She used to bite them when she was feeling anxious or scared. The polish, she found, gave her something else to focus on.

She describes herself as “very, very organised” someone who loves paperwork and tidying her
room. Lucy wants to work in fashion, she thinks she’d be good at it – it’s structured, organised,
exactly her kind of world. She also wants to live in a flat with her fiancé, hold a job, earn her own
money and build a life for herself, just like her older sister’s.

These are the things she talks about now. She didn’t always.

Lucy told us that the schools she attended before Orpheus were difficult places for her. They were noisy,
unpredictable environments – full of distractions, disruption and behaviour that unsettled her.

She describes a string of environments where the simple task of getting through the day took
everything out of her. She wanted to focus, she wanted to learn – but she was easily distracted,
and the dramas around her made that worse. Her confidence dipped and she struggled to share
what she was feeling. By the time she arrived at Orpheus, she’d half-decided that nothing would
change.

But, then it did.

What changed first was that someone listened. On Wednesdays she joins a group where students
talk about inclusion, about themselves, about the things they’ve lived through. “I’ve been
struggling to get my feelings out,” she says. “This college helped me in different ways.”
Slowly, she began to find her footing. She learned timekeeping, travel training, how to talk to
people she didn’t know. She learned the harder, less measurable things too – how to recognise
anxiety arriving, and what to do with it. The nail polish was one of the things she discovered for
herself. Others came from staff – the small, daily attentiveness that helps a young person settle,
focus, decompress and come back to themselves.

This is where the quiet, ordinary magic of Orpheus does its work. In the patient, daily business of
helping young people find their own way through.

Around half have sensory processing issues that make a busy environment, the lights, the textures, the closeness of other people, literally feel like more than they can bear. One overwhelming moment can take a student out of their day for hours.

Some days, the world pushes them away.

A sensory room with soft lights and gentle sounds is somewhere the world dials down. It isn’t therapy. It’s where students learn to reset themselves, so the lesson, the rehearsal, the rest of the day can happen.

Our sensory room is in a desperate state, it needs totally re-building. This just won’t happen without your support.

£15 could pay for a light up lantern
£25 could pay for a vibrating sensory cushion
£58 could pay for a tin of special muted, low odour paint
£144 could pay for a staff member to be trained in sensory and regulation
£250 could pay for an illuminated bubble tube
£350 could pay for a projector
£500 could pay for some fibre optic flexible strands
£1000 could pay for a sensory therapy rocking chair