For most of the classes, you teach you will not need a whole range of different things, a presentation, some well-planned resources and a good set of questions ready to go, however, some of the more challenging classes might require you to have a different approach.

When you teach students that have one-page profiles (or individual education profile, SEN profile, whatever name your school gives to it) you will notice that it has recommendations to help this student in your classroom. These are so important, you should make sure you read these, someone has gone to a lot of effort to put these together. The information on this should be the basis of the “box of tricks” you should prepare, let’s explore that idea now.

Instant reinforcement is a system used in by the ABA method of teaching autistic children, however, it is a practice I have seen used to great impact in other situations. Having a strong personalised reinforcer for each student, have an agreement of work for an agreed amount of time break for a small period of time. slowly up the working time and leave the break time the same. Use the “box of tricks” and allow the student to pick the reward this allows them to be involved in the process.

Over a series of lessons, you increase the work time and decrease the break time. You should never remove the break completely, if this is done consistently you will see over a period of time that the student responds to this practice. I have seen this used to improve classroom expectations and improve the effort that certain students put into work.

Making your classroom as inclusive as possible

Creating a sensory space

Adding sandwiches to your lesson