Designated teacher resources for children in care

Learning

• Key adult to act as a 'secure base'/attachment figure; have a 'reserve list' - involve the child in identifying which adult/s
• Home/school liaison book
• Clear, realistic expectations with regard to homework
• Specific literacy/numeracy support intervention eg 'catch up', Wave 3 maths materials
• Opportunities for success, so: differentiation, clear incremental targets, and playing to the child's strengths

Behaviour

• Clear, consistent boundaries
• Positive behaviour approach but beware overwhelming a child who may have experienced being overwhelmed in the past
• Remain calm even if a child's behaviour is raising your anxiety
• Pre-empt difficult times eg anniversaries, contact visits, court hearings and be extra vigilant
• Providing 'time in' ie a place to cool off within the classroom to minimise a sense of rejection
• Time out card - allows the child to signal when they feel they are finding being in the room too difficult and a secure space provided where child can go to with their key adult
• Explicit teaching about personal space and appropriate touching eg saying hello rather than cuddling, high fives rather than hugging
• Risk assessment where necessary to ensure that adequate, focused support is available for the child and others in school; a risk assessment can also help staff to clarify the genuine size and nature of the problem rather than a general feeling of concern/panic/helplessness developing or even escalating

Transition

• Being met by key adult in the morning and some handover between them and carer at the end of the school day
• Transition object brought to school by the child - this could be a toy or a reminder of their carer eg note, photo, piece of jewellery, perfume on a tissue etc
• Transition box - where the transition can be kept in the classroom visible to the child but placed at the beginning of the day and returned at the end; some children like to carry their object all day though
• Lots of preparatory visits to new class/new school, if there is a long break eg Summer holiday in between moves, photos to remind the child, driving past the school, opportunities to walk the route several times, countdown calendar, handover between key adults and contact with previous key adult once in the new setting for a fixed number of times with gradual 'fading out' built in

Social development

• For younger children, adult facilitated play with peers
• Opportunities to practise friendship skills through role play with an adult
• Adult led turn-taking activities eg board games
• Peer support
• Encourage involvement in extra-curricular activities

Emotional development

• Making the child aware that they are held in mind
• Emotional holding
• Take the pressure off - for example, if they keep failing to pass on information from school, agree to liaise direct with carer for a period of time
• Aim to reduce anxiety - keep to routines/structure where possible, give warning of expected disruptions to routines and where these are unexpected, discuss with the child at the time and monitor their behaviour/reactions
• Use of visual timetables may help the child to feel less confused
• Social stories can be used
• Try to remain or at least appear calm
• Keep communication unambiguous
• Making some initial assessment about their emotional developmental stage - are they im/mature in all areas or some?
• Remember that 'daydreaming' and an inability to concentrate may be symptoms of dissociation (tuning out to block out emotional pain) rather than belligerence
• Worry box - for the child to write down all the day's concerns to share with carer - it can be helpful if this also includes some recording of how things were resolved
• Calm box - which contains some short activities of the child's choosing to help during time out
• Opportunities to furnish the child with a feelings vocabulary - this can occur through specific individual or small group activities but also by providing a commentary that includes describing how you think they might be feeling
• Be aware of how the child makes you feel emotionally and how this may in turn affect the child

Some of these ideas are taken/adapted from 'Inside I'm Hurting' by Louise Bomber and 'Attachment in the Classroom' by Heather Geddes both of which contain fuller accounts/more ideas.