Autism Awareness sees SA Teacher Nominated for Global Teacher Prize

Rosie Connelly has been labouring away as a Year 3 Highly Accomplished Teacher and Autism Inclusion Lead at Playford Primary School in SA and she has achieved a lot for her students in the promotion of a neurodivergent friendly environment.

But largely unbeknownst to the early career teacher, her efforts were noted and won the attention of the million-dollar Global Teacher Prize judges.

Using the Berry Street Education Model, Rosie has created a supportive and trauma-informed positive classroom. This has led to a decrease in disruptive behaviour and helped students develop interoception skills, so they could better self-regulate. From this foundation, Rosie implemented successful literacy and numeracy initiatives, providing her students with individual learning goals inclusive of a positive learning environment.

She has introduced quiet sensory play, which fosters interoception and she proactively shares contemporary evidence-based resources with fellow educators, and strategies for families to help further foster self-regulation. Ms Connelly not only teaches in her own classroom but also supports colleagues and students across the school.

“One of my key contributions is sharing evidence-based resources with staff to help support students with autism. This includes Sensory Profiles, which are individualised to address the specific sensory needs of each student. These profiles provide tailored strategies to support sensory regulation, ultimately promoting positive behavioural outcomes.

“I am deeply passionate in advocating a strong sense of belonging for all students in the classroom. I believe that there are reasons behind challenging behaviour, and the more we understand those reasons, the more we can do to promote a positive schooling experience. My interest is my passion for advocating for all students."

Towards gaining the Autism Inclusion Lead role she undertook Targeted Professional Development, familiarising her with the sensory profile area that students may fall under. The profile areas include: Sensory Sensitive (have small cups which can overflow quickly, creating sensory overwhelm - loud noises/ bright lights etc), Sensory Avoiding (try to control how much water goes into their cup to avoid it overflowing - will withdraw themselves), Registration (have a big cup but don't actively fill it up), and Sensory Seeking (try to seek out a lot of sensory information to fill their cup).

“Therefore if a child with autism has a sensory sensitive profile, my suggested strategies would include having dim lights, not seating the child near a door or window to avoid distraction etc. If they are a sensory seeking profile, they would be recommended to have a wobble stool for movement, tactile fidgets etc,” Connelly says.

“Within South Australia, all Autism Inclusion Teachers meet regularly within online network meetings. During these meetings, we share new resources and programs, as well as build our own professional learning capacity toward the best practice to meet the needs of our students.”

In promoting autism awareness and strategies to counteract it, Connelly has seen a large decrease of behavioural challenges from students.

“This has been aligned strongly with providing specific sensory profiles which are individualised and have been actioned. For example, a student who required sensory seeking intervention, had benefited strongly academically with being more engaged with hands-on learning, access to sensory fidgets, interoception, and overall enjoyment in coming to school. 

“This is also led to the child having a significant decrease of behaviour. This was also due to the student not needing to mask, which means they had not become dysregulated. This is due to their sensory needs enabling them to stay regulated, promoting engagement in learning and decrease of behaviour.”

The nomination for the Global Teacher Prize is an amazing achievement, there is the money of course but also the acknowledgement that the Australian teacher as put upon and pilloried as they are rank among the best in the world.

“I am incredibly humbled to receive this nomination, and I truly hope I can use this as an opportunity to continue to advocate for an inclusive learning environment for all students. I just love being a teacher, and awards like this are incredibly fulfilling and make me very grateful to do what I love each day.”