What is TIS (Trauma Informed Schools)?
Berrycoombe School is a Trauma Informed School - TIS - which means we have mechanisms in place to support children who suffer with trauma or mental health problems, or whose troubled behaviour acts as a barrier to learning.
In life, we all encounter emotional ups and downs, what we hope is that we are emotionally resilient to deal with these encounters if and when they happen. However, for some of our young people, for various different reasons, they have not built up age appropriate resilience and need additional support to manage their emotions and behaviours. Our TIS practitioners identify children across the school who may be struggling emotionally and put targeted support in place for them to address their specific needs.
One of the key principles is that children spend time with an adult they trust; building a relationship to aid the healing of mind, brain and body. The children love their TIS sessions and look forward to them each week. They take part in all sorts of fun activities, such as, arts and crafts, sensory play, games, puppet play and story-telling. Whilst being play based, the activities are specifically chosen to meet the developmental needs of the children.
A Whole School Approach
TIS works best when it is embedded throughout the whole school, something we certainly aim to do here at Berrycoombe. Our behaviour policy is underpinned with TIS principles and our Hub (where sessions take place) is located in the heart of our school.
In addition, class teachers regularly screen their classes to help them to identify activities that would benefit their whole class whilst also helping to identify any individuals who may need more targeted 1:1 support.