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Willingham Primary School

Sensory Circuits

What are Sensory Circuits?  

Sensory circuits is a planned sequence of physical activities which pupils take part in at the start of the day. This has proven to be very beneficial for many pupils across the school.  We have children from EYFS (starting in the spring term) up to Year 5. Around Year 5/6 some children are a little self-conscious about starting the day differently, so they are able to choose if they wish to attend or not under the guidance of the adults in school working closely with parents. 

Participation in a short sensory circuit is a great way to both energise and settle children into the day. The aim of circuits is to focus concentration in readiness for the day’s learning. 

The order of the circuit is important and it should be an active, physical and fun activity that children enjoy. We begin the school day with Sensory Circuits and the circuits starts with alerting activities, then organising tasks and finishing off with a calming phase. The activities are numbered to enable pupils to follow the sequence correctly and allow them to have some independence! 

Alerting – The aim of this section of the circuit is to prepare the brain for learning. Activities include – step-ups, spinning or jogging on the spot, start jumps, hula hooping or bouncing on the trampoline. 

Organinsing – This section includes activities that require motor (muscle) sensory processing, balance and timing. The children need to organise their body, plan their approach and do more than one thing at a time in a sequential order. Activities can include - infinity walk, balance spots, ladder run, balancing on a beam, throwing bean bags onto a target and the always popular wall-bar hang. These skills may increase the child’s focus/attention span and performance. 

Calming – These activities are very important as they ensure that when the children leave the circuit they can engage in their classroom activities calm, centred and ready for the day ahead. Activities include – plank, egg roll, press ups, wall pushes, commando crawl and, of course, the squeeze machine which ALL the children love. 

We always finish with a minute rest and then the children independently put their shoes and socks on – another skill they need to learn. 

The benefits of attending daily sensory circuits can include:  

  • Improvements in self-esteem  

  • Development of physical skills 

  • Differences in focus and attention and improved ability to self-regulate  

  • Some quiet, unresponsive children appear to have ’woken up’ and are more readily engaging with other children in their class  

  • Improved communication skills for children working at all levels and with a variety of additional needs 

  • Children working with children that they do not usually mix with, in another year group. 

We have the same circuit plan for each half term, this is to give the children time to improve their ability to complete each section, if the children get it straight away, we tweak the activity to make it more challenging. 

Y4 Girl – I love the Squeeze Machine and the trampoline is really bouncy 

Y1 Girl – It's good and makes me happy. 

Y4 Boy – I love it. It’s great, the Squeeze Machine, it's the best. 

Y2 Boy – I like it when we play curling.