ADHD 360 is proud to be one of the joint agencies leading this project, to raise awareness and standards of care for neurodiverse pupils.

School is a vital environment for our children. It not only provides essential academic learning but it also facilitates the building of foundations of emotions, well-being and general mental health.

Our experience of working in the fields of ADHD and Autism, the main elements of neurodiversity, has provided us with a unique perspective on the role teachers, teaching assistants, Governors and school’s leadership teams can play in the holistic development of a neurodiverse learner.

Phil Anderton
Managing Director, ADHD 360

We need to welcome a new era of embracing ‘difference’, and seek to understand neurodiversity from an enlightened position, where more effective joint working across agencies, can facilitate every child achieving their potential. Within a framework, it is vital that those professionals wrapped around a child’s development are encouraged to exchange knowledge and competence within their discipline and recognise their own professional boundaries when doing so.

If we want things to change, we have to change something, and this framework changes perspectives, and working with the enlightened team at Banovallum School in Lincolnshire has already proven to be groundbreaking. As the Managing Director of the UK’s largest specialist ADHD service, I commend this document to you and encourage you to join our journey to ensure that we demonstrate that every child really does matter through outcomes not merely based on the 3 Rs.

I am mindful that children with neurodiversity are not children with learning difficulties, but children who have difficulty learning. There is a fundamental difference and it is for the provider of education to facilitate an environment where those difficulties are reduced.

Grant Edgar
Headteacher, Banovallum School

I am delighted for Banovallum School to be able to be working closely with ADHD 360 to provide support for schools in dealing with students who have ADHD. The work carried out by Phil and his team in conjunction with our SEND team and Ben Johnson will be vital in ensuring Banovallum is a school where students with ADHD can succeed and make the next step in their education or employment journey.

This toolkit provides easy-to-follow techniques which, in many cases, make for excellent teaching practice and some, such as, matching the colour of subjects on your timetable with the colour of the subject’s exercise books are simple common-sense measures which beg the question, “Why haven’t we been doing that before?” We hope that by following these simple “quick wins,” schools and colleges will enable their students to be academically successful, but also to enjoy their learning and leave school as well-rounded individuals, ready to make a meaningful contribution to society.

Banovallum looks forward to a long and fruitful relationship with ADHD 360 and we hope this document will help schools to develop a range of techniques and techniques for working with students with ADHD.

Pupil behaviour and engagement in the classroom is crucial to ultimate attainment and achievement – the more positive the behaviour and engagement, the more positive the outcomes for each pupil. The impact of lower levels of engagement, inability to access parts of the curriculum and disruptive behaviour is shown to have a disproportionate impact on the learning of pupils with diagnoses of ADHD, ASD and a range of other learning impairments.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most researched mental health issue, yet remains one of the most misunderstood. Evidence suggests that within the school and classroom setting, the provision of a few changes in thinking, a subtle change of approach and some accommodations that are child focused can together add up to ‘game changing’ improvements to the wellbeing, achievements and overall outcomes for the child. Typical issues stretch far beyond the classic definitions of ADHD, those being hyperactivity, inattention, and impulsivity, and we witness in our children anxiety, withdrawal, under achievement, a lack of confidence and smaller (if any) friendship groups. The impact of these negative outcomes are far reaching, and working together we can reverse this trend and build for more positive results amongst our student population.

In the aftermath of Covid-19, the necessity for positive engagement and behaviour in schools has never been greater. This proposal intends to outline a series of steps that could be taken in classrooms and interventions to be put in place to aid firstly in engagement and behaviour within the school environment, and secondly with attainment and achieving positive outcomes for pupils. The suggestions contained within this proposal are based on scientific research, observational experience, a wealth of industry experience, high level expert input and methodology proven to be effective.

Ben Johnson
English Teacher, Banovallum School