For children starting Primary School, it is a unique and exciting experience for the little ones to be going into an unfamiliar environment where they are about to start their journey through education and gain the essential skills they will need in the short term and the future. For young children with a diagnosis of special needs such as Autism, starting school can be a nervous and sometimes uncomfortable thought. This is where the challenges expand to the wider education sector as children with Autism will be starting at either a mainstream school or a Special School. Staff will have to quickly adapt to meeting the needs of the child and develop a suitable experience that will benefit the child and the staff equally. It may sound difficult, but staff can deal with these challenges through several key and crucial ways.
Build key relationships
One of the most important aspects of supporting primary school children with Autism is developing key relationships between the school, staff, the child, and the parents or carers of the child. The parents/carers will have a very key insight into the requirements of the child, what needs they are, what difficulties they might have and the support that can be put into place to develop the child over time. It is crucial that a team of support workers, staff and parents build healthy working relationships with each other to support the child’s development as it gets older. Without the good working partnership, the child could be left behind and it will make the staff and school worse off as a result.
Provide familiarity
Another consideration that will need to be taken into factor when supporting a child in primary school with Autism is, they should be provided with a familiar daily work and learning schedule. It is important to understand that children with Autism will sometimes struggle with changes and do not always react to having to do things differently that well. It, therefore, should be a priority, that the child can work in a way that is understood to be the best for them and to make sure that they can continue that routine for as long as required. There will always times where change may be necessarily required and need to be done quickly and as result, there should be collaboration between the staff, parents, and the child to makes needed changes with their consents in a way that works best for everyone and can affect the child in a more positive way.
Create a good working place
A way to get the best support with a primary school child with a diagnosis of Autism is making sure that they are working in a suitable place and classroom with others that could have more identical and personal interests and integration with the other children. They key aspect to an Autistic child developing and making sure their needs are met in a primary school is making sure they can build a rapport with other children in the classroom and having the correct type of staff to build a support package that is targeted well at the child and to meet the needs of them. A negative working environment will leave the child falling behind their peers, can lead to poor behaviour and cause tension between the staff, parents and the child which could be unsustainable and leading to exclusions of the child, causing more headache and problems for the school and child itself.
Adapting practices when needed
The final key practice to being able to successfully support children in primary school with Autism is being able to adapt to the style of work and support that is given. It is understandable at first if staff are not always finding the perfect way to work with a child with Autism and meet their needs all in one go, it is a learning process for the child and all the staff to find the best way forward for everyone involved, practices will change as adaptions are made. The key to making sure you are giving the child the best support possible is that you keep up with any noticeable changes and identify what could work better and how that can be put into action. By adapting to changes and improving the practices use to support a child, you can benefit from improved performance and increasing expectations with the staff, school, parents/carers, and the child.
If you have pupils in your primary school who require extra support, please get in touch with us today to see how we can help - 0333 577 3772