Well when we first came into the kindergarten, we did have a couple of one-on-one meetings with Sue to discuss where he was at and maybe some of the developmental difficulties that

Elijah was going to have and was having.

But then we were able to say, okay, well, Kindy takes children from where they're at and works with them with their strengths and helps to support where they need the support.

And so it was quite easy working with Sue, organising how we can do that for Elijah.

The attitude was all about supporting, being positive, being able to do things.

It wasn't a focus on what he couldn't do, but rather on what he could do.

When I met with his parents, we needed to think about the sorts of adjustments that would make his entry into kindergarten successful.

So it needed to be successful both for him, for his family, but also it needs to work for all the other children and the families as well.

So some of the practical things were thinking about how would we manage his physical needs because he has some additional needs around routine things like toileting and eating to make sure that we meet his needs in those areas.

Elijah tires more quickly so that as he's getting towards the end of the morning, he needs to be eating lunch a little bit earlier than the others.

So I've just adjusted the routine slightly because his motor skills need that he needs sometimes a little bit of help to do some of the physical types of things.

I make sure that there's always some climbing that's achievable for him to do.

I'm also a little bit conscious of not having too many obstacles around on the floor that he has to negotiate.

Some of the adjustments that we make are to make sure that Elijah's included in our group activities.

So typically in group time, we'd be doing things like discussions, talking about what's happening and so for Elijah, that could be a challenge.

So what we do is we make sure that we do lots of learning experiences in group time that allow him to be included.

So things like singing, doing lots of movement games, letting him be the person who chooses children to go off to the bathroom, things where he can use, where he's not having to use language but he can do things physically to indicate his participation.

What we do all the time is make adjustments for children's individual needs and so that is what you're doing when you have a child with additional needs.

You're just thinking about what are their needs, how can I support this child to feel comfortably in our group, to access all the things that we do at kindergarten.

That might mean some practical changes in your routine but essentially it's just what we do as teachers.