Effective SEN provision is rarely the result of a single intervention. Rather, it is the product of a multi-disciplinary team around the child. As AHS Headteacher Rory Vokes-Dudgeon explained in an earlier article, for neurodivergent students to thrive, we need to personalise their learning experience. An integrated approach to education, therapeutic support and pastoral care offers a framework to achieve this.
Integrated education bridges the gap between different professional disciplines which are involved in supporting young people with SEN, ensuring that educational, therapeutic, and pastoral inputs are aligned. In an integrated model, each discipline plays a distinct yet interdependent role, strengthening the impact of the others and collectively enabling outcomes that would be unlikely to be achieved through isolated interventions alone.
At AHS, we’ve seen firsthand how integration increases opportunities for flexibility, differentiation, and personalisation of provision, as resources and expertise are embedded and available universally.
Although all of our students follow the same overarching time table during their school day, which is aligned to the National Curriculum, integrated practice allows us to tailor this to individual preferences and profiles. This case study looks at a positive and enthusiastic year 7 student who loves singing, dancing, and hands-on activities. This student has autism, ADHD and moderate learning difficulties, and English as an additional language (EAL). His timetable is very similar to that of a previous case study at the Prep School: a year 5 student with autism, ADHD, social communication difficulties and anxiety. However, the way support is tailored to meet each of student’s needs is very different.
Here is an example of a typical day for this year 7 student:
Supporting hypermobility
When this student first arrived at Abingdon House School four years ago, he required 1:1 support from a learning support assistant to engage in the classroom. He found it challenging to focus on a task for more than ten minutes and experienced significant physical and mental fatigue.
The student would often sit slouched, legs apart, leaning heavily on the table. He struggled to sit at his desk and frequently sought out a beanbag instead. Rather than seeing this as a behavioural issue or barrier to learning, we identified the student’s hypermobility as the root of his postural challenges.
Our multi-disciplinary team discussed how to support the student’s engagement without requiring him to sit at a traditional desk. Occupational therapists advised on a range of seating options to try in addition to the beanbag, leading to the introduction of a wobble stool and ball support chair. These tools help the student engage his core, stay alert, and remain focused for longer periods. The beanbag remains available for regulated breaks, but he no longer relies on it to complete a lesson.
After a full assessment, our in-house physiotherapist recommended a series of daily exercises designed to build core strength and gross motor skills. The teaching team embedded these exercises into his daily routine, removing the need for extra therapy sessions outside of his existing timetable. He now performs gentle core-strengthening activities during morning registration, takes movement breaks targeting gross motor development, and follows a simple sensory circuit after lunch. These exercises take only a few minutes but have made a remarkable difference in his stamina, balance, and ability to sit comfortably.
Social communication and safe interactions
This student is very tactile – he often wants to link arms with others or reach out and touch others as a way of connecting. This comes from a warm and friendly place, but as with all our students, we want to teach him about personal boundaries in a clear, kind, and consistent way. This is vital to ensure the safety of our students when interacting with others, especially outside of school.
This focus on positive, safe interactions is integrated throughout the school day. In communication and PSHE sessions, social boundaries are taught explicitly and supported by therapeutic methods like Social Stories. These help outline expectations for different scenarios while supporting executive functioning—an area of particular importance for students with ADHD. More broadly, our pastoral team worked closely with teachers and support staff to develop a simple, positive framework for ‘safe touching’ for this student and his peers, which is applied universally.
Following this framework, the student now communicates friendliness and builds connection through handshakes, fist bumps, and high fives. The need for safe touching is reinforced calmly across the school day, whether in the classroom, at the park, or during transitions. Over time, this student has become much more confident in understanding social cues and relationship-building. He has also developed more meaningful, healthy friendships, as there is now a mutual understanding of the interactions both he and his classmates feel comfortable with.
Multi-sensory learning and cognitive development
This student loves music and will sing and dance whenever he can. Therapists and teachers have worked together to incorporate songs and rhymes into classroom activities wherever possible, including lessons in literacy, phonics and maths lessons.
The benefits of this are twofold. First, singing and dancing are great tools for emotional regulation, providing rhythmic, sensory-based input to ground the nervous system and ‘reset’ before beginning a new learning activity. Second, they are also great for engagement and retention. While this student previously struggled to engage in classroom tasks, the incorporation of musical elements has helped him become more confident engaging in group work with his peers. He is now able to sustain focus for an extended period of time and is much more confident communicating ideas and public speaking. The introduction of songs and rhymes has also helped him improve his memory, particularly with new vocabulary – an essential skill for all students, but particularly EAL learners.
This student will transition to our Senior School this September. We know that moving schools is a significant milestone, and for a student with additional needs, preparation is everything. Because our therapists, teachers, and pastoral team work as one, we have a shared understanding of what he needs to succeed. Since the start of the academic year, we have been liaising with the Senior School’s SENCo to share successful strategies and plan a bespoke transition timetable involving extra visits and regular contact with familiar adults.
This student’s progress is not by chance. It is the direct result of an integrated approach where physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, pastoral care, and classroom teaching form one cohesive plan.
Today, the student no longer requires 1:1 support in the classroom. He participates in group work, understands how to interact safely with his peers, and is excited about his future. He has grown into a young person who experiences regular success and feels a true sense of belonging. We are confident that in the years to come, he will continue to build his independence and thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.
Christopher Lloyd is the Head of Prep at Abingdon House School and has been part of the AHS family for over a decade. He believes in a holistic education that prioritises the team around the child, integrating pastoral care, therapeutic input and academic support to meet the individual needs of every student.
