Author: Clare Russell

Outdoor Education

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There has been lots going on to support our learning in Outdoor Education with many staff giving up their time to volunteer and help with developments. On Tuesday and Thursday, we’ve had a Ground Force team working for a few weeks doing a range of jobs, including planting bamboo, bordering plant beds and a general tidy up of the sensory garden.

We’ve also been supported by One Seed Forward to erect our polytunnel. The frame was up and ready for our team of willing volunteers to finish the job on Saturday. This was a big job and used lots of skills, both numeracy (measuring and fitting things in the right place), following the instructions, and listening to do as we were told for those of us with lots of enthusiasm with no prior experience. We cleared the ground to level it off for the installation of raised beds and slabs to make it fully accessible, and one great all rounder managed to lay the turf on a very muddy area of the playground, hopefully resolving a longer standing issue.

We were well fed and watered with tea, coffee and delicious homebakes, always a good way to get the most from the workforce, and finally into the afternoon we got to the really exciting bit, stretching the cover over the tunnel to complete it.

A great team effort! Thanks to everyone that supported on Saturday – we really appreciate the time given by the volunteers from One Seed Forward, friends and family, and of course our own staff team. Great job!

Settling Back in Room 12

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We have been getting back into the swing since returning to school.

One thing we have enjoyed is our Wednesday yoga sessions. Here we see one of our young people really enjoying the one to one yoga with Hannah who understands the needs of our class perfectly. One of our class always greets her with “Namaste”, now without prompting!

We have been choosing what we would like to do in class time. This can be through use of symbols, pictures, signing, verbally or in the case of this picture, by switch. Here, one of our pupils is choosing the song he would like to hear.

Celebrating Star Wars Day in Room 16

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Room 16 have been celebrating Star Wars day! We made a google form questionnaire together to find out what everyone’s favourite Star Wars character is. We showed our results using bricks to represent the number of votes for each character. We then ordered them from the most popular character to the least popular character. Chewbacca is officially Orchard Brae’s favourite character!

Orchard Brae Kiltwalk

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A few of our pupils and staff are participating in the virtual Kiltwalk at the weekend and we wish them the very best of luck!

To support, the rest of us are doing our own Kiltwalk activities in school this Friday and we would encourage pupils to wear a touch of tartan if they can – anything goes!

We will be dancing and walking on Friday and will share photos of our activities with you next week.

Room 19 Return to School

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Our return to school after the Easter break has been pretty hectic.  There has been lots of giggles as we all enjoyed being back in a bigger group.  The pupils all worked hard with Google Classroom and Google meets last term.  I am so impressed at the communication skills and confidence the pupils developed during virtual lessons.  We still enjoy conference calls with peers at home as well as live music lessons online.  Here are a few photos from our first week back in school, playing “Headbandz” and mindfulness.

ASDAN Work in Room 14

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We are happy to all be back together in Room 14 this term. Our focus is on developing independence and working on our ASDAN modules.

Following on from last term when we focused on handwashing, we tried out the Glitter Bug to see how thoroughly we had washed our hands. It was fascinating to look under the UV light to find which parts we had neglected. We will continue with this and we are going to be learning some Makaton signs for parts of our body.

In HE, we made ‘yogurt’. It got a mixed reaction when we tasted it, with some of us loving it and others just having a tiny taste before decided that it wasn’t for us. It’s good to see that we are developing a willingness to try tasting new foods as this may build to expanding our diet.

We have been learning about other cultures. We have done some Spanish inspired art work and we learned a Turkish dance. This is a social dance, usually done on occasions such as weddings. We all had great fun learning how to do this and really enjoyed the music. We will be learning more about Turkish and Polish culture this term.

Finally, we have been working on our end of day review, sharing our opinions on what we have liked and disliked during the day. It is important that we are enabled to give our thoughts on learning.

Reconnecting in Secondary

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We’ve been very happy to see the majority of our secondary pupils returning over the last couple of weeks. Pupils have enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with staff in school and see some of their friends again. Staff have been delighted to welcome pupils back and to return to some semblance of our normal routine. We do hope this will continue after the holiday, but as detailed in the letter from our Chief Education Officer, we have to await further guidance on next steps.

We’ve been very busy in the time that we’ve been back in school. Here is a selection of what we’ve been doing:

Learning Outdoors

We’ve been making the most of the good weather and enjoying learning in the fresh air. Some of us have enjoyed local walks and outdoor play.

Others have been busy in the grounds with gardening and litter picking. Room 14 particularly enjoyed the litter pick.

Health and Wellbeing

It has been great to see so many of our young people observing the safety rules around school. We’ve all become increasingly independent in maintaining good hand hygiene. Target work has continued and we have also been working on our ASDAN units. We’ve also had lots of fun!

Working Hard

We’ve been delighted with how well our pupils have settled back into their routines. Lots of learning is taking place, with good use being made of games and technology.

Who could fail to be happy to return when learning is so much fun?

If you’d like to engage in some messy activities at home our advice is:

Take it outside OR get your child involved in the tidying! It’s never too early to work on independent living skills.

Qualifications in the Senior Phase

Our senior phase pupils have continued working towards their ASDAN and SQA qualifications and we thank everyone that has supported in this during our period of remote learning. Room 19 have been successfully working on SQA Science: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. They’ve created some beautiful instruments.

Happy Holidays!

While some pupils have just returned to school, others have been supported throughout the lockdown period. We’ve had lots of learning going on remotely and thank all parents, carers and staff for supporting our pupils with this. In speaking with families, I know that there have been differing levels of engagement for a host of reasons, and we would like to thank all of you for the support you’ve given during this challenging time. Google Classrooms will remain ‘open’ should you wish to make use of activities during the holidays, but please do take a break if you can, relax, enjoy time outdoors, and focus on well-being.