You have the guide. This is the part where your whole team understands it.
Forty minutes, walking through the Retreat Space Practice Pack page by page, so the reasoning behind every decision is shared by everyone in the room rather than held by the one person who bought it.
One payment, GST included. Twelve months of access for your service. Certificate issued to the person enrolled.
The guide tells you what to do. This is you not having to be the one who explains it.
Here is what usually happens. One person buys the resource, reads it properly, and then tries to bring it back to the team in the ten minutes before a meeting ends. The list of what to buy survives the retelling. The reasoning behind it does not. So the space gets built, and it slowly turns back into a quiet corner with a beanbag.
Book the time, print the guide, press play. The professional learning session is already written, and it is not written by you at nine at night.
The same reasoning, in the same words, at the same time. That is what makes a shared approach possible when you are not the educator in the room.
A certificate of completion is issued to you, the person enrolled, once you finish. The session belongs in your professional learning records rather than disappearing into a Tuesday afternoon.
Your guide, page by page.
Every section maps to a page of the Practice Pack, so your team can follow along with the guide open in front of them. Pause between sections if you would rather run it across two meetings.
The case for dedicating floor space to this, in language you can use with your team and your director.
The most important page in the guide, and the framework sitting underneath every other decision you make about the space.
Where the space goes, what to avoid, and the four sensory factors that decide whether it works once it is there.
What to include, with the OT reasoning for every single item. Nothing is on the list because it looks pretty.
Seven things that quietly undo the space, including the one I see most often and consider the most damaging.
How educators introduce and use the space, and the shift from a directive to an invitation.
Six profiles your team will recognise, and what each child needs from the same one space.
How to walk your space with the audit tool, and the three changes to make before children arrive tomorrow.
The retreat space is not the intervention. The educator is.
Which is why the environment is only half of the work, and why the session spends as much time on what your team says and does as it does on cushions and lighting.
A team meeting that changes the room the next morning.
This is designed to be played, not studied. Everything your team needs to act on it is in the guide they already have, and the session ends by sending them into the space rather than back to their notes.
Your service has access for twelve months from purchase. Your licence allows you to play this masterclass for every educator within your service, as many times as you need across that year. You are also welcome to use it as part of onboarding when new team members join. Please keep the recording and your login within your service and do not share them externally.
The certificate of completion is issued to the person who purchased and is enrolled. Your wider team is very welcome to watch and work through the Practice Pack alongside you, though individual certificates are not included for additional team members.
Forty for the session, five to talk. Put it in the calendar as professional learning, because that is what it is.
One per educator if you can. The session refers to the pages constantly, and people follow far better with the guide in their hands.
Nothing to prepare, nothing to present. You get to sit and listen with your team rather than deliver to them.
Take the audit tool on page nine and complete it standing in the space, not sitting at a desk. The two produce very different answers.
Three things you will change before children arrive tomorrow. Not thirty. Three. Subtraction counts as a change.
What your team will be able to do differently.
Emotional safety, predictability, sensory comfort, accessibility and independence. Stand in the space and ask whether it passes all five.
Where the space belongs, where it does not, and the four sensory factors that make the difference once it is set up.
Not a shopping list. A curated set with the OT thinking behind each choice, so your team can make good decisions about what you already own.
Seven things that undo a retreat space, and why starting with subtraction is usually the fastest improvement available to you.
Four scripts for inviting, checking in, supporting independence and welcoming back. Read out loud at a team meeting is how new language becomes natural language.
Six profiles and what each needs from the same space, so personalisation happens without building six different corners.
- You have the Practice Pack and want the rest of your team working from the same understanding of it.
- You are a director, educational leader or nominated supervisor responsible for professional learning, and you would rather not build a session from scratch.
- You are planning with Kindy Uplift or Preschool Boost funds and need something with a certificate attached.
- Your service already has a quiet corner that is not quite working, and you want to know why.
- You want the full science underneath the work. That is Regulation Rituals, eight modules, and this session points you there rather than pretending to cover it.
- You are looking for advice about one particular child. That is a consultation, not a recorded session.
- You have not read the Practice Pack yet. Start there. The masterclass walks through it and assumes you have it open.
One session. Your whole team.
The Retreat Space, explained to everyone at once
- The full forty minute masterclass, in nine sections you can pause between
- Twelve months of access for your service, from the day you purchase
- A viewing licence covering every educator in your service, including new starters
- A certificate of completion issued to you as the enrolled participant
- Designed to be run alongside the Practice Pack you already have
New here and do not have the guide yet? Start with The Retreat Space Practice Pack at $17. The masterclass is the walkthrough of that guide and is designed to be used with it.
Questions worth asking
Do I need the Practice Pack first?
Yes. The masterclass is a walkthrough of that guide, section by section, and it assumes you have it open in front of you. If you do not have it yet, start with the $17 Practice Pack and come back to this.
How long do we have access?
Twelve months from the day you purchase. That is long enough to run it with your team, run it again for anyone who starts partway through the year, and come back to it when you are reviewing the space.
Can I really play it for my whole team?
Yes. Your licence allows you to play this masterclass for every educator within your service, as many times as you need across those twelve months, and you are also welcome to use it as part of onboarding when new team members join. Please keep the recording and your login within your service and do not share them externally.
Is there a certificate?
Yes, one. The certificate of completion is issued to the person who purchased and is enrolled in the masterclass. Once you have finished all the sections, mark the lesson as complete and your certificate will be issued.
Your wider team is very welcome to watch and work through the Practice Pack alongside you, though individual certificates are not included for additional team members.
How long does it take, and can we split it up?
Forty minutes in total, in nine sections. Plenty of services run it across two shorter meetings, pausing after the design principles and picking up at the resources section.
Can we use Kindy Uplift or Preschool Boost funding?
Many services plan professional learning of this kind within those priorities. Services remain responsible for confirming their own funding conditions. An invoice or receipt can be provided if you need one for your acquittal.
How is this different from Regulation Rituals?
This session is about one corner of your room and the guide that goes with it. Regulation Rituals is the eight module program on the science underneath all of it, built for whole teams across a year. This masterclass points you there at the end rather than trying to cover it.
The retreat space is one part of the design. There is a whole day around it.
A retreat space is one element of an environment, and the rest of the day holds just as many. How arrival is set up. What happens around mealtimes and rest. How children move from one thing to the next. What the outdoor space offers a body that needs to move. Each of those is a design decision, and each one is either supporting regulation or quietly working against it.
Regulation Rituals is the eight module program that works through the science underneath all of it, the nervous system, sensory processing, body budget, co-regulation and executive function, and how to design regulation into the ordinary moments of your day rather than only the corner you set aside for it.
Prices. All prices are in Australian dollars and include GST. A receipt is issued at checkout, and an invoice can be provided if your service needs one for its records.
Refunds. Access to this masterclass is immediate and the content is delivered digitally, so it is not refundable for change of mind. This does not affect your rights under Australian Consumer Law. If the product is faulty, is not as described, or does not do what has been said it will do, you are entitled to a remedy and one will be provided. Get in touch through the contact page and it will be sorted out.
The Retreat Space Professional Learning Masterclass is professional education for early childhood teams. It is general in nature, and it is not occupational therapy assessment, diagnosis or treatment, not advice about an individual child, and not an NDIS funded support.
Setting up a retreat space involves semi enclosed areas, soft furnishings and sometimes weighted or textured items. Services remain responsible for supervision, and for their own risk assessment covering cords and blind cords, small parts, ligature points, age suitability and their work health and safety obligations. Nothing in this masterclass replaces your service policies or your regulatory requirements.
Product suggestions in the accompanying guide are general recommendations for Australian retailers, offered to save you time. Availability and pricing change, and services make their own purchasing decisions.
