What does it mean to feel safe at school?
Safety at school is important and it’s much more than soft-fall mulch. Students with disability often feel very vulnerable and unsafe at school.
Safety at school is about:
relationships between peers,
relationships of warm regard between students and staff,
feeling competent and capable (more often than not),
being able to access the curriculum and demonstrate learning,
being able to be yourself and not having to mask,
having your support needs identified and responded to,
not being shamed for the difficulties you experience due to your disability,
being met where you are at rather than where people wish you were at,
not having to work harder because of your disability,
being celebrated for who you are,
feeling like you know what will happen next,
having enough energy available to meet the demands of the day,
sensory experiences that feel just right,
being listened to,
having agency over things that cause you stress,
feeling okay about using the toilet or eating at school,
being given enough time to share your ideas or complete work,
being able to complete work in the same amount of time it takes peers,
being able to engage in activities that help restore energy during break times,
prioritising relationships over tasks,
Feeling included,
Having adults who are curious about how to help students feel safe,
Having adults who respond favourably to a student’s attempts to self-advocate.
Safety at school is feeling like there are people there who “get you” and think you are awesome. Safety by it’s nature is subjectively felt. If a student can’t go to school, often there is an issue with feeling safe.
More about safety….
“Safety is in the eye of the beholder” – Mona Delahooke
Safety is something that is by it’s nature felt.
We cannot presume safety. Everyone’s experience is different.
Just because something feels safe to me does not mean someone else will feel safe in the same situation.
Understanding whether someone else feels safe requires us to:
1. suspend our judgement,
2. be curious and
3. value their perspective or lived experience.
Our nervous systems are constantly on the lookout for signs of safety and signs of threat. This is hardwired into our neurology and helps keep us safe.
If a student is having a fight, flight response, you may see and hear signs of distress. However, if a student is so distressed that they have a shutdown/collapse/appeasement response you may not notice signs of distress without further investigation. The fact that they seem fine does not mean that they are fine.
School Can’t Australia is watching with interest a growing body of research examining the experience of micro-aggressions by disabled, neurodivergent, first nations, or culturally diverse students. We are interested to learn more about the impact of these on student wellbeing. Research is also looking at the experience of burnout and neurodivergent students. Burn out is understood to occur in response to constant demands that exceed capacity. When experiencing burn out a student loses capacity to even do things that they would normally enjoy doing. They may even lose capacity to speak or to tend to self care. Lived experience reflections on recovery suggests that burnout requires deep rest.
Chronic stress over time impacts physical and mental health. We cannot address the latter without identifying and seeking to reduce: exposure, frequency or intensity of the stressor/s.
Teaching coping skills with out identifying and reducing the sources of stress is not helpful when students are chronically or severely stressed. They need action that addresses the source of their stress.
Tiffany Westphal – School Can’t Australia