You can get 20% off Sarah’s book - Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom until 31 December 2025 using the code 25EFLY3 at https://www.routledge.com/ 

Teacher and author Sarah Lathan joins me to unpack what a trauma-informed classroom looks like in practice. Drawing on 15 years across additional needs and mainstream contexts, Sarah explains how understanding child development, the brain and the nervous system translates into day-to-day decisions about routines, responses and relationships.

We get into what “trauma-informed” actually means, we tackle common misconceptions (“isn’t this just being soft?”) and make the case that staff wellbeing and school culture are the real enablers. From practical tools to system conditions, this episode is about moving beyond quick fixes and committing to the steady, relational work that supports all learners.

In this episode

• Sarah’s journey through teaching to writing Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom

• What “trauma-informed” really means 

• Why safety is both physical and emotional, often located in people, not just places

• Holding boundaries without abandoning nurture; dispelling the “softness” myth

• Practical tools

• Pupil voice as genuine agency (not a tick-box) and simple ways to surface it

• Primary vs secondary realities: time, relationships, developmental lens and phone policies

• Culture and values: trust, communication, non-exclusion approaches, working with families

• Staff wellbeing as a condition for relationship-led practice

• Playing the long game: prevention, patience and accepting natural “dips in the graph”
  

Referenced in this conversation

You can get 20% off Sarah’s book - Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom until 31 December 2025 using the code 25EFLY3 at https://www.routledge.com/ 

• Nurture principles 

• The Resilience documentary

• Pixar’s Inside Out (Joy, Sadness & Bing Bong clip for emotions coaching)

• LEGO “Build to Express”-style activities for pupil voice