Whitegate Primary school in Oldham is a mainstream primary school who was chosen to create a SEMH hub in their school. The Hive is a 12 place SEMH Resource Base, which serves children across Oldham Local Authority with an EHCP. It provides short term placements and offers outreach work for Oldham schools, to support children with social, emotional and mental health needs.
They reached out to us to bring their Hive to life which consisted of a eating area, break out room, classroom, sensory space and regulation room! They had an existing space which was refurbished to provide the spaces they needed and then Shahana got to work designing!
We wanted this space to be a flexible space for children to learn in. Somewhere that didn't feel like a conventional school environment or 'SEMH Unit' they might have experienced before. Our priority was calm lighting, flexible seating and space to allow for movement.
We prioritised floor seating to support those children who need to feel grounded/ lie on their tummies/ sit low to the floor when working.
We added a big L shape sofa to promote connection, small group work and regulation and added plenty of blankets and LED lights to encourage self-regulation during the school day.
Photos before
Transformation photos
Walk through the environment with us in this short video