Best Practice

The chronicles of a therapeutic classroom: The vision begins to form

Pastoral issues Teaching resources Curriculum Pedagogy Pupil wellbeing Covid recovery Learning environments
This year, childhood trauma expert Shahana Knight is working with a primary school to transform a year 3 classroom into the ultimate therapeutic classroom. This diary chronicles the project. This time, she sketches out her initial plans…


The project is underway! As I described in my September diary entry (Knight, 2021), we are giving our group of year 3 pupils time to settle into their school routines before we begin to transform their classroom space.

This will also help us get to know the children and identify those who may struggle with their emotional wellbeing. This work is now underway and we’re on track to redesign the classroom during the October half-term.

Today I went to visit the school – Shevington Vale Primary School in Wigan – to observe how the children use the classroom. I then stayed behind to meet with the class teachers – Gill Handley (who is also an assistant head) and Laura Hart – and headteacher Andy Houghton to gather their initial thoughts about how things could look.

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