pulled back to the extreme to ensure that as much natural light as possible can flood into the room.

Fidgets

I’m sure that some teachers will find the use of hand-held fidget objects a nightmarish challenge in a busy classroom, and if used improperly I would agree. However, the structured use of fidgets in our classroom has brought some major benefits for my more able learners who might struggle to maintain focus or settle for an extended period. We manage these by having a jar of different objects which are freely available to all children (rather than being targeted at a limited number of specific learners) and we have an open, frank conversation about how to use these at the start of the term.

Our conditions for their use are:

1. If you choose to use a fidget, your focus must remain on the learning activity or discussion.
2. If a fidget becomes a distraction, it is replaced in the jar immediately.

In addition, I have also experimented with different types of fidget, eliminating anything that is overly complex, noisy or too similar to a toy. Currently, the most successful types (which I now do not ‘notice’ as a distraction at any point) are rubber hand stretchers (loops that go over each digit and provide stretchy resistance), plastic wing-nuts and screw threads, and silent button/wheel fidgets (they resemble a palm-sized game controller, offering a pleasing sensation in the hand too).

Additional reading

There are some excellent online sources of information, including education-focused social media posts, where teachers share their own flexible seating/classroom environment approaches. In addition, some interesting reading that I have accessed has been:

• Fedewa, A. L., Davis, M. A., & Ahn, S. (2015). The Effects of Physical Activity and Physical Classroom Environment on Children’s On-Task Behavior: A Meta-Analysis. Educational Psychology Review.
• Kroeger, S., & Schultz, T. (2020). Sensory Spaces: Creating Inclusive Classrooms for Students with Sensory Needs. Inclusive Education Journal.
• Rands, M. L., & Gansemer-Topf, A. (2017). The Role of Classroom Environment in Student Engagement. Journal of Education Research.

How is your school helping to break down barriers to learning?

This year NACE’s research programme is exploring the ways in which schools can help to remove potential barriers to success for more able learners. Find out more and get involved.