Sensory Processing

Sensory Processing is a term which describes the difficulties some of our children experience with processing information from the brain to the senses.

Children can be under or over sensitive to sensory input, or swing from one extreme to the other. At Holly Grove we provide a range of activities to support our children who experience sensory overload or who are under stimulated. These include focused sessions linked to music and physical development sessions, i.e. riding a bike, combat crawling, scooter boards, swings, trampette, circuit training etc. These activities help to regulate the brain and reduce the sensory overload to enable these children to access the curriculum again.

We now have a purpose built sensory processing room for all our pupils to access but in addition to this we are working closely with Julia Dyer an Occupational Therapist with a wealth of experience in sensory processing. She is helping us to ensure that all lessons at Holly Grove incorporate elements of sensory processing to support our children to access learning more effectively.

To better help our pupils understand how they are feeling and the purpose of the sensory processing room and sensory processing areas in class, we use the term 'recharge room' and 'recharge areas'. This enables the pupils to understand it is somewhere that they can go to recharge (like an Ipad) to refill their batteries and feel ready to learn again.