ADHD Awareness Month: Effective strategies to support children with ADHD in the classroom

As part of the SEND Network's ADHD Awareness month content, I have created a series on identifying and supporting young children with ADHD in the classroom. This third part focuses on effective strategies to support children with ADHD in the classroom.
ADHD Awareness Month: Effective strategies to support children with ADHD in the classroom
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It is important to know that children, particularly young children, will find it difficult to understand and manage their ADHD. This can be a very frustrating experience for a child. As a practitioner, you have a role and responsibility to support each child and implement strategies that can help to reduce the impact ADHD has on their learning and development. Effective strategies can include:

Knowledge and understanding: the most effective tool/strategy to support a child with ADHD within a classroom is YOU! Increasing your knowledge, understanding and awareness of how ADHD can present in young children can go a long way. It is also good practice to share this knowledge, understanding and ideas with other practitioners.

Knowing the child: ADHD can present in many different ways and a child can have other related conditions, so it is important to spend time getting to know each child individually. Through observations, you will be able to discover a child’s particular style of learning and what they enjoy doing. You may also be able to identify potential triggers and/or activities and events that they may not enjoy as much.

Working with parents: a predominant part of supporting any child is to work in partnership with their parents/carers. A parent/carer will know their child the best and can provide a wealth of important information. By communicating what you and their parents/carers feel is working well, or not working so well, you can develop a consistent approach.

Working in partnership with the child: as well as parents/carers, children will know the most about themselves, however they may need adult support in being able to communicate this to others. It is important to find ways for children can communicate their feelings, interests and needs, and take them into consideration. As a child gets older, with adult support, they will become more aware of their ADHD and be able to recognise and respond to their own needs. Over time a child will become aware of what strategies work well and self-regulate more effectively.

Communication: how you communicate with a child can significantly impact their ability to process it. For children with ADHD, it is particularly important to give simple and clear instructions. Do not give a child lots of instructions in one go - break it down into parts. For example, if you want a child to go and wash their hands and get ready for lunch, not only is it a lot of information, but it is also unclear exactly what they need to do to get ready for lunch. Alternatively, break it down into simpler steps and do not ask the child to do the next step until they have completed the first. E.g. “Wash your hands in the bathroom”, “Now dry your hands with the paper towel” and then “Next, sit on a chair at the lunch table”. It is also key to ensure that the child is looking at you and you are giving instructions directly to them. If your back is to the child as you ask them to do something, they may not realise that you are talking to them, or you will not be able to see if they are distracted by something else and unable to listen to you. 

Set clear boundaries and expectations: these are big barriers that are often overlooked within practice. You may assume that a child knows the boundaries and expectations of the classroom, but unless you have specifically stated and reiterated them, how do you know that they understand them? A prime example is telling a child not to run as they are running across a classroom. You may not have told them that they need to walk in the classroom. Therefore, if a child does not know the boundaries and expectations that you have, they will not be able to follow them.

Routines: a predictable routine can help reduce stress and anxiety as a child will know what is happening now and next. Visual timetables are a good way of communicating to a child what is happening throughout their day. It is also important to build time into your daily routines to allow for flexibility and transition time between activities. A child may be engaged in an activity and not ready to finish, so allow them time to know that an activity is nearly finished and then support them in finishing it and be ready to start the next activity/event. If something different is going to happen, let the child know as soon as you can and help prepare them for the upcoming change.

Opportunities for movement and sensory breaks: some children with ADHD need lots of opportunities for movement. Although children may have access to larger outdoor areas for play times/breaks, they will also need opportunities to move throughout the day within the classroom. This can be achieved through scheduling movement and sensory breaks throughout the day. For example, you could start the day with some music and dancing, and encourage all the children to move in different ways. You can ensure you plan activities that encourage gross and fine motor movements, such as PE, outdoor play with balls and bikes and activities such as playdough and sensory play. As well as having scheduled breaks, there may be times that a child needs a movement/sensory break outside of these times. Therefore, it is important to identify and respond to them in the moment. This could be as simple as asking a child to take something to another classroom for you or asking them to complete an activity in a different way that encourages them to move.

Environment and resources: it is good practice to regularly reflect on your classroom environment and assess if it is working for you and the children. If you have a large empty space, this may encourage children to run and jump in it. Alternatively, make the space into a play area, you could add building blocks or books with a range of different seating options such as beanbags, rocking and spinning chairs and wobble cushions.

On tables, you could have a small box of ‘fidget’ toys that are easily accessible to children as they work/play. ‘Fidget’ toys are often small handheld objects/toys that need to be pressed, squeezed and manipulated in different ways. As they are relatively small and soundless, they are a great way to provide a child with a stimulus that can calm them and increase their focus, while not causing disruption. They are also very mobile so children can move them around the classroom and take them on any trips outside of the classroom/provision. 

It is also good practice to label/picture all your areas and resources in your classroom so that children can more easily find what they need for activities and know where to put them back when they have finished using them.

This list is intended to be a guide and a prompt to encourage you to try different strategies within your practice. However, be aware that every child is different and what works for one child may not work for another - it can be a case of trial and error. This is another reason why it is good practice to have a range of strategies/resources to hand so that you can readily support children differently if what you first implemented is not working. Many of these strategies I consider to be universal: although we are specifically looking at ADHD, they can be beneficial to use with all children, with or without ADHD and/or other conditions.

Coming up next

In the final part of this four-part series, we will bring together key points from across the series and provide a summary of how to identify and support young children with ADHD in the classroom.

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Go to the profile of Sarah Noonan
13 days ago

very helpful thankyou