SEND and SEN resources for teachers and TAs — visual timetables, Engagement Model guides, free CPD training, a speech & language library and printable activities.
Sensory Spark brings the SEND resources teachers and TAs actually reach for into one place: visual supports, Engagement Model and questioning guides, a 42-activity speech and language library, and printable, zero-prep activities you can use in the next lesson.
Free interactive CPD courses for TAs and school staff — real scenarios, practice tasks, quizzes and printable certificates, starting with Behaviour is Communication. Build confidence across your team at no cost.
Sourcing effective SEND resources is a primary challenge for educators across the UK, who must differentiate lessons for a wide range of learning needs. Access to high-quality, practical sen resources ensures that teachers, SENCOs, and teaching assistants can support every child without spending hours planning from scratch. Sensory Spark provides a national online hub of evidence-based send teaching resources designed to promote inclusion and active engagement. These professional-grade special educational needs resources include tactile planning guides, communication templates, and digital cause-and-effect games. By utilising structured frameworks, school staff can spend less time creating materials and more time delivering direct, high-impact support to learners with complex educational and sensory needs, ensuring every child makes progress and feels valued in their learning environment.
Predictability is crucial for pupils with learning difficulties, who may experience intense anxiety when routines change without warning. Implementing a clear, consistent visual timetable is one of the most effective strategies to support daily transitions and lower stress. A visual timetable uses simple symbols or photos to represent the sequence of the day, helping learners understand what is expected of them. Our free visual supports, including physical templates and our digital First-Then tool, make it simple to establish this structure in any classroom. For more individualised profiles, our premium apps Speak Spark AAC and All About Me are available for nine pounds ninety-nine per year to create bespoke communication aids, allowing educators to transition pupils smoothly between different activities and foster independent choice-making.
Creating meaningful special needs activities requires an understanding of a learner's sensory profile and communication level. To help educators, Sensory Spark provides a forty-two activity Speech & Language library and an AI Sensory Activity Generator with ten free credits to draft customised session plans. Whether you are running fine motor tasks, sensory stories, or early communication groups, these tools provide practical, step-by-step guidance. Differentiating special needs activities ensuring that they are motivating and accessible helps build student confidence, encourages active participation, and supports the achievement of individualised education plan (IEP) targets across all Key Stages, including SLD and neurodiverse cohorts. It enables teaching assistants to deliver highly targeted support during individual or small-group sessions, enhancing educational outcomes.
For learners working below the standard of the national curriculum and not engaged in subject-specific study, progress must be assessed using the statutory Engagement Model. Educators can design specific engagement model activities that observe and measure five key areas: exploration, realisation, anticipation, persistence, and initiation. Our free professional guides on the Engagement Model, Individualised Communication Wheels (ICWs), and structured questioning help teachers capture these subtle stages of progress. To support staff development, our free CPD training programme, 'Behaviour is Communication', is also available online. For any questions or implementation support, please contact our team directly at support@sensoryspark.co.uk.
The free EYFS sensory curriculum
SEN budgets rarely stretch far enough, so audit what is free before spending anything. List what your pupils actually need this term — communication support, regulation, assessment evidence or curriculum access — and match each need to a free option first. Free browser sensory games needing no signup can cover regulation and engagement across a whole class. Free guides on the Engagement Model, information-carrying words and questioning support planning and moderation. Free CPD such as the Behaviour is Communication session develops staff without a course fee. Only then look at low-cost paid SEND resources: our speech, language and communication tools cost £9.99 a year each or £20 a year as a bundle, and the full curriculum packages are £99 — one-off costs a small resource fund can absorb, and considerably less than a single day of supply cover. Write the comparison into your resources request; it makes a stronger case than a wishlist. If you are unsure which option suits a particular pupil or provision, email support@sensoryspark.co.uk and we will point you to the right place.
The Engagement Model asks you to look for evidence in five areas — initiation, exploration, persistence, anticipation and realisation — and each one suggests its own activities. For initiation, set out an appealing resource and wait: does the learner reach for it themselves? Sensory bins with hidden objects, or an open game like Touch Garden, invite that first independent move. For exploration, choose activities that can be investigated in several ways — a texture tray, or Weather Maker, where every input changes the scene. Persistence grows when success comes in small steps, so pick tasks with a clear end point such as Sort It Out. Anticipation is built through rhythm and pause: Copy My Beat, "ready, steady…" waits, or First-Then boards that show what is coming next. Realisation — the moment a learner grasps that their action caused the effect — needs activities with immediate, obvious payoffs like Feed Me. Record what you see in each area rather than grading the pupil, and use the free Engagement Model guide to structure your observations for moderation discussions with colleagues and parents.
See the free EYFS sensory curriculum
Many pupils described as having behaviour or concentration difficulties are actually struggling with the language of the classroom, and small changes make an outsized difference. Give instructions in short chunks — one piece of information at a time, in the order you want it done. Cut padding words: "sit" is easier to process than "can you pop and sit down for me please". Add visual support so meaning does not rest entirely on listening: a visual timetable for the day, a First-Then layout for the next step, a gesture alongside your words. Teach new vocabulary with real objects and photographs before moving to symbols. Our free guides on information-carrying words show how to build understanding steadily from one-word instructions upward, and the free Speech and Language library contains 42 activities mapped to early communication goals, ready to slot into intervention time without extra preparation. When you respond to a child's language, repeat their message back in a simple, well-formed sentence rather than asking them to copy you, and leave generous wait time — a slow, silent count of ten — before stepping in.
Discover our sensory activities for autism
Resources help on the day. Training changes what happens every day after it. The CPD platform runs twenty-six interactive modules for teaching assistants, teachers and support staff, built around branching classroom simulations rather than slides, with printable tools and referenced certificates for your training record. Module 1, Behaviour is Communication, is free to try with no sign-up, and it is the one most staff say reframes the rest. The full platform is a £99 annual school licence covering unlimited staff.
Much of what looks like poor behaviour in a classroom is a message about a demand, the environment or a missing way to communicate. Our guide sets out the four questions worth asking before you respond, and links to a free CPD module on it.
If your team wants training rather than another printable, Module 1 of Sensory Spark Training is free with no sign-up: a fifteen-minute branching scenario on reading behaviour as communication, with a quiz and a printable certificate. The rest of the 26-module pathway is a £99-a-year school licence for unlimited staff, and there are dedicated pages on SEN training for teaching assistants and autism training for teachers.
Start the free training module
Email: support@sensoryspark.co.uk
Address: United Kingdom
Use the free games as sensory breaks or cause-and-effect sessions on the whiteboard, plan activities with the AI Sensory Activity Generator (10 free credits), and draw on the 42-activity Speech and Language library and the free guides to the Engagement Model, ICWs and questioning.
Yes. The free sensory games suit early years and primary learners, and the SPARK 11+ arcade is designed for learners aged 11 to 19, so older pupils get age-appropriate games rather than toddler-style content.
Email support@sensoryspark.co.uk with any question about the games, the curriculum, the CPD training or the paid tools, and the team will come back to you.