ADHD
ADHD
ADHDEmbedded Support for Elementary, Middle & High School Education
Students with ADHD have difficulty regulating attention, which can make school especially challenging. At McLean School, we not only accept that students with ADHD have unique minds, but we also appreciate them for it. Students with ADHD often have tremendous strengths, such as creativity, an ability to hyperfocus, and a natural ability to think out of the box. A biological condition, ADHD, presents differently depending on age and stage of development, as well as setting, situation, and circumstance. As students mature, we help them to utilize their toolbox of strategies that work best for their ADHD needs. Some students with ADHD may use a lot of energy to monitor their focus and impulsivity to get through the day, and at McLean, we have strategies and systems in place to help our students be successful. In addition, our school-wide emphasis on Mindfulness is highly effective in helping students calm their nervous systems, reduce stress, and increase focus in school and in life.
There are lots of ways we make our classrooms and lessons ADHD-friendly, from “chunking” assignments into more manageable parts to encouraging students to use flexible seating or get out of their seats and move around the classroom to built-in breaks and recess five days a week in our Lower and Middle School as well as PE every day from kindergarten to grade-8. Clear directions and predictable routines help to ease the anxiety that often accompanies ADHD and the feeling of being overwhelmed, which leads some students to shut down and others to ramp up. Other accommodations among the many we use include extended time on tests, seating in proximity to instruction in classes with a low student-to-teacher ratio of 5:1, ability to take breaks when needed, use of fidget tools, teacher or peer notes, graphic organizers, and verbal and visual cues.
In addition to a positive setting, however, we believe the most effective support for children with ADHD in school is connection and understanding. At McLean, students with ADHD succeed because they know we believe in them—and we help them believe in themselves. Our students learn how they learn best, self-advocacy skills, and the grit and resilience that will enable them to succeed in college and beyond.
