The Little Sensory Explorers Academy
Your gateway to a flexible, self paced, CPD-accredited, online sensory play training program
The Little Sensory Explorers Academy
Designed to ignite your passion for child development and equip you with the knowledge and skills to run your own Sensory Play classes!

Turn Your Passion for Play into a Rewarding Career

Are you dreaming of a career that brings joy, flexibility, and balance to your life? Imagine a role that fits seamlessly around family time, allows you to be your own boss, and taps into your passion for play and child development. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or early years provider, our sensory play course equips you with everything you need to bring engaging, developmental play to life—at home, in the classroom, or even as your own business. Transform your love for learning and play into a fulfilling career with The Little Sensory Explorers Academy

What's Included?

Meet Your Course Directors!

Simran and Grace, the founders of The Little Sensory Explorers Academy have over 30 years of combined experience in child development, they created this course to address a gap they found in accredited sensory play training.

DIRECTOR

Grace Magennis

Grace is a Founder and Course Director of The Little Sensory Explorers Academy. She is a Specialist Children’s Occupational Therapist and a mummy of two, with 16 years of clinical experience. Grace is passionate about the importance of sensory play in supporting child development, inclusion and accessibility for all children. She is committed to supporting neurodivergent children and those with additional needs to participate, thrive and reach their full potential through meaningful, play-based experiences.

DIRECTOR

Simran McDaid

Simran is a Founder and Course Director of The Little Sensory Explorers Academy, with 15 years of experience in early childhood development. She is the owner of a Montessori pre-school in Belfast and a mummy of two. Simran is passionate about giving children the freedom to play, explore and learn through meaningful, child-led experiences. She is committed to supporting inclusive environments where all children can develop confidence, independence and a love for learning through play.
thelittlesensoryexplorers@gmail.com

Course Curriculum

1
Introduction
2
The Brain and Senses
3
Understanding Sensory
4
Understanding Sensory Play
5
Movement Play
6
Schemas
7
Understanding Attachment
8
Class Structure
9
Overstimulation
10
Accessibility and Inclusion
11
Final Questions
IMG-20230422-WA0014
CPD Accredited Sensory Play Practitioner Training

We have combined our years of experience with the most up to date research and evidenced based practice to bring you a comprehensive and easy to follow course that will equip you with the skills to facilitate your own Sensory Play Classes.

£360
66 lessons
20 hours total learning
Videos, reading, activities and assessments
CPD certification on completion

Course Outcomes

1
Run your own inclusive and accessible sensory play sessions for children of all ages and abilities.
2
Set up your own sensory play business
4
Introduce sensory play into your classroom or organisation
5
Be confident and knowledgeable in running evidence based developmentally appropriate classes

CPD Certified Course

CPD accreditation is an independent, professional third-party assessment of training courses, events, and structured learning programmes. It ensures that the content delivered meets recognised Continuing Professional Development industry standards for quality and relevance.

For us at The Little Sensory Explorers Academy, this means our training has been externally reviewed and approved, giving you confidence that the knowledge and skills you gain are evidence-informed, professionally recognised, and aligned with best practice. CPD accreditation reinforces our commitment to delivering reliable, high-quality education you can trust to support your work with children and families.

Reviews

Frequently Asked Questions

The Sensory Play Course is to provide practitioners or parents/caregivers with the knowledge and understanding of the importance of stimulating childrens’ senses. It explains methods to stimulate children in a way that aids their development, it evolves the understanding of overstimulation and its potential impact of this, and it includes elements on how to support and include those with additional needs.

Understanding sensory play will provide a better understanding on how to create classes that will benefit those little brains. Open ended play can allow children to understand the world around them in a safe environment. Sensory play is an important and integral way of learning and watching the magic of children play with no rules (unless there is a danger).

Not only does the course cover all aspects of Sensory Play, but it also includes a business module which provides step by step information on how to set up a business. We will also support you as a business mentor for as long as you need. We want to empower you to set up your business and have a job you love!

For those looking to enhance their knowledge for their setting e.g .Playgroup, School etc. We tailor face to face training to ensure that you are able to gain knowledge for your specific age group and additional needs. It is important to have training for sensory play as this is impacting a child’s development and aiding there learning. Good practitioners will use accredited courses to enhance their learning, which directly impacts a child/infant learning.

Simran and Grace, who together have over 30 years of child development experience, founded the Little Sensory Explorers after failing to find an accredited course on sensory play. So, they created a course that provided students with an understanding of what the senses are, how to create the best environment for children to learn, and to provide support for students and graduates. Simran and Grace have spent a year trialling the course and tweaking it so that it worked perfectly. The course will continue to be updated, as we are all constantly learning and understanding children and how those beautiful minds of theirs work!

The course has several modules, these are:

  • The brain and senses
  • Understanding the senses
  • What is sensory play?
  • Movement Play
  • Benefits of Sensory Play
  • What are schemas?
  • Attachment Theory
  • Class Structure (we provide a class structure, so you do not have to be creative to plan and run these classes).
  • Tuff Tray Examples.
  • Understanding the impact of overstimulation
  • Autism and additional needs.
  • Accessibility and inclusion
  • How to set up a business
  • Health and Safety
  • Risk management

You will receive a CPD accredited certificate stating you have completed your sensory course and will be qualified in sensory play.

Our course was sent to the CPD trainers, who independently looked at our course and ensured it was evidence based, provided students with a new skill, and looked at the course to make sure it took 20 hours of online learning. They ensured the course was accessible to everyone.

The course is 20 hours. We have a lot of videos with information and documents to read for each module. You can go back to each module and read over the information as much as you like. You will have access to the online learning for as long as you like, there is no end date. You can do the learning in your own time.

Online it will take 20 hours. In- Person, it will take a day (9:00-3:00 pm) plus the assessments.

Yes, at the end of each module you can expect to complete an assessment. This is a combination of multiple-choice questions, one/two sentence answers and the final test is an essay question. You have to wait until the module is marked before you go to the next module.