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SilverCloud Modules Leaflet for parents and carers

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25-26 Attendance Support - Guidance (schools and services)

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25-26 Attendance Support - Guidance (schools and services)

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RBTE Support Overview and Dates 25-26 (school/college staff)

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RBTE Support Overview and Dates 25-26 (school/college staff)

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Reducing Barriers to Education support 2025-26

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RBTE Parent/Carer Drop Ins 2025-26 - Flyer for Parents

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RBTE Parent/Carer Drop Ins 2025-26 - Flyer for Parents

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Connect you to local activities, peer support, wellbeing groups, the community and practical support.

Help you feel more confident, less isolated and more connected to your community. Provide practical support and signpost to emotional support. Support for all families, parents and carers.

An holistic, non-medical approach to improving your wellbeing

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Preparation For Adult Life (PfA) Padlet 

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Preparation For Adult Life (PfA) Padlet 

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Person Centred Planning meeting tools and guidance for schools to use with families and wider professionals

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Person Centred Planning meeting tools and guidance for schools to use with families and wider professionals

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Example Severe Action Absence Plan - Primary

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Example Severe Action Absence Plan - Primary

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Example Severe Absence Action Plan - Secondary

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Example Severe Absence Action Plan - Secondary

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Example SA Action Plan - Secondary 24-25

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WARMTH Framework - Whole School/College Audit  

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WARMTH Framework - Whole School/College Audit  

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Whole School Audit- WARMTH framework 25-26

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EINT (Early Identification of Needs Tool)

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EINT (Early Identification of Needs Tool)

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Barriers to Education website - Tools for Children and Adults 

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Barriers to Education website - Tools for Children and Adults 

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Tools and Practical Resources - Barriers to Education

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A range of tools and practical resources that aim to reduce barriers to education

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Attendance Support (parents and carers) - info and meeting dates

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Attendance Support (parents and carers) - info and meeting dates

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Self Determination Theory reflective tool

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Self Determination Theory reflective tool

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These resources support local settings with SEND processes, from early identification of need, making adjustments, SEND Support interventions and beyond (which is what we call a ‘Graduated Approach’).

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Supporting children and young people with SEND•Salford City Council

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What do we mean by ‘Ordinarily Available Inclusive Provision’?

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RBTE Parent/Carer Drop Ins 2025-26 - Flyer for Parents

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RBTE Parent/Carer Drop Ins 2025-26 - Flyer for Parents

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Link to in person and online support on a range of topics.

Every family is different and each can face different challenges, but what unites you as parents and caregivers is your desire for your children to grow up happy, learning new skills and feeling supported in their emotional wellbeing.

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RBTE Support for Parents and carers 25-26, information and meeting dates

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RBTE Support for Parents and carers 25-26, information and meeting dates

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Barriers to Education Attendance Support For Parents and Carers 2025-26

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Detailed information & case studies about the WARMTH Framework, burnout and burnout recovery

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To be read alongside the Banded approach to monitoring attendance 25-26

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Drawing the Ideal School, instructions and record sheets

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Drawing the Ideal School, instructions and record sheets

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Child of the North N8 Research Partnership - An evidence-based plan for improving school attendance

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Child of the North N8 Research Partnership - An evidence-based plan for improving school attendance

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Colour Coding Your School Activity- Primary

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Colour Coding Your School Activity- Primary

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EEF - Attendance reflection and planning tool 

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EEF - Attendance reflection and planning tool 

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Checklist for professionals to support extended nonattendance

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Checklist for professionals to support extended nonattendance

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Checklist for Professionals to support extended nonattendance_March 26

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A website about autism, for autistic young people - so that everyone can gain a better understanding of what autism actually is.

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Colour Coding Your School Activity - Secondary

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Colour Coding Your School Activity - Secondary

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Appendix C Mapping the landscape 3 secondary (1)

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Autism, Identity and Me: A Practical Workbook and Professional Guide to Empower Autistic Children and Young People Aged 10+

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This empowering workbook and guide will help children and young people to develop a positive understanding of their autistic identity, whilst providing key adults with the tools needed to support their journey and initiate important conversations. The workbook is highly structured and visual, broken down into key sections such as Interests and Focus, Masking, Emotions and My Autistic Identity Statement to create a personal passport and to develop a deeper understanding of what autism means to t

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Salford Family Relationships - Early Help Support

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Salford Family Relationships - Early Help Support

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We have a number of online noticeboards and directories (padlets) to help you find what’s happening in Salford’s voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. From attending a community event to joining a creative group we have it covered.

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Neurodevelopmental Offer for parents/carers 

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Neurodevelopmental Offer for parents/carers 

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Overview of support offer•Salford City Council

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Services across Salford have compiled this list of the support offer available to families for the academic year (September 2025 to August 2026).

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The Local Offer provides information on what support services are available in Salford for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities and their parents/carers.

Parents and Carers: mental health and wellbeing information and resources are available on the Salford City Council website, providing a list of services and access to the mental health support directory.

Are you looking for information on Education, Health and Care Plans? You can find useful information within our pages.

The Anna Freud Centre has created a new webpage providing self-care advice for parents and carers.

The Council for Disabled Children also has some training courses to access.

You can also find out associated events in What's On.

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The Local Offer provides information on what support services are available in Salford for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities and their parents/carers. Parents and Carers: mental health and wellbeing information and resources are available on the Salford City Council website, providing a list of services and access to the mental health support directory.

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Mapping the Landscape Card Sort Guidance

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Mapping the Landscape Card Sort Guidance

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Mapping the Landscape Card Sort Visuals for printing

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Mapping the Landscape Card Sort Visuals for printing

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Interactive Primary Mapping the Landscape

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Interactive Primary Mapping the Landscape

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Supported Internships booklet - PRINT (003) Feb 2024

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Supported internship journey map intern version 4

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Post-16 Education, Training and Employment for people with learning disabilities and/or autism

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Post-16 Education, Training and Employment for people with learning disabilities and/or autism

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Interactive Secondary Mapping the Landscape

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Interactive Secondary Mapping the Landscape

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Returning to school questionnaire May 2025

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Missing the Mark - support for parents and educators

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Missing the Mark - support for parents and educators

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With Eliza Fricker - author, illustrator & consultant for PDA, autism and learning.

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Energy Accounting - A framework to support school attendance

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Energy Accounting - A framework to support school attendance

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For many children and young people, attending school can feel overwhelming. What might seem like simple daily routines - getting dressed, travelling to school, entering a busy classroom - can require significant emotional and sensory energy. Without understanding these experiences from the child's perspective, we risk missing opportunities to provide effective support.

Exploring emotional barriers to attendance requires creating space for children to share their lived experiences in ways that feel accessible and meaningful to them. Traditional conversations about feelings and difficulties may not always capture the full picture, especially when children struggle to verbalise their experiences or feel their challenges aren't understood.

Visual frameworks and concrete analogies can help bridge this gap, giving children tools to express how different aspects of their school day impact their emotional and sensory wellbeing. Energy Accounting activities offer exactly this kind of structured, visual approach to understanding a child's experience.

Understanding Energy Through Different Lenses

The concept of managing daily energy has been explored through several helpful frameworks. Maja Toudal and Tony Attwood developed their Energy Accounting approach using the metaphor of a bank account. Just as we manage our money through deposits and withdrawals, they explained how we navigate our daily energy. Each interaction or activity either depletes our energy balance (a withdrawal) or replenishes it (a deposit). When we consistently make more withdrawals than deposits, we risk going into 'energy overdraft', leading to exhaustion and overwhelm.

Christine Miserandino's Spoon Theory provides another concrete way to explore energy with children. This approach uses the tangible image of spoons to represent available energy. Children can physically hold, create or draw spoons to show how different parts of their school day use up their energy 'spoons'. This hands-on approach helps make abstract concepts of energy and fatigue more visible and discussable. For instance, a child might identify that morning assembly costs them three spoons, while a quiet reading session replenishes ('gives them back') a spoon. This insight can lead to meaningful conversations about where in the school day they need more support or opportunities to 'recharge'.

Making Energy Visible: From Simple Batteries to Smartphones

For younger children, the simple concept of a battery provides an accessible starting point. Most children have experience with battery-operated toys or devices - they know batteries can run low and need regular charging to keep working. This basic understanding creates a natural bridge to exploring their own energy levels throughout the school day.

We might ask a young child to think about their 'battery level' at different points of the day: "How full is your battery when you wake up?", "What makes your battery feel low?", "What helps charge it up again?" Using simple battery drawings with different fill levels helps make these conversations concrete and visual.

As children get older, Jodie Smitten's smartphone analogy builds on this foundation by introducing the concept of multiple apps running simultaneously. This resonates particularly well with older pupils who understand how different apps drain their phone's battery at different rates, and how apps left running in the background continue using power.

Each school experience becomes like an app on their phone - getting dressed for school, navigating busy corridors, participating in group work. Some experiences drain the battery quickly, while others have a smaller impact. Importantly, challenging or distressing experiences can be like apps that stay open in the background, continuously draining energy even after the immediate situation has passed.

Using This Framework in Practice

When working with children, we might explore how different parts of their school day affect their 'battery level'. Through visual aids like battery icons or sliding scales, children can indicate their energy levels at different points in the day. This often reveals patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed - perhaps showing that certain lessons, transitions, or social situations consistently drain their battery more than others.

The activity becomes particularly powerful when we map out both energy drains and recharging opportunities. A child might identify that reading in the library at lunch helps recharge their battery, or that having a quiet space available after PE helps them recover from the sensory intensity of the sports hall.

Creating Personalised Energy Maps

Working collaboratively with the child, we can create their personal energy map. This might include:

Identifying their peak energy times during the school day

Noting which activities require the most energy

Finding natural breaks where recharging can occur

Planning ahead for particularly demanding periods

Recognising early warning signs of low battery

This understanding allows us to make meaningful adjustments to support attendance. Perhaps a child needs a quiet arrival time before joining the class, or access to calming activities between high-energy lessons. The focus shifts from expecting children to 'push through' to actively managing their energy levels throughout the day.

Empowering Children and Schools

The real strength of energy accounting lies in its ability to validate children's experiences while providing a shared language for discussing needs. Children often feel relieved to have their energy demands recognised and understood. Schools gain practical insights into how they can better support attendance through environmental accommodations and simple tweaks to a child's day.

Supporting children's attendance isn't just about reducing what drains their battery - though this is certainly important. We might help them avoid having too many high-demand activities back-to-back, reduce sensory overload in busy spaces, or adjust the timing of challenging subjects. However, equally important is ensuring regular opportunities to recharge throughout the day.

These 'charging points' look different for each child. For some, it might be quiet reading time in the library, access to a calm space between lessons, or time to engage with a special interest. Others might recharge through movement breaks, time with a trusted adult, or using sensory resources. The key is working with each child to identify what genuinely replenishes their energy and then deliberately building these opportunities into their daily routine.

By taking this dual approach - reducing unnecessary drains while maximising recharge opportunities - we create a more sustainable environment for attendance. Rather than expecting children to simply endure until they reach empty, we help them maintain healthier energy levels throughout the day.

Working in Partnership with Families

Understanding a child's energy patterns requires insights from both home and school. Parents often notice early warning signs of a depleting battery - perhaps their child is exhausted after school, struggles with morning routines, or needs significant downtime at weekends to recover. This valuable knowledge helps build a complete picture of the child's energy needs across their whole day.

Families can also share what recharging strategies work well at home. These might be adapted for the school environment or help inform the timing of more demanding activities. For instance, if a parent knows their child needs quiet time after social interactions, this might influence how we structure their timetable or break times.

Creating Sustainable Support

The most effective approaches may involve:

Taking a Whole-Day View

Energy accounting isn't just about managing school hours. Morning routines, travel time, after-school activities, and homework all impact a child's energy levels. Working with families helps us understand these cumulative effects and plan accordingly.

Regular Review and Adjustment

As children grow and circumstances change, so too might their energy patterns. What works well one term might need adjusting the next. Regular check-ins with the child and family help ensure support remains effective and appropriate.

Building Independence

It's also important to recognise that some children may find it difficult to interpret or express how different experiences affect their energy levels. These interoception difficulties - the ability to recognise internal bodily signals - mean they might need additional support to identify when their battery is getting low. Working alongside parents or carers who know their child well can help spot signs of depleting energy that the child themselves might not yet recognise.

Over time, we can help children recognise their own energy patterns and advocate for their needs. This might start with adult support to spot 'low battery' warnings, gradually building to children independently using their recharging strategies.

Developing a Supportive Culture

Creating an environment where children feel comfortable expressing their energy needs requires a shift in school culture. This means:
Understanding Every Child is Different
What depletes one child's battery might recharge another's. Some might need movement breaks to recharge, while others find physical activities draining. Recognising these individual differences helps avoid one-size-fits-all approaches.
Making Support Readily Available
Ensuring recharging opportunities are easily accessible rather than requiring children to ask repeatedly or justify their needs. This might mean having designated quiet spaces, sensory resources, or movement breaks built into the routine.
Normalising Energy Management
Helping all children (and adults) understand that managing energy levels is a normal part of the day, just like eating when hungry or drinking when thirsty. This reduces stigma and encourages children (and adults) to recognise and respond to their needs.

EBSA Horizons Resource

The EBSA Horizons course now includes an Energy Accounting resource to support this work. This practical tool provides visual materials and structured activities to help explore energy levels with children and young people in a way that validates their experiences.

When using this resource, it's important to remember that our focus should be on adapting the environment rather than expecting the child to change. Too often, we can fall into the trap of trying to build a child's resilience or stamina without first addressing the aspects of their environment that are unnecessarily draining their battery. Environmental adjustments - whether physical, sensory, or social - are always a useful starting point.

The Energy Accounting resource, available within the EBSA Horizons course materials, provides schools and professionals with practical guidance for navigating these considerations while working collaboratively with children and families to understand and support their needs.

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Energy Accounting Tool: Understanding Barriers to School Attendance

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Understand and explore how children and young people's energy can be depleted and replenished through their daily activities. How we can identify emotional barriers to school attendance, possible patterns that may otherwise go unnoticed and make meaningful adjustments to support CYP in school.

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Square Peg - Campaign group to support attendance

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Square Peg - Campaign group to support attendance

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Working together to better understand absence from school & find effective solutions to attendance barriers

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Not Fine in School - Parent and professionals groups for children who have experienced barriers to attendance

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Not Fine in School - Parent and professionals groups for children who have experienced barriers to attendance

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Not Fine in School is a parent-led organisation empowering families & raising awareness of school attendance barriers (school refusal/ anxiety/ SEND/ bullying)

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Dr Mollie Higgins, Educational Psychologist, shares the key themes and outcomes of her doctoral research around Autistic Young People experiencing Emotional Based School Avoidance (EBSA). Mollie has been working alongside Dr Jerricah Holder to create a new chapter for the EBSA Horizons EP Course - Supporting Autistic CYP experiencing EBSA. To be released early next year. Sign up here to access the course. The Ideal School: EBSA and Autism
In addition to the risk factors for EBSA, autistic young people experience a number of differences which further increase their feelings of anxiety within the school environment. These include:

Differences in identifying and describing their own and others' emotions

Emotional regulation difficulties

Differences in sensory processing and finding the sensory environment overwhelming e.g. loud corridors, different smells, busy classrooms

Difficulties understanding and predicting social situations and managing interactions with others

Worries around change or transitions e.g. moving between classrooms, changes to timetables, supply teachers

Executive functioning and organisation difficulties - remembering books, homework, equipment

Masking - try to 'fit in' or attempting to appear more neurotypical by changing their behaviour and internalising any anxiety

Experiencing performance anxiety related to the schoolwork or exams

These challenges mean that some autistic students try and manage their anxiety by avoiding school altogether. This is reflected in statistics which show higher levels of EBSA amongst autistic students (Department for Education, 2021). I felt it was important to speak with students directly to hear their views and opinions about what might help them attend school.

I asked ten autistic secondary-age students to describe the best school ever and the worst school ever. This technique is known as The Ideal School and is based on Personal Construct Psychology. By asking students to describe their ideal and non-ideal schools, I was able to understand the type of adjustments that would help these students feel more able to attend school.

Five key themes were identified from the data and the key points are summarised below.

So What Can Schools Do?

This technique was adapted by Williams and Hanke (2005) using Moran's (2001) Drawing the Ideal Self.
If EBSA is an area which you're supporting CYP with, we've been fortunate to work with Dr Jerricah Holder on her EBSA Horizons courses for Educational Psychologists and School Staff. - New ** EBSA Horizons | School Training
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Sharing EP Practice: EBSA and Autism - What Can Schools Do?

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Dr Mollie Higgins, Educational Psychologist, shares the key themes and outcomes of her doctoral research around Autistic Young People experiencing Emotional Based School Avoidance (EBSA). Mollie has been working alongside Dr Jerricah Holder to create a new chapter for the EBSA Horizons EP Course - Supporting Autistic CYP experiencing EBSA.

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Department for Education - Working together to improve school attendance guidance

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Department for Education - Working together to improve school attendance guidance

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Working together to improve school attendance

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Guidance for schools, academy trusts, governing bodies and local authorities on maintaining high levels of school attendance, including roles and responsibilities.

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Getting it right for children course (parental separation)

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Getting it right for children course (parental separation)

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Planning for Post-16: Independent Travel Training Resource Booklet

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Planning for Post-16: Independent Travel Training Resource Booklet

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Independent travel training booklet 2023

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Spectrum Gaming - Autistic-led charity supporting autistic young people

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Spectrum Gaming - Autistic-led charity supporting autistic young people

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Spectrum Gaming is an online community for autistic young people. The aims of Spectrum Gaming are to enable autistic young people to develop meaningful friendships; to help them understand and develop a positive perspective of their differences; and to advocate for the needs of autistic young people

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Engagement Scale - creating wellbeing plans

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Engagement Scale - creating wellbeing plans

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Self Determination Theory Reflective Tool 

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Self Determination Theory Reflective Tool 

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TO END PUNITIVE, EXCLUSIONARY DISCIPLINE, WE'RE GOING TO NEEDNEW LENSES, PRACTICES, AND POLICIES. YOU'RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE.

We are in the midst of a societal and public health crisis. We are losing our most vulnerable kids, largely due to perspectives that are outdated and counterproductive, and disciplinary practices that are punitive and exclusionary.

With each time-out, detention, suspension, expulsion, paddling, restraint, seclusion, and arrest at school, there are children who aren't getting the help they need and are being pushed away from caregivers who could instead be helping them.

The cost to all of us is profound. Overwhelmed, discouraged educators. Frustrated, desperate parents. Expensive placements. Disenfranchised, marginalized, alienated kids. A pipeline to prison.

It doesn't have to be this way.

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We are in the midst of a societal and public health crisis. We are losing our most vulnerable kids, largely due to perspectives that are outdated and counterproductive, and disciplinary practices that are punitive and exclusionary.

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SPIRAL - Action Planning Tool for Professionals 

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SPIRAL - Action Planning Tool for Professionals 

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Action planning to support school attendance: using the SPIRAL framework - edpsy.org.uk

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Currently, we find ourselves in an ‘attendance crisis’ (Children’s commissioner, 2023) with more children than ever feeling unable to attend…

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Notification and Review link for Build Up Timetables (BUTTs) 

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Notification and Review link for Build Up Timetables (BUTTs) 

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Reduced Timetables Guidance - updated for Jan25

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NDTI Preparing for Adulthood person centred resources

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NDTI Preparing for Adulthood person centred resources

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Range of resources to support person centred planning for post-16 and preparing for adulthood areas

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Preparing for Adulthood: Person-centred Planning Tools - NDTi

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Great stories and discussions where inclusion really works helping us to learn from each other and to try and build a more inclusive society for all children and young people.