How Can We Create Calming Spaces in Schools? Part 2 | Kat Booker

In Part 2 of ‘How To Create Calming Spaces in Schools’, Kat Booker from Meet The Need Ltd shares some practical tips for setting up a calming space, and discusses the importance of looking at it ‘through the eyes of a child’.

 

Kat is an SEN consultant and Senior Team Teach trainer based in Sussex. She is a psychology graduate with experience in both residential care and SEMH specialist settings, where she has worked as a teaching assistant.

 

More recently, Kat was SENDCO, and Nurture and Outreach lead in a mainstream primary school, before launching her own consultancy business. She is an IQM Assessor, former Regional Co-ordinator for Nurture UK, and was involved in the development of the current SEND Code of Practice. She is also a mum of one, and an avid Redbull F1 fan.

 

You can find Kat at Meet The Need Ltd, and on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn and Facebook.

 

Kat recommends the book, Creating Tomorrow’s Schools Today, by Richard Gerver.

 

She also shares three tips during the episode:

 

1. Look at the space through a sensory lens, and consider ‘softening’ colours, lighting, and acoustics.
2. Involve children and young people in the design of the space, and try to see it through their eyes.
3. It doesn’t require lots of resources to set up an effective calm space; it could be a case of simply tweaking the existing environment.

 

The Team Teach podcast shares the latest thinking in behaviour, all in handy 15-minute (ish) bite-sized chunks. Each episode features a new guest chatting about a different aspect of behaviour and leaves you with three handy tips to use in your setting.