SAFE LEARN at Belmont School

Supporting Trauma Informed Practice and High Quality Teaching in our SEMH Setting

At Belmont School, we are committed to ensuring that every pupil feels safe, supported, and able to succeed. As part of this commitment, the senior leadership team has introduced SAFE LEARN, a lesson planning toolkit designed specifically for our specialist SEMH environment.

SAFE LEARN has been developed to support staff in combining trauma informed practice with evidence informed teaching pedagogy so that all pupils, regardless of their starting point or barriers to learning, are able to make meaningful progress. The framework is built around a simple but powerful principle: SAFE first, THEN learn.

The toolkit recognises that many pupils with SEMH needs may arrive in lessons dysregulated, anxious, distracted, or carrying the effects of previous adverse experiences. Whilst high quality teaching remains essential, pupils are often unable to fully access learning until they feel emotionally safe, regulated, and connected to trusted adults. SAFE LEARN therefore combines trauma informed approaches with Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction, ensuring that teaching is both relationally intelligent and instructionally effective.

Rosenshine’s work highlights the importance of explicit teaching, carefully sequenced instruction, modelling, guided practice, retrieval, and regular checking for understanding. SAFE LEARN reflects these principles throughout its structure whilst adapting them for the realities of a specialist SEMH context. The framework provides staff with practical strategies which support both learning and regulation, enabling teachers to plan lessons that reduce cognitive overload whilst also addressing emotional barriers to engagement.

The framework begins with Safety First, where staff prioritise calm, predictable routines, positive relationships, and emotional regulation. Teachers are encouraged to use meet and greet approaches, quick emotional check ins, and individualised support strategies to ensure pupils are settled and ready to learn.

SAFE LEARN then moves through a series of carefully structured stages including Anchor Learning, Facilitate Learning, and Engage, helping staff to clearly model learning, break tasks into manageable steps, scaffold understanding, and provide guided practice that supports success for all learners.

The framework also places strong emphasis on responsive teaching through Look and Listen, encouraging staff to continually assess understanding, identify misconceptions, and adapt teaching in real time. Alongside this, Encourage promotes the use of specific praise, high expectations, and recognition of effort to help build resilience, confidence, and self belief in pupils who may have experienced repeated challenges within education.

The final stages of Apply, Regulate, and Next Steps ensure pupils have opportunities to demonstrate learning independently whilst also recognising the importance of supporting re regulation and ending lessons calmly and positively.

Although SAFE LEARN is still in the early stages of implementation, we have been encouraged by the positive feedback from staff across the school. Colleagues report that the framework provides a clear and supportive structure for lesson planning whilst strengthening consistency across classrooms. It has been especially welcomed by less experienced teachers and Early Career Teachers, many of whom have found SAFE LEARN to be a valuable toolkit in helping them combine trauma informed approaches with effective teaching pedagogy.

As a school, we recognise that embedding any whole school framework takes time, reflection, and continual refinement. However, SAFE LEARN already represents an important step forward in strengthening teaching, improving consistency, and ensuring that all pupils are supported not only to regulate and engage, but ultimately to achieve and succeed.