This week I built up the courage to introduce Molly to my B.Ed. Specialism in Inclusive and Special Education students. It took me three weeks.

We were delving into the broad topic of Literacy, and specifically Dyslexia. Molly was on hand to describe her account of being asked to read aloud in front of the whole class. She spoke (nervously) to the students about how embarrassed she felt because she was slower than everyone else, and we wondered together about what being ‘embarrassed’ might look like. After a prolonged silence (which I had to silently insist with myself to wait out), a tentative answer came from the group – ‘maybe Molly’s face went red?’.

Puppets as we know, are a powerful tool in enabling individuals to project their feelings and in that moment, I realised that Molly wasn’t the only one who was feeling embarrassed or whose face was feeling red during that session.

Prior to the students arriving for class, I had arranged the chairs in a circle around Molly, so as to make sure that we could meet everyone’s gaze throughout the session. The first couple of students arrived to the door. They stepped in, and then visibly stepped back. Their eyes moved around the circle of chairs as they pondered the set-up, before cautiously taking a seat in the circle. The next small group arrived. This time, two students chose to sit outside the circle. I gently invited them to take a seat in the circle, as we would be meeting Molly in a little while, and she would love to be able to see everyone. They reluctantly moved into the circle alongside their peers. This pattern repeated itself, until the circle was filled not only physically with bodies, but filled also with of a deep sense of nervous anticipation.

Of course, I should have known. I recall clearly my own feelings of being a student (and a teacher), and walking into a room where there was a circle of chairs set up. I can palpably feel the anxiety of not knowing what to expect, and of having to face my great fear – being called upon in front of the whole group. Having to perform. Being asked to respond. Feeling exposed. On reflection, I realised that what I had done was set up a space that felt unsafe to the students, a space that was unpredictable and fear-inducing. A space that was not conducive to learning.

In conversation later that week with my now retired principal, we spoke about the rich learning opportunity that revisiting my error with the students might present. He suggested asking the students to think about how it felt when they walked into the room and saw that circle, and how that might feel for the children in their classrooms. He suggested that perhaps I could have left the chairs in their safe, predictable rows until all of the students were settled, before explaining to them what was going to happen.

We were reminded of the importance then, of providing a narrative for children about what is going to happen in a Circle Time session –  not in a WALT/WILF kind of way, but more in a social story way – ‘we are going to listen to Molly’s story today, and we are going to try to help her come up with some solutions to her problem, but I am not going to ask anybody to speak until they want to, and we are not going to name anybody else in the circle…’.

Like most things, this seems simple in theory (and pretty obvious now looking back), but often times when we are busy, and caught up with objectives and the all-important content of our lessons, the really important stuff – like creating the right space for learning – gets cast aside. So as we continue to upskill ourselves with self-regulation programmes, like the Alert Programme in our bid to help to bring children to the optimum, ‘alert’ state for learning, perhaps we might pause to consider – what is it all for, if we fail to create a learning environment in which children and students can feel safe and able to engage?