Too many technology conversations start with the tool and work backwards. Busy Things starts with the pupil and works forwards. Busy Things shows what it looks like when a platform is built around that premise - putting the learner first.
For Busy Things, inclusion means:
Busy Things -
Develops learning through play: Activities are presented as engaging, fun games featuring quirky characters, animations, and sounds.
Has differentiated learning: A wide range of tools for teachers and parents to customise content and adjust difficulty levels, so activities are suitable for each child's individual ability and learning style.
Has remote and in-school use: The platform is compatible with a range of devices, making it suitable for both classroom and home learning.
Incorporates teacher and parent tools: It includes features for educators and parents to manage classes, track progress, and create their own resources
In a busy classroom, being handed visibly “different” work can leave a child feeling singled out. Differentiation built quietly into a platform means pupils can work at the right level without anyone being labelled.
The platform is built to facilitate discrete differentiation, ensuring pupils remain confident and engaged without feeling "different" from their peers:
Activity Settings: Teachers can toggle "Teacher Mode" to adjust number ranges or phonics sets. Pupils perform the same activity as the rest of the class, but at a level tailored to their specific needs.
Customisable Navigation: Teachers can pull content from different age bands (e.g., Early Years content into a Key Stage 2 area) and rename labels to hide Key Stage indicators, maintaining student self-esteem.
Switch Accessibility: A dedicated search filter identifies Switch-enabled games. These are carefully designed to be genuinely playful and rewarding, rather than tedious mechanical tasks
Accessibility features to support inclusion
Inclusive tools tend to bend to the learner rather than ask the learner to adapt. Adjustable settings and flexible ways of working make it easier for teachers to meet the needs of a whole class without building separate resources for each child.
For pupils who can’t use a mouse, keyboard, or touchscreen, effective use of the platform's switch capability determines whether they can take part in a lesson. It’s easy to treat as a specialist add-on. But Busy Things treats it as central to inclusion.
Adjust the difficulty of games and activities to support personalised learning.
Integrate a variety of assistive technologies, including touchscreens, interactive whiteboards, and specialised systems such as eye-gaze and switch control, which are crucial for students with limited mobility.
Tweak the platform for individual students:
Hide certain menus or content to help students stay focused and avoid being overwhelmed.
Specific activities can be assigned with both typed and audio instructions.
The "padlock" feature can be enabled to remove the back button, preventing a child from leaving an assigned task.
Teachers can hide the difficulty level of an activity to help build a student's confidence.
The conversation also discusses how the platform as a whole reflects the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL asks designers and teachers to offer multiple ways to engage with learning, understand content, and show what you know, from the start. Planning for the widest range of learners up front means fewer adaptations later.
The discussion highlights how Busy Things maps across the three pillars of UDL:
Engagement: Utilising humour, high-quality animation, and sophisticated sound to keep pupils motivated.
Representation: Providing multimodal ways of presenting information to suit different learning styles.
Action & Expression: Offering unique creative tools (e.g., virtual Jackson Pollock-style art) that allow even the youngest or most challenged learners to express their understanding.
The entire platform reflects UDL principles
The conversation also describes ‘Brain Breaks’. Short, deliberate pauses can help pupils regulate, refocus and come back ready to learn. They tie in with the wellbeing theme of the previous includED conversation episode (S2 Ep6, Wellbeing and Inclusion).
Recognising that learning is impossible if a child is dysregulated, Busy Things introduced Brain Breaks.
These resources focus on:
Sensory and Emotional Regulation: Helping children reset so they can return to cognitive tasks.
Creative Play: Stimulating an open mind and reducing the "overwhelm" of traditional curriculum pressure.
Example of Brain Break activities
The conversation ends with a discussion about the “joy” of Busy Things and the way its creativity, style and quirky ethos helps every pupil achieve through joyful, tailored engagement.
Enjoyment is often treated as a bonus in education technology. With Busy Things, it’s part of the point.
Teachers and students have several easy login options for Busy Things, including Google, Microsoft, and dedicated Busy Things logins.
Teachers using their own accounts can choose to set up individual logins for students or link with Google or Microsoft. Then they can create an area for each class. When a student has their own account, they gain access to a personal area, a unique avatar, and can use the platform from home. This personalised access enhances their experience and extends learning beyond the classroom.
For support in setting up accounts, LGfL has self-service migration advice available or contact Busy Things at enquiries@busythings.co.uk
All LGfL primary and SEND schools have full access to Busy Things through LGfL.
To get the most out of Busy Things and use all its features fully, please schedule a training session with the Busy Things team or one of the LGfL curriculum consultants. This is an excellent way to discover all the available tools and learn how to use them to their full potential in the classroom.
It's a 20-minute session to share key pointers that can save you significant time when finding content and quickly pushing it to pupils.