By Callum Ludwig
A new facility at Yarra Junction Primary School is helping students to keep their emotions and stress in check.
The new Sensory Garden at the school allows students to take themselves out of situations where their emotions are heightened, whether they are overstimulated, upset, angry, frustrated or stressed.
Yarra Junction Primary School Principal Lisa Rankin said they decided having a space for kids to self-regulate independently was important so that they could return ready to engage in learning.
“We were able to use some of the Department of Education’s funding in regards to mental health to be able to support the establishment of this, so the kids know they can even take their shoes and socks off out here as well and walk along the pathway to use those senses,” she said.
“Sometimes they come out here as well when they’re not feeling heightened as well, just to practice those strategies of self-regulation, it’s all about engaging all your senses, so as you can see along the walls there are lots of plants and things that they can smell and touch and taste.”
Engaging the senses is a common practice for helping manage different experiences of distress, often utilised in mindfulness practices like deep breathing or in responses to anxiety or panic like naming five things you can see, helping to make the individual more present in the moment.
Sensory spaces are particularly beneficial for children exposed to trauma, who suffer from chronic stress and who have specified sensory needs, but they can be effective for any children to make use of when emotions run high.
Ms Rankin said they’ve implemented a sensory pass system at the school.
“A teacher who acknowledges that a student maybe is beginning to show some signs of not being able to regulate will be given a pass and they’re able to come out to this safe space,” she said.
“It’s nice and contained in here and other teachers going past can check in and make sure that they’ve got a sensory pass, that a teacher knows what’s going on there and make sure the student is okay,”
“The wellbeing coordinator and myself also have a pass we can allocate.”
Local residents may have noticed the sensory garden being established in recent weeks due to the mural visible from the Warburton Highway as you pass the school, designed by Victorian artist Master Murals.
Ms Rankin said she thinks it’s important to normalise it because it relates to things we do as adults, consciously or subconsciously, to self-regulate.
“Everybody does something to self-regulate, so we are giving them tools to be able to do that and practice it so that it becomes a habit for them,” she said.
“It’s essential for life especially it’ll mean then that they can engage in their social learning and their academic learning, but also just for their own wellbeing as well so that they can keep thinking positive thoughts and be able to do that on their own independently.”
Some students shared what they have enjoyed about the sensory garden or what they like to use it for.
“The sensory garden is nice because it keeps you nice and calm when you’re a bit frustrated or angry,” Cooper said.
“If you’re stressed, you can easily calm down or you can muck around with all the things, you can even lay down on a wooden mat over there,” Ryan said.
“I like sitting and reading out here,” Eva said.
“The sensory garden keeps calm and cool, so once I’m feeling happy, I can go back into my classroom and every time I come out here, I water the plants. Here we can play everywhere, I want to be always happy, because this makes you calm and happy, and Ms Rankin spent all of this time doing this for us,” said Ben.
