Information About Bear Class

Welcome to

Bear

Class

In Bear Class:

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we provide a supportive, caring, safe and happy environment to maximise the children's learning and social development we aim for children to achieve not only academically but personally and socially we have high expectations for every child we provide exciting, creative and child-focussed activities to facilitate independent learning and make learning fun we hold the development of communicative skills to be of the utmost importance. and most importantly, the children are always at the heart of all of our thinking and everything we do.

Contact Details

Email: l.gore@stns.org.uk Telephone: 01227 464 316

About Bear Class In Bear Class we offer a unique and personalised curriculum for our students to develop their social communication and emotional regulation skills. Activities are tailored to encourage students to develop the pre-requisites to learning including joint attention, engagement and participation, early communication, mutual and self regulation. The curriculum is delivered in a total communication and highly structured environment with room for personalised flexibility with routines to meet the needs of our students. Due to the nature of this curriculum, content is taught cross-curricular through highly motivating activities; including national curriculum content and multisensory.

Students are assessed on their progress with their EHCP targets. Students are also assessed through an assessment tool which is bespoke to each individual child.

Child initiated play is essential for our pupils development and plays a vital role in our daily routine. We provide many opportunities throughout the day to develop play skills and encourage interactions with peers.

A Typical Week In Bear Class

The Routine and Structure of Bear Class Our Mornings Our mornings are similar each day except for a Monday when we have PE and Thursday when it is swimming and computing. Our English and Maths activities are structured based upon TEACCH approach. We begin in the circle to introduce the session, the children are then split into groups and each group goes to a different area and then we finish the session back in the circle to sing "Bravo!".

The areas they children go to are: Group table: where the main learning activities take place Workstation: activities which children can complete independently Leisure: brain break - child initiated play The routine is very consistent and predictable.

It also allows the children to have short bursts of learning and gives them opportunities to move around.

The aims of the TEACCH approach are:

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to build understanding to increase meaning to increase predictability to teach functional skills spontaneous communication independence to increase learning

Our Afternoons Our afternoons are consistent except on Tuesday when we have Active Ed with Judit and Friday when we have assembly.

Our Bucket sessions in the afternoon take place in the circle.

Communication Skills We work very closely with Speech & Language Therapists to monitor student progress and to ensure that pupils develop their communication skills. We use a variety of communication systems which depend on the each students' preferred communicative method. We use Intensive Interaction, PECS, switches, communication boards, communication books and Makaton during every session.

Regular meetings are held with SALT to discuss each students progress and next steps.

Bucket In Bear Class, our favourite lesson is Bucket which aims to engage attention, improve joint attention, develop shared enjoyment in group activities, increase attention in adult-led activities, encourage spontaneous interaction in a natural group setting, increase non-verbal and verbal communication through commenting, build a wealth and depth of vocabulary and to have fun!

Bucket, alternatively known as Attention Autism, was created

by Gina Davies. For more information go to: www.ginadavies.co.uk or follow Gina Davies Autism Centre on Facebook.

Just a warning...

In Bear Class we can get quite messy and this is because much of our learning is done through exploration. We endeavour to change pupils into different or appropriate clothing prior to the activities. However as you can appreciate some of the best learning opportunities can be spontaneous and come out of nowhere!

Home School Books In September you will receive a Home School Book and these are for us to communicate. We will tell you about your child's day and of any important upcoming events that you should know about. We really love to hear about what the children have done in the evening and weekends.

In Bear Class we are always very busy so if you feel that you would like to know a bit more about your child's day than what has been written in the book please don't hesitate to email me.

Bear Class Essentials In September please send your child in with:

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spare clothes (including spare shoes - plimsolls will be fine) PE kit pads waterproofs snack wellies

Swimming Swimming takes place every Thursday at 11am. The children will be split into two groups. Group 1 will be swimming during Terms 1, 3 and 5, and Group 2 will be in Terms 2, 4 and 6.

Children who are not swimming will be accessing a computing session in the classroom with iPads, the interactive whiteboard and lots of great cause and effect toys.

Snack Snack is a very motivating activity for our students. We have been working with SALT and have agreed that two snacks a day is a good way to encourage students to develop their communication and use their communication aids.

Earwig At St Nicholas School we have begun using a new online toll called Earwig to track and record children's progress through a series of time-based records.

These learning records, which can include video, photos and documents, are presented as a timeline (similar to the presentation of Facebook profiles). We are able to share these records with you so that you can see what your child is doing at school. Previously in nursery you may have come across Tapestry which is an app that a lot of nurseries use to record learning and share with parents and Earwig is exactly the same.

We are currently in the process of getting other agencies involved such as therapists and social workers so that they can access the children that are on their case-load. This is a fantastic opportunity to ensure that we are all working together to support your child as well as to help inform their Education, Health Care Plans and target setting.

When your child begins at St Nicholas you will receive an email for Earwig (check your junk mail folder). Once you are logged on you will be able to view your child's timeline as well as upload some records of what they are doing at home.

You will receive a consent form in order to have access to Earwig.

You will find more information about Earwig on their website: earwigacademic.com To look at an example of an Earwig timeline go earwig.uk.com User Name: example@earwig.com Password: password

Photos of Bear Class