9 September 2026
What does it take to make self-regulation part of everyday school life? In this episode of Teach, Oakbank School shares how a whole-school focus on regulation helped shift culture, reduce stigma and keep more students engaged in learning. With support from the Department for Education’s Self-Regulation Service, staff moved from using withdrawal spaces in a reactive way to giving students consistent, practical strategies to use in class. Hear from school leaders about what worked, how they built staff buy-in, and why starting small mattered. From reception to year 12, students are learning to recognise what they need, talk about it confidently and support each other.
Show Notes
The Self-Regulation Service (SRS) is a team of occupational therapists, educators and psychologists that provides a range of options to support schools and preschools develop the self-regulation skills of all learners and create regulating environments that support engagement and participation.
Self-Regulation Service (SRS) – staff login required
Oakbank School
154 Onkaparinga Valley Road Oakbank SA 5243
Transcript
Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today I'm joined by some wonderful people from Oakbank School, as well as a wonderful person from the department. We have Maddy Eccleston, who's Assistant Principal of Inclusion and Wellbeing, and Jasmin Ferraro, who's the school's wellbeing leader, and Carla Koay, who's the occupational therapist from the department's Self-Regulation Service team. Welcome.
Carla Koay, Maddy Eccleston, Jasmin Ferraro: Thank you. Thanks, Dale.
Dale Atkinson: Carla, can we start with you? What is self-regulation? How do we define that in a school environment?
Carla Koay: So, when our team talks about regulation, we define it as the ability to notice and manage your emotions, your attention, your arousal level or your energy levels, in order to be able to match the demands of the situation. And then when we're talking about self-regulation, it's really the ability to be able to do that yourself. However, self-regulation is a developmental skill, and we know that self-regulation capacity is developed through repeated experiences of co-regulation support within a safe and supportive relationship.
So, at school and at preschool, we're not expecting students to be able to self-regulate themselves all the time. We're really supporting them to gradually build that capacity with the support from the adults, the environments, and the culture around them. And we know that supporting regulation in schools is really important because it helps our students to be more ready and available for learning, it helps them with building meaningful relationships, and it also supports them to really engage in the everyday things that they want to do, need to do, or are expected to do at school and also throughout their life.
Dale Atkinson: So it came as a surprise to me, and I've been with the department for 13 years, that we have a self-regulation team. Talk to me about how this came about and the intent of it.
Carla Koay: Our team developed out of the integration of the, what was the OT Service and the Interoception program, and we have since merged to form a team of occupational therapists, psychologists, and educators which supports schools and education sites, so preschools as well, to be able to embed whole-of-site regulation approaches.
Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's such a powerful thing. We might throw now to Maddy and Jasmin. Why was this chosen as a focus for Oakbank School?
Maddy Eccleston: So this all started kind of end of 2024 and start of 2025. We were basically reviewing our whole school culture, processes, and practices. We were looking at all of these different withdrawal spaces that we had that were available to students, and the idea of these spaces. We had a sensory room, a wellbeing space, a supported learning space, which is essentially a reflection room, and a nest, which is a primary sensory space. Amazing spaces, but the idea was that students would come out of class, and then they'd just re-enter into their class and be suddenly ready to learn. And what we were seeing from our behaviour data and from the use of these rooms, the number of students needing to access this withdrawal, and also our WEC data in 2024 that showed that student regulation was really low, we saw that these processes were essentially reactive. And also, when they were in those spaces, they weren't accessing what they needed to then re-engage with their learning. So, we basically went, "How do we get our students in the classes that they need to be in for as much of the day as possible?" and whatever we want to do to shift this focus, we really needed it to build the whole school culture, and we wanted it to be from reception to year 12.
We are an R-12 school, and we really want that consistency all the way through, which will support with transition. We also then want our senior students to be able to support our younger students to know this is what we do at Oakbank and this is who we are. So, at the start of last year with our site learning plan, one of our key focuses on that is persistence and perseverance, and that's all about giving students the tools they actually need to persevere when they're faced with challenges; and then for our students with additional needs, to have the tools that they need to persist when they're just faced with day-to-day challenges as well.
Dale Atkinson: That sounds amazing. Jasmin, you're the wellbeing lead. What's your role in all of this?
Jasmin Ferraro: We did it together, but mine was to also coordinate with teachers and go into classes and support with those teachers and how to deliver this program. Also, as part of my role, they come to places like the wellbeing space, but also the nest and the supported learning space. Before we did this project, they would come to these spaces, as Maddy said, and they would sit there, we would do our normal process, but now we've actually embedded, when they come here, we ask them, "What regulation strategy did you use? Do we need to use another one?" And we make it normalised. It's a normal thing in our school culture now to speak about self-regulation.
Dale Atkinson: How are the children and students supported to develop their regulation plans?
Jasmin Ferraro: So as a team, Maddy, myself, and our youth worker, Ryan, we created videos of three regulation strategies a fortnight: one calming, one energised, and one sensory, and we delivered it to our Connect or our home groups for three… for that whole fortnight. We also embedded them in every lesson through brain breaks and movement breaks, so it became something that all students and staff practised for two weeks. At the end of those two weeks, we reviewed those three strategies, so all students ranked them, and we had the same process from reception to year 12. And then by the end of the term, they had been taught 12 strategies, and they chose the three most effective strategies for them and then they became their regulation plans - My Regulation Plans. We had our primary students displaying them in their class on their pencil pots, on their tables, and then we have all of them documented as well in our Day Map. So all students, staff, and families can see the student's My Regulation Plans.
Dale Atkinson: What are you observing that's different in the way the students behave and manage themselves in the classroom as a result of this?
Maddy Eccleston: We've got huge shifts in the data, which I know no one's as excited about as I am. But aside from the data, we are getting, we've actually sought out a bunch of testimonials, not only from staff, but also from the students at our site, and consistently they're telling us that the classes feel more predictable. We've got more processes in place. It's also the ability to uphold high expectations, because when students do need to access regulation, there is a process for that. So if we're seeing a student is unable to match their energy level or their emotional state to the task that's at hand, they have the tools there to go, "Okay, well what can we do instead?" And they can have that conversation with the child in front of them, or they can go, "Actually, I can see that we've got a whole group of year nines right now that probably need a bit of movement. How about we all get up and do our X's and O's together?" And then the process from there would be identifying those key students and what are their needs from there. So I guess, the processes are much clearer, so students feel empowered to access what they need to regulate. They also feel like the staff understand what their needs are a lot better, and the staff feel like they know what the processes are, and that they've got the backing of the whole leadership team, and that everyone is on the same page. So we're getting way more students actually in the class learning, which is amazing.
Dale Atkinson: That's the outcome you're looking for. Now, Jasmin, what you described in developing the program was a really deliberate, systematic approach of consideration, design, evaluation, and some loops. Maddy, how do you create the time and the focus from your educators to achieve that?
Maddy Eccleston: I think this is the big part where Carla and the Wellbeing for Learning project came in. We've also been really lucky to be connected with Berry Street, and we've been doing consultations with Judy Hilton primarily, which is funded through the TASi [Trauma Informed Schools Initiative] team, and that just provided space and time for myself and Jas, and for Lee Knight, our principal, and also for Ryan, our youth worker, to come together and go, "Okay, we've got this idea. This is what we want. This is the goal we're working towards. How can we actually make this happen?" And then also talk to the experts in this area so that they could give us feedback and tell us if what we were planning was realistic and do-able. So that gave us a lot of time and space.
I guess as far as the educators at our site went, working in education, there is no one in a school who's like, "Oh yeah, I've got heaps of time. I'd love to pick up an extra thing. That sounds great." So, we were really intentional when we were planning this, we went, we have to be able to hand these resources over to our staff and go, "You just need to present this." And how we did that, as Jas said, we made these videos, and we had the PowerPoints that went out each fortnight, and what we asked our staff to do was basically to learn these strategies alongside their classes. So, in the Connect classes, which are our home groups, they watched the videos, and then they practised them with the students. Which I'm an 11-12 teacher, so standing up in front of year 11s and year 12s, you've got 18-year-olds in front of you, and you bet that we are up there doing Xs and Os, and they love rolling their eyes and going, "This is ridiculous, Miss." But they still did it, and it was all about our staff. They were incredible. They followed us with complete confidence, even when we were asking them to do things that were at times quite embarrassing and quite vulnerable. And for some of them, probably doesn't align with their practice or their beliefs, but because we told them why we were doing it, and we did develop that whole culture of this is gonna be everyone - everyone is going to be doing this. Our staff have been incredible, and I think being able to hand them the resources and say, "Let's just give this a go," is what made it work.
Dale Atkinson: Yeah, man, you're really surfing the wave when you've got everyone buying in like that. That's, that sounds incredible. Carla, how hands-on are you guys in terms of supporting these processes? What is it that you do when you work with the schools?
Carla Koay: Often with schools, we are coming out and facilitating professional development and then engaging in what we call practice support. So we might be working with leadership and key drivers on site at the school and supporting educators to engage in reflective practice sessions.
It was a little bit different in the case of the Wellbeing for Learning project, and I have to speak to the vision of Leesa Shepherd and Lee Munn from the Mount Barker 1 portfolio and the LET team, the local education team. We really partnered to work in a multi-site way, where their vision was around bringing together multiple sites within the portfolio to engage in shared learning and in order to be able to share their practice.
So, our team's role in that process was to really bring the sites together, be a sounding board, but also to lift up and to encourage sharing of practice across the sites. And really, it was about those key drivers, we call them change champions, from each site, like Maddy and Jas and Ryan, to be able to support each other.
Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's incredible. That's really exciting. Jasmin, you obviously do a lot of work with the kids. What are some examples of the personal journey that you've seen them go on? What are the success stories?
Jasmin Ferraro: Oh, there has been so many, and it's just so amazing to see such a culture shift with not only staff, but with the students as well. So as Maddy said, we've got year 11s and 12s who might roll their eyes, but they still do it, and they're actually talking about it and normalising it. Some of the stories that stand out for me was a few weeks ago, we did have the Wellbeing for Learning project educators come out to our site as like a spotlight, and as we walked around the school, we went into the reception and year one/two class, so five, six and seven-year-olds, and as part of the tour, they were able to talk to the students, and some of our year ones and twos were standing there telling all these educators what self-regulation is, how it helps them, and also saying, because we've introduced a few new strategies this term, telling them that, "Hey I learnt a new strategy, and I want to swap this strategy on my plan to a new one that I've learnt."
We've also got a reception student who has some challenging behaviour sometimes, but when he sees someone else in his class needing to regulate, he's often tapping or getting that person's attention and co-regulating with them. So he's the one that's leading that regulation strategy. He's a student that was in mid-year last year, so he was part of this program the last year and a bit, and this new student was at the start of this year, and he's sitting there showing him “smell the flower and blow out the candle” breathing techniques in the middle of an assembly, a school site assembly, like a R to 12 one, and he's sitting there at the front quietly getting this person's attention and then smelling the flower and blowing out the candle, which was amazing.
But Maddy's got one of the really highlight ones as well.
Maddy Eccleston: So we have one particular current year 10 boy, and as you can imagine, year nines were probably one of the most resistant cohorts last year. And he's your classic disengaged, challenging behaviours in the classroom, was frequently being exited from the classroom, I'd say almost in every lesson there were behaviour issues going on at the time. And I think for him, having this project that went, you can access all of these resources inside the classroom, and then if you need co-regulation, here is a specific place that you can go to get that. Now our sensory room, I guess traditionally there was a bit of stigma around the sensory room is for some students, it's not for all students. And I think he was the pivotal person that changed the perception of most of our male middle school students. And now we have a huge number of the boys who are your traditional behaviour boys who now access our sensory room for co-regulation. So he would come up there and he would check in. One of his strategies was that he would just go for a mindful walk. That's what he needed. He just needed space and time to get out of the classroom. But part of that process was you still go and check in with an SSO and have that opportunity to debrief or access co-regulation if needed. And in doing that, he formed this incredible connection with our amazing SSO staff and with myself, because my office is up in that room. And we just saw a complete change in who this child was. And this year as we were seeking testimonials, he said that through this process, he knows that every single teacher knows what he needs to access if he's not coping in the classroom, that he doesn't feel like he's scared to ask for what he needs because he's able to go, "I need this right now." And they go, "Yeah, no worries. Absolutely." We haven't had pretty much any behavioural incidents. Very, very rare. We haven't had him being exited from the classroom because when he needs to access that additional support, he can. And he's just one of many. I think the culture shift and the shift in stigma around accessing this sort of support, and also the fact that it's normal to have to regulate.
We've stood up in front of assemblies and talked about our regulation processes. The other day we had subject selections, and I overheard one of our learning culture leaders talking to a family about the New Caledonia trip that they're going on, and the girl's quite nervous about flying, and she was saying, "Oh, yeah, myself and Miss Eccleston, we both have these regulation strategies. Neither of us are good flyers, and this is what we do." I sit in on a lot of parent meetings, and our primary staff, three of our primary staff are new this year, so they weren't here when we rolled it out, and sitting in on those meetings, they're all talking to families about regulation strategies, and it really is just a part of who we are at Oakbank and how we support children. And it's really nice to hear the parents talking about, "Oh, yeah, they're doing this at home as well." It’s been really exciting.
Jasmin Ferraro: The students are now the experts. So that’s what we found when we went on that tour. The students are teaching their families and other students about regulation strategies. Whereas adults, I tend to find that we just do them not realising it, whereas the students are really the experts now, which is great.
Dale Atkinson: And it's always the kids that drive that cultural change, and what you describe there is cultural change. It's such a powerful, incredible thing. Maddy, for sites who, leaders who might be listening to this and thinking “I don't know how this could apply to my site. My cohort of kids is different and difficult," what would your message to them be?
Maddy Eccleston: Honestly, come out and have a bit of a chat to us. We certainly, we don't have an easy site. If you look at our WEC data, we are fighting a bit of an uphill battle, but it's been so rewarding. It is about getting staff buy-in. That is where it starts, and also not starting with something huge.
This has become a massive project. We have all sorts of legs that have come out of this. We've got parents and friends group who have now applied for a grant to do a regulation garden to support transition. We have a whole new nest process down in the primary sensory space. We have all sorts of things around the school that have grown from this, but ultimately, all we were trying to do was give some students a few tools that they could draw upon and introduce them to the idea of self-regulation. That was all we were trying to do, and it's evolved from there.
So I think if there are sites that do want to take this on and are concerned about I guess student buy-in and staff buy-in, it's about being really thoughtful about who your champions are gonna be for this. So at the time when we started making those videos, we made the decision to have myself and Ryan feature in them. I teach senior school, so I have that connection really strongly with those cohorts, and then Ryan as our youth worker obviously has a fantastic connection with our students across the site. So I think it's about finding the people that the students and the staff are going to connect with and are going to be willing to follow, because if you can get them on board, then that's gonna be whether it works or not.
Dale Atkinson: Carla, I might give the final word to you. What advice do you offer for schools who are looking to take this journey?
Carla Koay: I would invite them to, say, reach out to Oakbank as a great example. I was on that tour and it was just incredible to see the impact that this work has had at the site. I would also encourage them to check out the Self-Regulation Service intranet page. We have a lot of information there about our service, and we love partnering with sites to support them to engage in work that supports regulation, and also encourage, we're very happy to have conversations about working at the portfolio level. So, in terms of the Wellbeing for Learning project, we do, are starting to work more frequently in that way, in that multi-site way with a number of sites across the state.
Dale Atkinson: Amazing, and of course, the contact details for Carla and her team and the Self-Regulation Service will be in the show notes.
Maddy, Jasmin, Carla, thank you very much for your time.
Carla Koay, Maddy Eccleston, Jasmin Ferraro: Thanks. Thank you. Thanks, Dale.
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