Save our Soft Sensory Room at Mayfield Special School!

Want to be part of something Special? Give children with special needs a place to grow, explore, and thrive

We need your help!

We need help to raise funds to refurbish our Soft Sensory Room, giving our pupils a safe environment to explore and develop!

For children with special educational needs, learning how to process sensory information can be an uphill battle. At Mayfield, we understand how critical it is to meet the Sensory and Physical needs of our young pupils—needs that are central to their Education, Health and Care Plans.

That’s why we go above and beyond to create tailored environments and activities that help these incredible children feel safe, supported, and empowered to reach their full potential. But we can’t do it alone.

Your support can help us refurbish the tired, broken and worn-out specialised resources and equipment in our soft sensory room that will make all the difference for the young pupils with the greatest needs. Together, we can give these children access to the essential tools they need to overcome challenges and truly thrive.

Who are we?

We are Mayfield Special Needs School in Torbay and we provide education and care to 265 pupils from 2 to 19 years old, all of whom have an Education, Health & Care Plan (EHCP) and are diagnosed with a Special Education Need (Disability). We educate and care for pupils of whom have a Specific Learning Difficulty, Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty or a Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulty.

Our vision is for every child with Special Education Needs, to have the education and support they need to thrive. Our mission is "Learning together to be the best that we can be, building on the successes of today, for the challenges of tomorrow." We are immensely proud of our “good” Ofsted inspection (June 2024) which states “Pupils thrive at Mayfield School.”

You can see a short 2 minute video of our amazing pupils: HERE

Why do we need your help?

Learning how to process sensory-based information can be more difficult for children with Special Educational Needs. At Mayfield, there is a significant focus on meeting the Sensory and Physical needs of our young people – a key element of their Education, Health and Care Plan.

Pupils may be sensory seeking which means they look for physical movement or heavy touch to help them understand the world around them. Proprioception (the way we use our muscles to understand where our body is in space) and the vestibular sense (how our body moves against gravity) helps us to feel grounded.

The school site has a number of sensory and movement spaces which are now dated, tired and require full redevelopment to meet the needs of our pupils.

Our priority project focuses on our Soft Sensory Room which is unfortunately at the end of its life. The facility is well-used and so the equipment has deteriorated to the point it will soon be unusable and over recent months has had to be temporarily closed due to Health and Safety Concerns.

Our Project

We want to completely refurbish this Soft Sensory Room and add interactive equipment, so our young people and wider community have a stimulating and safe place in which to learn and explore. The room can be set up to target specific needs in our children with SLD and PMLD.

Having a fully functional Soft Sensory Room is essential for our School and community. A room with engaging Soft Sensory equipment provides a fun and safe space in which users develop key skills such as balance, movement and gross motor skills. Sessions are a valuable way of improving physical coordination and strength, body awareness and the use of language. This soft sensory room isn’t the same as ones you would find in the local community, but instead, specifically designed to aid children, young people and other users with disabilities and as such, has specialist equipment. For example, there is a squeeze machine which mimics having cuddles from parents/carers.

The Difference it will make to our Pupils

• Social interaction – children take turns, share and communicate.

• Cognitive development – stimulate children’s minds in new environments, encouraging problem solving and decision-making when exploring different colours, shapes, textures and sounds whilst interacting in their environment.

• Creativity and imagination – for example to create dens, forts and story telling.

• Language development – natural settings for children to build communication skills.

• Motor skills development – children develop gross motor skills such as climbing, crawling, jumping and rolling.

• Sensory stimulation - learn to regulate their emotions through soothing lighting, calming sound and limited visual stimuli.

• Emotional expression and regulation – space to release feelings in a healthy way, develop coping strategies and resilience.

• Active play – children are encouraged to build their physical fitness.

• Reduce anxiety and stress – a safe and calming sensory environment which removes overstimulation.

• Promoting acceptance between children – children can engage with their peers under the supervision of our supportive staff.

Katherine's Story

Katherine’s story shows how sensory learning environments are particularly key in the promotion of vision for children with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI). These children have difficulty processing visual information despite having vision.

Katherine is a young woman who presented at the school aged 2 with seemingly very little vision, she was unable to spot or track items and responded only to her mother's voice. She would cry when she couldn't hear her mother and her early schooling was quite a traumatic experience for her, being immersed in a new and confusing world.

The only relief she had was in one of the school's sensory rooms where she was able to spot and track the lights in the darkened space. She would quieten and focus on looking; taking in the visual stimulus from the lights. This tiny starting point, a glimmer of calm for her, allowed the school staff to build relationships and trust in a place that made sense to her. Gradually, she was able to spend small sessions in the main classroom with people that she had learnt to trust in the safe space of the light room.

Fast forward 14 years and Katherine is able to crawl freely around the classroom, picking up things that she bumps into and exploring them freely.

How will it benefit the Community?

Mayfield School is at the heart of our local community. By improving our facilities, this allows us to run more projects for the wider community by allow more lettings of our specialist facilities ensuring that the members of our community in need receive the support they need.

Mayfield School has strong relationships with organisations such as Water Babies, Play Torbay, JSM Dance, MAD4MUTTS, Links South West Care Homes all of whom use our other facilities to support their fantastic work within the local community.

Our aim is to carry this on and strengthen our support of the local community by helping in more ways.

How can you help us?

We need to raise £31,601 to refurbish the Soft Sensory Room this summer.

Working with a specialist company this room has been individually designed to meet the need of our pupils.

Any support will be greatly received and will forever help our pupils to "thrive".

There are four simple ways to help us reach our target and make this project a reality.

1. Make a donation. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!

4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – please contact Adam Tapp, School Business Manager by using the contact option below.

We appreciate any contribution big or small and we know that together we can make sure our children and the community can have the facilities they need.

Thank you!