For the ninth year, SSAT has celebrated and shared outstanding practice from schools across the country in the Achievement Show – this year, back at the site of the original show, the Emirates Stadium, North London.
Leaders and teachers from over 50 schools gave presentations of no longer than 45 minutes, highlighting their challenges and successes. Most importantly, the speakers gave the detail, and advice on what worked and what didn’t, and why.
The presentations covered a wide range of subjects and approaches: there was something there for everyone. In the run up to the end of term, we are publishing blog reports from a small selection, covering mobile technology in and outside the classroom, motivating disparate categories of students, retaining learning, school radio stations, special needs education, and oracy in young people from severely deprived backgrounds.
We began with Greg Hughes’ session on the impact of learning technologies at de Ferrers Academy. A second report gave you four advantages of investing in mobile technology. Our third piece focused on how a north London school has tackled severe language deprivation. This fourth report summarises a presentation given by special school colleagues that contained much advice relevant to mainstream schools…
Ginny d’Orico, AHT (autism), and Natalie Henry, head of middle school, at times vociferously aided by nine ASD students, gave this presentation on supporting students with autism.
The presenters came from Oak Lodge, a mixed 11-19 special school and specialist cognition and learning college in Barnet. Some of the tips they revealed could be useful to teachers in mainstream in helping their ASD students.
Autism is a condition that makes it difficult for the individual to predict other people’s actions, explained Ginny d’Orico. For example, when talking to someone, people with autism tend to look at the mouth, not the eyes, so missing many cues relating to social information.
“These differences are important for us as teachers: if I’m gesturing to a chair, for example, it’s not obvious to them what I want them to do. A corollary of this is that it is difficult for them to recognise that we are a reliable source of support. This is why group work with ASD students can be difficult.”
Tackling anxiety among students with ASD
She pointed to research in neurology, such as that by Yale University and others, which has shown that it is this difficulty in information processing that leads to raised anxiety, which affects social communication and emotional regulation. So one key element in working with these young people is clear scaffolding in their environment.
The SCERTS programme (Social communication/ emotional regulation/ transactional support) provides the structure for Oak Lodge’s work to enhance engagement and learning among these students.
A group of nine students (with adult supporters) joined the Achievement Show session, boisterously at first – as Natalie Henry noted, they were not used to being taken out into the public gaze as a group.
The teacher gently instructed the group: “hands on knees. Close your eyes. Deep breaths. Imaging sitting on a beach, listening to the waves, feeling warm. You feel calm and relaxed… Now open your eyes. Everyone feel calm and relaxed?”
Practical exercises
It appeared so. The students settled down to an exercise on completing achievement statements. Each student in turn completed sentences such as: “I am better at… using my words”; “I felt proud when… I did something different by coming to the Arsenal stadium”; “Now I can… listen in lessons and not shout out when the teacher is talking.”
The Oak Lodge team uses practical exercises to improve four aspects of SCERTS:
- Task engagement and functional communications – visual charts attached to key rings and flagging tasks red (to do) and green (done) help here
- Emotional expression – understanding their emotions and what to do about them
- Transitions, both between and within activities
- Interactions: developing a more adult style.
Visual-spatial processing is often a strength among these students, which can be used to help them learn. And students’ special interests can also help functional communication: for example, an illustration of a dinosaur with a speech bubble passing on the message.
In conclusion, Ginny d’Orico suggested four tips for teachers to make clear their intentions and enable students to achieve:
- Provide visual support
- Ensure a calm, productive class environment
- Help students to predict what is expected of them
- “But don’t say the same thing over and over!”
Read the first SSAT Achievement Show 2016 report – Ensuring learning technologies have impact
Read the second report – 4 advantages of investing in mobile technology
Read the third – When oracy is the critical factor
Check out photos from the SSAT Achievement Show 2016 on our Facebook page.
Oak Lodge is part of the SSAT network – find out more about membership here.
