The alarming shift: Sensory rooms are becoming exclusion spaces
Why schools and local authorities are turning to Cubbie, the OT-led sensory platform
Most sensory rooms don't work. Not because the idea is flawed — but because it is rarely delivered properly.
A sensory room only earns its purpose when an occupational therapist (OT) with sensory integration training sets it up, session by session. Skip that, and it's just a room full of equipment, with no way to tell if it's helping a child or harming them.
That’s the problem: sensory integration is a rare specialist skill, held by only a handful of OTs. A specialist can see just three or four children a day once room prep and paperwork are factored in. Most schools don't come close to that level of access — so non-specialist staff are left interpreting one-off clinical guidance as best they can, and hoping it's enough.
The result is a widening gap between what sensory rooms are meant to do and how they're actually used — and increasingly, that gap is being filled with exclusion. Rather than helping children reset, rooms are becoming holding spaces for pupils who are already at crisis point, perceived as punishment, or so overstimulating they trigger the very shutdowns they're meant to prevent.
Sensory rooms are shifting from a regulation space to a holding space
The shift from regulation space to holding space is being flagged across the sector.
Amy Mason of The Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint has described how sensory rooms are routinely misused — becoming the destination once a child is already dysregulated, rather than the space that prevents the child from getting there. Staff even weaponise them as a threat ("if you don't sit down, you'll go to the sensory room"), which puts children off using the room at all.
Behaviour Analyst Dr Mary Barbera has documented the same pattern: a pupil sent to the sensory room only after ripping up his work and overturning his desk, staff explaining he "needed to decompress." Her conclusion is blunt — used as a post-incident time-out, sensory rooms tend to create more problems than they solve.
The wider data backs this up. BBC reporting on National Education Union findings showed children held in isolation rooms for up to six hours a day over minor behaviour infringements, with delegates noting isolation booths disproportionately filled with children who have special educational needs. Used the same way, sensory rooms sit uncomfortably close to that same pattern: a place to remove a child, not support them.
Why occupational therapists are integral to sensory provision
For sensory rooms to work effectively, they need to include continual sensory integration therapy, which requires specific advanced occupational therapy (OT) training, yet only around a fraction of OTs are sensory integration experts.
One of the biggest challenges in sensory intervention is consistency. What an OT recommends in a one-off session is often hard for non-specialist staff to deliver reliably. Users may have different needs throughout the day; they may need to be stimulated in the morning and calmed in the afternoon; they may mask all day and then dysregulate at hometime.
Sensory regulation platform, Cubbie, solves this by building the OT expertise into the system itself. Staff don't need to interpret clinical guidance; the programme tells them exactly what to do, when, and how. When staff don’t have the training or insight to spot sensory needs, Cubbie fills the gap — adapting its programme to each child’s sensory needs.
Unlike a traditional sensory room, Cubbie combines the physical environment, personalised sensory programmes, staff training, usage data, and embedded OT expertise to help implement support safely, consistently, and effectively. Users can be regulated and back in the classroom in around 10 minutes.
Cubbie’s unique positioning is explained by its founder and CEO, David McIntyre: “Cubbie's core innovation is about combining a sensory intervention with OT expertise. An OT in a school, for example, will only see a few children a day; they will need to spend time preparing the room for each client and they then have to spend time filling out paperwork. Cubbie offers real-time OT-led data and can deliver multiple uses a day.”
“Cubbie's OTs will design a sensory portrait for each user, based on one's sensory questionnaire. The sensory portrait gives our OTs a baseline of the sensory needs of the child or the person. And then they use our media, which we select carefully to either reduce their stimulation, or heighten the stimulation.”
Demand for OT-led sensory provision has surged dramatically
The OT bottleneck is the root cause
None of this happens because staff don't care. It happens because the model doesn't scale.
An OT can design a genuinely effective sensory session — but can only deliver it to a handful of children a day. Everyone else using the room, whether at breaktime, mid-lesson, or after a meltdown, is relying on generic equipment and secondhand guidance, with no way to tell if it's regulating a child or overstimulating one.
Occupational Therapist Dr Kelly Auld-Wright has seen this play out directly: schools building sensory rooms without any OT input on what goes into them, then leaving staff to use swings and equipment with no structured guidance. In one of her schools, that meant children swinging dangerously high with no oversight — as she put it, "it was very loud. It wasn't safe."
Take away the OT, and a sensory room stops being a clinical tool. It becomes a room. And rooms without a clear purpose tend to get used for whatever's most convenient — which, under pressure, is often exclusion.
Demand has outpaced the model entirely
This bottleneck is colliding with a sharp rise in need. At least 1 in 7 people in the UK are neurodivergent, EHCPs among young people have doubled in the last 12 years, and 85% of children's OTs have reported year-on-year demand increases since 2022.
Schools can't hire their way out of an OT shortage this size. The traditional sensory room model — one specialist, a handful of children a day, everyone else guessing — was never built for this volume.
A different approach with Cubbie: sensory portraits, not guesswork
Cubbie takes the part of a sensory room that actually works — OT expertise — and builds it into a platform that scales, rather than a room only a handful of children can access.
Every user gets a sensory portrait: an individual profile built by a Cubbie OT from a sensory questionnaire, setting a baseline the OT can interpret to determine what will calm or alert that specific child. As founder and CEO David McIntyre explains: "Cubbie's OTs will design a sensory portrait for each user, and then they use our media, which we select carefully to either reduce their stimulation, or heighten the stimulation."
From there, Cubbie runs on a continuous assess, optimise, report cycle. Staff aren't left interpreting a one-off recommendation — the programme tells them exactly what to do, when, and how, and usage data flows back to refine it. As McIntyre puts it: "An OT in a school will only see a few children a day. Cubbie offers real-time OT-led data and can deliver multiple uses a day."
That's the structural difference. A sensory room depends on a specialist being physically present. Cubbie puts the specialist's judgement inside the system, so it's available every time a child needs it — not just when an OT happens to be on site.
The results and proven effect of Cubbie
Cubbie is designed to catch dysregulation early and get children back into the classroom, not to become a room they disappear into. With OT-designed programmes and targeted sensory input, children typically self-regulate in 10 minutes or less — reducing disruption and the strain on specialist staff.
Out with time-outs. In with Cubbie, a data-driven sensory platform
Cubbie is being used by an increasing number of schools to support students quickly and efficiently, minimising disruption, and keeping children in class. With its OT-designed programmes and targeted sensory regulation support, Cubbie provides fast and effective sensory regulation interventions, helping children self-regulate in 10 minutes or less and reducing the strain on specialist resources.
Claire Ingrams, Headteacher of Lime Wood Primary School, says Cubbie’s data-driven approach has been invaluable to her students: “The personalised sensory wellbeing solution has created a safe, calming, and engaging space where children can self-regulate, reset, and return to learning ready to participate positively in the classroom. The ability to tailor experiences through sensory portraits and targeted sensory regulation support has been particularly valuable for our neurodivergent pupils and those requiring additional emotional support. Since introducing the Cubbie, we have seen improvements in participation, emotional regulation, and overall wellbeing across the school environment. Staff have also benefitted from having a consistent and effective early intervention solution that helps reduce disruption and supports inclusion in a meaningful way. The Cubbie is far more than just a sensory pod — it has become an important part of our inclusive practice and commitment to creating an environment where every child can thrive.”
Why are schools and local authorities turning to Cubbie?
The UK SEND policy is heading exactly towards the model Cubbie was built for. The 2026 Schools White Paper introduces a tiered support system — universal, targeted, targeted plus, and specialist — and requires schools to build an inclusion strategy and individual support plans around it, backed by new National Inclusion Standards.
That's why schools and local authorities are turning to Cubbie:
It maps directly onto the new tiered model. Cubbie is the only sensory-regulation platform built to work across universal, targeted, targeted plus, and specialist provision — the same framework schools will be expected to report against.
It multiplies scarce OT capacity instead of relying on it. Embedded OT expertise means every session is clinically informed, without needing a specialist present each time.
It supports evidence for individual support plans (ISPs). Sensory portraits and usage data give staff a documented, individualised record of need and response — exactly the kind of evidence ISPs will require.
It keeps children in mainstream settings. Regulation in 10 minutes or less means children return to class rather than being removed from it, supporting the inclusion-in-mainstream-settings principle at the centre of the reforms. Learn more about how Cubbie supported a local authority reintegrate 16 SEND pupils back into mainstream education.
It needs minimal space and adapts to the individual, making it viable in schools without room for a dedicated sensory suite.
It replaces guesswork with structure, so staff know which pupils should use it, when, and how — closing the exact gap that turns sensory rooms into exclusion spaces.
Cubbie requires little space and offers a blank canvas to adapt to each user’s needs.
Embedded OT input helps staff understand which pupils should use Cubbie, when to use it, how to structure sessions, and how to connect Cubbie use to regulation, behaviour, SEND, and learning outcomes.
Users can be regulated and ready to participate in class or activities in 10 minutes or less.
Cubbie is the only sensory-regulation platform designed to address the full range of need: universal, targeted, targeted plus, and specialist provision.
Designed as a blank canvas, it uses targeted support to adapt to an individual’s unique sensory needs, offering support before, during, and after dysregulation.
To learn more about Cubbie and how schools, MATs, and local authorities are integrating Cubbie into their inclusion strategy, get in touch with our team.
