'FASD Informed' Mainstream School
Updated: Oct 17
Equip staff with practical classroom strategies they can use straight away, including clearer communication, visual support, task breakdown, meaningful processing time and co-regulation, to reduce overwhelm, increase consistency and help children affected by prenatal alcohol exposure and FASD feel safer, participate more fully and access learning.
Give your team the shared understanding, practical tools and confidence to recognise vulnerability earlier, reduce misunderstanding and improve outcomes. The FASD Informed™ School Programme provides an evidence-informed framework for responding to learning, regulation, communication, adaptive functioning, emotional wellbeing and safeguarding needs.
Whether your school is beginning its FASD-informed journey or strengthening established practice, we help staff translate neurodevelopmental understanding into realistic, consistent support across the school day.
Designed for classroom teams and whole-school communities
This programme is for everyone who helps children feel safe, understood and able to learn: teachers, teaching assistants, SENCOs, headteachers, senior leaders, designated safeguarding leads, therapists, school nurses, counsellors, reception and administration teams, lunchtime and playtime staff, volunteers, technical staff and direct student-support professionals.
A different lens
FASD-informed practice begins with a simple but powerful shift:
“What does this child or young person need?”
rather than
“What is wrong with this child or young person?”
This reframing moves teams beyond behaviour-led assumptions and towards support that is thoughtful, compassionate, preventative and effective.
Why schools choose this programme
FASD can have a profound, lifelong effect on learning, regulation, communication, memory, sensory processing, adaptive functioning and emotional wellbeing. Without informed support, needs may be missed, misread or mislabelled.
Prenatal alcohol exposure rarely sits in isolation. Overlapping developmental, sensory, communication, health and safeguarding needs can leave support feeling complex or stuck. We help teams understand the meaning behind a child’s presentation, reduce executive and sensory load, and build responsive plans that improve consistency, participation and safety.
Delivery is tailored around your setting and the children and young people you support, connecting theory with practical classroom strategies, therapeutic thinking and whole-school systems.
Four stages of practical, progressive learning
Delivered through live, online, bite-sized sessions, the programme is designed around the realities of school life. Flexible options include delivery during or outside school hours and on INSET days.
Stage 1: Understanding FASD
Build a shared foundation. Explore what FASD is, how prenatal alcohol exposure can affect the developing brain and nervous system, and why these differences influence learning, behaviour and everyday functioning. Teams learn to look beyond behaviour, identify possible brain-based needs and use a simple “can’t yet, not won’t” lens. Practical strategies include mapping a child’s strengths and vulnerabilities, noticing patterns across the day, identifying triggers and protective factors, adjusting expectations to developmental rather than chronological age, and using curiosity-led reflection before deciding how to respond.
Stage 2: Translating theory into practice
Turn understanding into action. Explore processing speed, curriculum access, practical differentiation and communication approaches that make learning easier to understand and respond to. Staff learn to recognise receptive and expressive communication differences, reduce the length and complexity of spoken language, allow meaningful processing time, use visual cues and consistent wording, and check understanding without increasing pressure. Practical strategies include giving one instruction at a time, pairing spoken language with visual prompts, using “show me” rather than repeated questioning, pre-teaching key vocabulary, breaking tasks into achievable steps, offering supported choices, reducing unnecessary written load, building in planned regulation pauses and using a consistent adult as an external brain. These immediately usable approaches help prevent communication breakdown, reduce frustration and support children and young people across a wide spectrum of need.
Stage 3: Forward planning and transitions
Anticipate emerging needs, prepare for change and strengthen transitions. Teams learn to plan backwards from likely pressure points, reduce uncertainty and make change more visible and predictable. Practical strategies include visual transition plans, now-and-next prompts, countdowns, advance visits, photographs of unfamiliar people or places, transition objects, rehearsal of new routines, consistent handover language and a named adult to support switching. Staff also learn to create Plan A, Plan B and recovery options, allow extra processing time after change, and share essential information with families and professionals so that support remains consistent in the short and longer term.
Stage 4: Quality standards, safeguarding and multi-agency practice
Embed good practice across the setting. Strengthen personalised planning, risk assessment, safeguarding, reflective practice and multi-agency working to build a consistent, informed and FASD-responsive culture. Teams learn to develop clear one-page profiles, identify executive, communication, sensory and suggestibility-related risks, record reasonable adjustments, agree early-warning signs and create proportionate prevention and response plans. Practical strategies include structured staff reflection, shared scripts, named responsibilities, regular plan reviews, child-centred information sharing, preparation before multi-agency meetings and clear escalation routes when needs or risks increase.
What your team will gain
Shared, strengths-based language for understanding neurodevelopmental need, including external brain, dysmaturity, sporadic mastery, executive load, co-regulation and processing time
Greater confidence in recognising vulnerability, identifying early warning signs and responding before needs escalate
Practical strategies for reducing overwhelm, demand and misunderstanding, including visual supports, simplified language, task breakdown, supported choices, regulation pauses and meaningful processing time
Stronger personalised planning, safeguarding and risk assessment, supported by one-page profiles, early-warning indicators, preventative plans and clear escalation routes
More consistent responses across classrooms, transitions and the wider school day through shared scripts, predictable routines, named adults and coordinated handovers
Tools that strengthen partnership with families and multi-agency professionals, including structured reflection prompts, transition planning, shared information templates and preparation for meetings
All participants receive FASD Informed™ certification and supporting resources. Schools completing all four stages can join our network of FASD Responsive Schools.
Tailored to your setting
No two schools are the same, and no two children present in exactly the same way. Your package is shaped around your context, your team and the needs you are currently trying to meet. Every session is relevant, practical and immediately useful, helping you make progress where support has previously felt complex, reactive or stuck.
The difference it can make
“When we looked more closely, we realised there were 23 children in our school who had been affected by prenatal alcohol exposure. That was a real moment of reflection for us. The training completely changed the way we understood and supported those children, and it made a genuine difference for their parents and carers too.”
Deputy Headteacher & DSL
“This course gave us the confidence to move forward when needs had become overlapping and stuck. It helped our team focus on strengths instead of increasing demand, and that shift made a difference across the child’s whole day. The impact went beyond what we expected and supported more positive outcomes for both school and family.”
Deputy Headteacher & DSL
“This has shifted everything. We became far more attuned to the needs of children with PAE in our school community and transformed the way we think about and support every child. The ‘let’s stop until we start’ model has helped children pause with us, reconnect and begin to access learning in a language that reduces demand. This training brought the change and renewed energy our school needed.”
Headteacher & SENCO
Beyond training: ongoing specialist support
We also offer one-to-one consultation, attendance at meetings for complex or stuck cases, and specialist support for schools embedding a whole-school FASD-responsive approach.
Reserve a placeholder date
Take the next step towards becoming an FASD Responsive School.
To reserve a placeholder date or discuss a bespoke package for your setting, contact info@fasdinformed.co.uk
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