A Celebration of Neurodiversity

This week, we are proudly celebrating Neurodiversity Celebration Week, a national movement that recognises and values the unique ways in which we all think and learn.

Across Truro School Prep and Senior, pupils have been engaging in thought-provoking activities that highlight the strengths and talents of neurodivergent individuals. At Prep, the umbrella of neurodiversity has been a powerful symbol and at Senior, pupils explored divergent thinking through the Fast Creativity Test, challenging their perceptions of how different minds work. Through assemblies, interactive tasks, and insightful discussions, our school community has embraced the importance of understanding, accepting, and celebrating the rich diversity of ways we think and learn.

As part of our celebrations at Prep, pupils were introduced to the umbrella as a symbol of neurodiversity. Each panel of the umbrella represents a different way people think and learn, and the bright colours reflect the joy of embracing our differences.

Under this umbrella are all of us, including those who are autistic, have ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or are neurotypical. Some people excel at maths, some love art, some find reading tricky, and others are amazing problem-solvers, but together, we create a rich and diverse learning community.

In Prep assemblies, pupils explored neurodiversity through the stories of inspiring figures such as Greta Thunberg, who is autistic, and Simone Biles, who has ADHD, both of whom have used their unique strengths to make a global impact. 

From EYFS through to Year 6, pupils have been encouraged to reflect on their individual strengths and what makes them unique and amazing. More importantly, we have been fostering a culture of kindness, acceptance, and appreciation for others. Prep SENDCo, Mrs Waddling-Height, asked pupils to consider how we can go beyond simply understanding different challenges and instead show kindness and support. She emphasised that what might be easy for one person can be difficult for another.

True kindness comes from accepting people as they are, without judgment, and offering support when they need it. Mrs Waddling-Height challenged pupils when they see someone struggling, they should ask themselves: How can I help? How can I show that I care?

As this is our Year of Creativity across Truro School, class groups have been celebrating in a vibrant and artistic way. Pupils at Prep have been creating umbrella artwork that represents their individual strengths, with colourful raindrops displaying their unique talents. This activity encouraged them to think about what makes them stand out, as well as the kind of support they need to be their very best. 

Mrs. Waddling-Height also led discussions about the different support systems available to pupils, such as pupil passports, coloured overlays, learning tools like Nessy and Numbots, time with learning support or pastoral teachers, extra time in assessments, rest breaks, and the use of laptops. It has been wonderful to see pupils making use of these tools to help them thrive, particularly as they complete their Spring assessments this week. 

At Truro School, we encourage all our pupils to be neurodiversity champions by supporting and celebrating friends who think and learn differently. Being different isn’t a problem; it makes the world a richer, more interesting, and more wonderful place. 

To end the week, local SEN Outreach Practitioner Becca Reed from the Special Partnership Trust, delivered a talk that spoke about the importance of understanding and embracing neurodiversity, offering insights into different ways neurodivergent individuals experience the world, as well as practical strategies to support neurodivergent children both at school and at home. 

The Senior School have also been learning more about neurodiversity this week, with a focus on the Divergent Association Task (DAT), a psychological test designed to measure verbal creativity and divergent thinking, which would enable a person to generate diverse solutions to open-ended problems.

In form time, pupils were challenged with a task from the DAT: Fast Creativity Test. Each form had to list ten nouns that have the greatest distance between them. For example, window and door are clearly linked, whereas, pineapple and photocopier are not. These two nouns would, therefore, score higher on the test.

This challenge was a fantastic way for our Senior School community to quickly understand diversity within thought and helped to remove preconceptions around neurodiversity.

As Academic and Animal Behaviourist Temple Grandin said, “We’ve got to be thinking about all these different kinds of minds, and we’ve got to absolutely work with these kinds of minds because we are absolutely going to need these kinds of people in the future.”

Thank you to all of the staff across both sites who have led these activities and to our pupils who have embraced this important topic this week.