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The secondary department has 8 classes and pupils follow the principles of Curriculum for Excellence: a broad general education in S1-S3 and the Senior Phase in S4- S6. The curriculum is varied, relevant, challenging, enjoyable and adapted to meet our pupil’s individual needs. Pupils also visit a range of specialists, have access to relevant therapeutic inputs and participate in wider community events.
As part of our ASDAN and SQA work, Room 17 have been exploring a variety of musical instruments. We have been deciding which instruments we like best and which ones we aren’t so keen on! We have enjoyed playing the different instruments to some of our favourite songs. We have now chosen our favourite instrument and will be practising it for something special coming up later in the term!
This festive season, our expressive arts elves – sorry, team 🧑🎄 – have been busy supporting classes in creating videos for a Christmas Countdown Calendar. However, for the final video they need your help!
They are looking for as many people as possible to be involved in the ‘Rockin Around The Christmas Tree’ video including all staff, parents and partner agencies.
To get you started, Keith and Emmeline have filmed an example including makaton signing.
To get involved we would like you to film excerpts of yourself signing or dancing along with the song which will then be edited together to create the final window on the Orchard Brae advent calendar.
Here is some filming information on the best way to film your excerpt.
Once you have your final video, please email it to Keith or Emmeline via their gw emails:
As part of our ASDAN work we are learning how to care for a plant. We had fun smelling and tasking a variety of different herbs. There were a few we weren’t a fan of and we made some funny faces when we tasted them! Everyone chose their favourite one to look after for the rest of the term and we will be checking them regularly to keep them growing healthy and strong.
Inspired by the work of a young artist called Noah (aka Background Bob) we are going to embark on a collaboration with other artists to create pieces of art.
During lockdown, Noah and his family created some backgrounds which were sent to artists around the world (including our teacher, Gemma). They painted on top of the background and now the paintings are in an exhibition and a book!
We are going to work with local people and create backgrounds for them to paint on.
We will explore paint and ways of applying it and then contact people to collaborate with.
You can see some of Noah’s collaborations on his Instagram page: www.instagram.com/background_bob
One of the learning aims we are exploring this term is building our resilience to changes in routine – this time of year has plenty of them! – as we use the symbol for “special activity” to reassure our learners that the changes are planned and can be something to look forward to.
We had a celebration of our class achievements at the end of term, with each of our learners choosing photographs to go into a presentation of what they have done. Everyone took home a certificate and some of our learners were very proud of theirs! A special mention must also go out to our class member who won the secondary department star of the month for her fabulous signing – well done!
Since returning from the October holidays we have been as busy as ever!
We have worked hard on our ASDANs, exploring team work and group work skills. We worked in teams to build towers, and created a beautiful Halloween collaborative art project. We had lots of fun decorating our pumpkin for Halloween as well as Halloween themed bucket time activities.
This week we have had lots of firework related activities – we made cheese straw bonfires in home economics, focused for lots of fireworks activities for bucket time, a cola mentos firework for our ASDAN science (causing a change) and for outdoor education we went out to search for sticks to build our own bonfire before watching fireworks. As we build our familiarity with seasonal events we also build our resilience to routine variations and our capacity to communicate about them.
We’re looking forward to lots more “special activity” events this term!
For our SQA National 1 in Food Hygiene we chose to make Christmas mincemeat. We had to wear appropriate clothing (gloves, aprons and hairnets), keep our work areas clean and clean any equipment we used. We are looking forward to using the mincemeat in a few weeks – yum!
We all know how much COVID-19 has had an impact on everyone and PAMIS family carers and staff are also very aware of how COVID-19 has had an even greater impact on people with PMLD.
PAMIS would like to hear from parents and carers of those with PMLD aged 16 and above, as you and the person you care for are living the experience and it is critical that they know what that reality is.
Participating in this survey will ensure that you and your son’s or daughter’s reality is seen and not hidden.
The survey is conducted online, asking highly relevant questions related to your reality of living in ‘COVID-19’ Scotland. Completing this survey will help document you and your son or daughters experience over the months since March 2020. The survey will enable you to tell those who make defining decisions, around how support and care for people with PMLD and their family carers is approached, in this changed and ever-changing COVID-19 landscape.
The Aberdeen Endowments Trust Secondary School Bursary is available to low income families with a child attending secondary school from S1-S4 and is normally awarded as £100 per year. It can be applied for at any time from S1-S4 but cannot be granted retrospectively.
The completed application should be sent to the Clerk, Aberdeen Endowments Trust, 19 Albert Street, Aberdeen, AB25 1QF or please email aet1909@btinternet.com.
