Ajuga School is a K-12 special school situated within a large acreage of farmland in the Glenfield Network of Schools.
Our school is a setting that invests in relationships and provides space and time to create, sustain and repair connections with students and their families.
We empower our students to better understand how thoughts and feelings drive our behaviour and we help our students to understand and label their emotions, reframe and develop in ways that increase their capacity to make positive choices.
Whilst our students may join the Ajuga School community with a history of complex trauma and/or Autism, we are strongly committed to ensuring that this does not define who they are nor limit their potential to develop new skills and competencies towards becoming life-long curious learners.
Classes
Ajuga School currently has nine established classes (five primary and four secondary) and, and also manages the Glenfield Return to School program. Each class has the capacity of seven students and is staffed with a classroom teacher and a School Learning and Support Officer. The majority of our students maintain a census school placement whilst enrolled at Ajuga School, transitioning back (at a minimum) each Wednesday. On average, students in this program are at Ajuga for 18 months. We have 14 five-day placements, with Ajuga as the census school.
Trauma Responsive Education
Previously we identified as a school using a trauma-informed model and are proud to now be recognised as trauma-responsive. A trauma-informed model takes into account trauma and develops plans for what that looks like. A trauma-responsive model seeks to anticipate the potential existence of trauma so that its effect can be appropriately addressed at all levels of an organisation.
Ajuga School seeks to provide a safe, secure and relational environment. By doing so, we provide a climate most appropriate to foster opportunities for student growth in the socio-emotional, interpersonal, and academic domains.
Crucial to this is staff understanding of neurobiology and how brains develop, and the potential impact of complex trauma on brain development and behaviour. As we become more familiar with the impact of trauma on both learning and behaviour, we are developing an understanding of the increased need for explicit teaching of social-emotional learning.
Flight / Fight / Freeze Responses
When many of our students commence at Ajuga School they have developed a strong physiological threat response to perceived threats of harm: fight, flight, freeze. Their Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is activated unconsciously For some, their stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol are released, their heart rate and blood pressure increase, their breathing speeds up, and they become prepared to fight or flee. For others, heart rate, breathing rate and blood pressure all reduce and they may faint. As such, their capacity for higher-order thinking and more sophisticated thought processes becomes reduced.
The first step Ajuga School makes when welcoming new students into our setting is developing a safe space where students encounter unconditional positive regard. We create an environment that is safe, fosters belonging, recognises, acknowledges and celebrates each individual student’s skills.