Health and Wellbeing
Autumn term, the curriculum is guided by the theme of health and wellbeing. Students will be offered a range of engaging and relevant experiences in weekly lessons that aim to develop their health and wellbeing.
The theme encompasses: personal care, physical health, relaxation and mindfulness, home care – life skills, healthy food choices and exploring emotions. Many students have sensory challenges with health routines including brushing their teeth, having their hair cut/brushed and cleaning the home environment with equipment including vacuums. Lessons aim to gradually work on areas of sensitivities in an engaging and interactive format. Lessons are planned to have relevance on an individual basis, building on students’ individual interests and needs. By widening opportunities and experiences we have the potential to build skills impacting into adult life: brushing teeth with increased independence; accepting a haircut with lessened anxiety; finding new strategies for relaxation.
Sensory Story
The Tooth Book
Dr Seuss
Amusing Dr Seuss story of giant teeth and brushes, trombones and light-up jellyfish umbrellas!
Sensory experiences
The sensory room and therapy room to be set up as a relaxation environment, with aromatherapy and sensory massage story sessions.
Home & community links
Hairdresser visiting school
Walking out to Highbury park
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Curriculum offer (10 weekly lessons)
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Play /drama session Students will be offered a choice of two environments. The first supports mindfulness – guiding students through a range of relaxation activities including yoga poses on mats, massage equipment and an environment that promotes calm. The second supports wellbeing – creating an environment of play and laughter, anticipation, cause and effect activities that motivate and engage students in laughter.
RHSE Term focus – hair care - aspects of hair care: washing hair, brushing, using a hair drier, clippers, looking in the mirror. Students will build skills in this personal care routine and minimise potential anxieties. They will be offered the opportunity of a hairdresser visit at school.
Music Students will explore different emotions with musical sounds and instruments, including spring door stops for excitement, cymbals for anger and thunder-makers for fear.
Movement This lesson is offered as a whole-department lesson, with resources, teaching focuses and environment differentiation on an individual basis. Sensory movement resources including dancing ribbons, parachutes, gym balls, tunnels and crash mats will be used to maximise engagement.
Sensory cooking breakfast -During a morning lesson student will be supported to develop independence in choice-making, participating in cleaning, preparing and eating breakfast, cleaning tables and washing up plates and cups when breakfast has finished.
Gardening Students walk to the school garden and enjoy the nature around them. They will be supported to explore and plant their own herbs to add to the sensory garden.
Art DIY –stress balls. Students will share space and explore materials in a large tray, communicating their choice for the inside of their stress ball comprising flour, rice and gloop. They are supported to place the materials into their balloons with funnels, spoons and other tools, helping to develop fine motor skills.
Attention building Attention-building lesson is in a structured format with teacher offering a sequence of engaging and motivating sensory objects. The repetition of this activity builds on anticipation and excitement and therefore attention skills. Cleaning-based motivating objects this term are: hoover, sweeping up a big mess on the floor, cleaning and giant bubbles!
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Community Students take a walk into their local park, Highbury park , stopping off for a tea or hot chocolate break in flasks!
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Spring term - 4th January - 1st April 2022
My Multicultural City – (British values focus)
The Far East
Spring term, the curriculum is guided by the enchanting Far East, aiming to offer students an insight and experience in different cultures. The theme is enhanced by the work of community company ‘Circus Mash’ who will be offering workshops in circus skills with their partnership with Fox Hollies. This is a fantastic opportunity for students to access new and exciting skills and experiences, linked to a traditional Chinese circus!
During this term the Chinese New Year celebrations take place in February. This celebration offers a great stimulus for multi-sensory learning. In music, students will be exploring the story of the Chinese new year further through the form of a musical sensory story.
The dark nights will be brightened up with sensory experience of firecrackers and firework-inspired objects. We aim to offer challenge by widening students’ experiences with new food in sensory food lessons.
The theme is continued with the beautiful story of Red Is a Dragon, an accessible text that offers a sequence of colours/events/ objects from Chinese culture: lychees in ice water, lanterns, giant flags to represent kites and shimmery green fabrics and lights for jade stone. These will aim to immerse students in new cultural experiences of the Far East.
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SENSORY STORY
Red is a dragon
Roseanne Thong
Giant flags, rose water, tinned lychees, ice packs, green shimmery feely bag, lanterns and much more.
Sensory experiences
Sounds of meditation bells, wind chimes, xylophones, fire-crackers and fireworks. Visual experiences of lanterns, puppets, masks, mirrors. Taste of the Far East with spices, ginger, chilli, noodles and much more.
Home & Community links Circus mash – Kings Heath
Café visit – communication of a choice of drink
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CURRICULUM OFFER
Play /drama session Taking inspiration from traditional Chinese puppetry, students will play with a variety of masks and puppets whilst exploring their reflection in the mirror, building anticipation with cause and effect through puppets and mask play-based activities.
RHSE Term focus - relationships – peers’ social interaction. Using intensive interaction style techniques, drama and play-based activities to promote peer relationships and social interaction.
Music Musical story on the traditional tale of the Chinese New Year. Opportunities for students to try new musical instruments, participate in rhythms and sounds
Movement This lesson is offered as a whole-department lesson, with resources, teaching focuses and environment differentiation on an individual basis. Sensory movement resources including dancing ribbons, parachutes, gym balls, tunnels and crash mats will be used to maximise engagement.
Sensory cooking Tasting, smelling and touching new and unfamiliar foods to create positive food relationships. Students will make their own savoury oriental dish including noodles, sweetcorn, pepper, bean sprouts, stock – soy sauce, garlic, ginger, star anise, chilli. Communicating preference and choice.
Gardening Students will have a weekly opportunity in the school garden to use the new swings and trampoline. Developing communication with turn-taking and communicating a preference. They will be exploring nature and the breeze and temperature against their skin, which will help develop their perception.
Art Traditional oriental printing. Experiential mark-making opportunities using a variety of printing tools, inks and techniques. All students printing onto fabrics and paper that form together to create lanterns, adding battery lights to create light-up lanterns to add to the sensory room.
Attention building Attention-building lesson is in a structured format with teacher offering a sequence of engaging and motivating sensory objects. The repetition of this activity builds on anticipation and excitement and therefore attention skills. This term’s objects: meditation bells, puppets, firecrackers, incense, lanterns and lucky cats.
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Community Taking students in small groups into their local community. Developing skills in maintaining safely walking (with appropriate staff support) in pedestrianised areas, using traffic lights. Reaching a local café for a cup of tea, students will make a choice, exchange money and sit near members of the public in their local community, thus promoting access to their community into adulthood. |
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Summer term - 19th April -21st July
Thematic Approach -
My Environment (global learning focus)
Recycling
My Environment (global learning focus)
Recycling
Summer term, the curriculum is guided by the theme of recycling. Students will be given opportunities to engage in activities that contribute to the environmental challenges that we face. The concept of global warming is not accessible to students in pathway 1, therefore we offer a relevant way that students can engage and participate in environmentally- conscious activities, which include making recycled paper from old paper, shredding it and mushing it together with water as a fun sensory experience! Students will create music from unwanted junk such as bottles and pans. In addition to this the term’s sensory story offers a beautiful true story of one woman’s journey to recyle plastic bags in Gambia, creating purses from the plastic found there. The story offers many engaging sensory stimuli including tamirind to taste, hot sand and the action of washing plastic bags. Students will be supported to participate in organising recyclable materials into groups and walking them to the local recycling bins, making a positive impact on the enviroment.
The theme offers a great hook for new experiences for students which have relevance to creating a sustainable future.
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SENSORY STORY
One Plastic Bag
Miranda Paul
Sensory experiences
Recreating the scenes from One Plastic Bag story in the sensory room, hot sand, mangos , washing plastic bags, tamarind to taste , coins on a metal tray and umbrellas made from plastic bags and lights.
Home and Community links / visits
Common ground arts project mac –
27th June (set up)
-29th 30th June Wednesday - exhibition
Akamba – End of year celebration for leavers (linked to the term’s sensory story One Plastic Bag
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CURRICULUM OFFER
Play /drama session
Outdoor messy sensory play sessions in the sensory garden. Warmer weather gives a great opportunity for creative and free-flowing play sessions with sand, mud, gravel, water, other textures.
RSHE Term focus – brushing teeth - Promoting student’s independence in personal care skills by offering a sequenced lesson focusing on brushing teeth. The aim of the lesson is to help students on an individual basis to develop a level of independence in oral hygiene.
Music As part of the common ground project at the mac students will be creating sensory sounds from recycled materials and found objects. This will lead to an instillation
Movement This lesson is offered as a whole-department lesson, with resources, teaching focuses and environment differentiation on an individual basis. Sensory movement resources including dancing ribbons, parachutes, gym balls, tunnels and crash mats will be used to maximise engagement.
Sensory cooking Making bread and dough from scratch. Exploring the different sensory properties of the dough as the water is added and it rises and smells beautiful! Students will get their hands in and knead the bread to develop fine motor skills and sensory exploration.
Gardening Collecting rainwater, watering plants with water collected from a rain butt. Using watering cans, bottles and other containers to expand free water play.
Art Making paper, recycling old to make new. Collect old paper from around school, shredding the paper and mushing it down to create a paste, sieving it and following the process to create new paper.
Attention building Attention-building lesson is in a structured format with teacher offering out a sequence of engaging and motivating sensory objects. The repetition of this activity builds on anticipation and excitement and therefore attention skills. Recycling-themed, it may include dropping bottle tops into a container, sorting materials with giant magnets, collecting rainwater for a watering can.
Community
Key stage 3: Students will be given access to Cannon hill park. Extending the spaces that they explore in the park and begin to walk around the lake. Towards the end of the term having a group picnic.
Key stage 4 and 5: Students will continue to explore cannon hill park and start to make a choice of what additional activities they would like to take part in (boats, rides,café).
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