Practical strategies for school staff supporting children who arrive guarded, withdrawn, or hard to reach. You will find out how to build trust quickly, read what behaviour is really telling you, and create connection that fits the day you already have, without adding to your workload. It also covers how to repair and reconnect when things go wrong, because how we come back matters more than the rupture.

September is hardest for the neurodivergent and anxious students, and the first few weeks set the tone for the whole year. This session helps every adult in a school spot struggle early and keep a wobbling child in the room without lowering the bar.

For college lecturers and support staff who want to do more than mean well, this session offers small, low cost changes to communication and the teaching space that hold up across very different college settings, with practical ways to spot the learner who looks fine and to help autistic learners settle as they move into college and on into new settings.

When a learner’s anxiety shows up as refusal, it’s easy to read it as defiance and push harder, which in a college rarely ends well. This session helps you tell demand avoidance apart from defiance and lower the pressure without lowering expectations.

Some of your autistic and ADHD learners are struggling quietly, and the ones who mask or have no diagnosis are the easiest to miss. This session helps you spot the quieter signs and make small changes that help from the very next lesson.

A child who doesn’t feel they belong can’t settle to learn, and when trust breaks the usual approaches often make it worse. This session covers how to build trust fast, repair relationships when they break, and where to put your effort with a particular child.