The Spotlight Resource

The Spotlight Resource was originally created to support transition planning from nursery to primary school. Early years practioners, personal support assistants, and Primary 1 class teachers will find ideas and strategies to meet the needs for whole classes of learners or individuals.  

Before your Primary 1 class or learner begins school, use the CIRCLE checklist(s) to assess your physical environment. Use your assessment to explore the area of Spotlight that might improve inclusion. For example, there are many ideas on Spotlight to develop the sensory environment.

Alternatively, despite your best efforts, you may experience difficulties in including a learner in the daily routine of your class. Use your experiences of these difficulties, alongside CIRCLE checklists when necessary, to target areas of change. Common topics are covered in Spotlight, for example, transition, engagement, and communication.

Using your knowledge of your class or learner, you can select one or two ideas that are worth trying, then observe and record what difference they make.

Spotlight can be a valuable resource to support an individual learner’s needs. 

You can use it with the CIRCLE framework, particularly the checklists which identify different barriers to learning. Spotlight gives you useful information across different areas (environment, motivation, structure and routines and skills) that can be supportive in assessing and removing some of those barriers for individuals. 

It can be used to inform the creation of targets for an individual. Some schools have found it useful to see possible adaptations of the environment that proved to be helpful in other settings, these often include pictures of how this was implemented across different schools. Spotlight also offers easy access to external resources and information on different needs a child may have as well as practical examples of how those needs may be supported.  

The resource can be used flexibly to support staff professional learning in Twilight sessions or In-Service days.

Planned activity time can be used to explore all or a selection of the topics depending on staff interests and/or identified school, group or individual priorities.

For example, the ‘Sensory’ section will enrich staff understanding about learners’ sensory needs. It could be used to help plan improvements to existing school sensory spaces. 

Additionally, the ‘Motivation’ section might be used to consider good practice for promoting engagement.  This could involve staff pairs collaborating to consider what might be changed to lengthen meaningful engagement for an individual learner whose participation at school could be improved.