Category: Qualifications and Awards

We offer a large range of qualifications and awards throughout the senior phase and these are open to all pupils in S4-S6.  The teaching staff ensure that pupils are part of meaningful and relevant curriculum and lace the qualifications through a bespoke pathway allowing for challenge, enjoyment and to meet individual’s targets.

Home Economics: Developing Independence

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Liz and Grace have had a busy start to the session, working with many pupils across the school. In our primary classes pupils focus on experiencing foods with opportunities to handle, taste and talk about a variety of foods. Hygiene is also a very important part of the routine at all times.

In Secondary, pupils continue working on routine and hygiene, experiencing different foods. As they progress, skills and independence are developed. Pupils at Senior Phase make a range of snacks and meals, some showing great aptitude and skill. We use our skills in literacy and numeracy to follow recipes and practise measurement. We are very adept at cutting and chopping. We’ve enjoyed fruit pancakes and have made apple crumble, enjoying the seasonal produce available.

Navigating the School: Room 14

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Room 14 have been working on their Geography skills as part of our ASDAN work. Their task was to give directions to find familiar parts of the school. We found lots of places including the nurses office, the P.E cupboard and soft play.

 

Room 17 ASDAN

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Pupils in Room 17 have been working very hard on their ASDAN courses. One course required us to explore a range of food textures through touch. We tried a variety of different textures, including: rough, grainy, hard, sticky and runny. Interestingly, no one enjoyed the texture of sticky, and only one person liked the runny texture!

Everyone did really well to touch the textures and communicate how they felt about them.

Duke of Edinburgh Award

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Our pupils in Room 19 and Howes Hoose having been working hard on their Duke of Edinburgh Awards. We have some pupils doing their Bronze Award and some working towards the Silver Award. We have now completed our Skills and Physical sections and continue to work on our Volunteering.

Our sandwich enterprise has in Room 19 has been very successful and we have made lots and lots of sandwiches!

We have been playing table tennis and practising yoga for our physical section.

We have volunteered at Airyhall Community Centre and helped in various roles in and around school.

Well done to everyone involved!

Drumming At SQA National 3

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Here is a wow moment we would like to share from one of our senior students who is currently working on an SQA National 3 in Music: Performance Skills with a focus on drumming.

He has been working with our instructor, Keith on developing his confidence in reading music, following tempo and he is currently working towards putting on performance in school.

Well done!

Back to Work in Howes Hoose

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Howes Hoose hit the ground running, getting right back into their SQA work last week. All pupils were involved in preparing for their mid-year verification where their work is shared with teachers from other schools to ensure everyone across Scotland is working to the same standards.

Pupils in Howes Hoose are working on a range of curricular units to develop skills and independence as they are all moving on to new destinations in summer.

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in Room 19

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Room 19 are working on their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award this year. So far, we have chosen our physical activity and are working on basketball, table tennis and yoga.

For our skills section we are fundraising through our sandwich enterprise. We are also volunteering by helping out in classes with younger pupils and supporting an older gentleman in his home and garden.

In outdoor education, we have learned how to use fire sticks to light the gas for cooking with the trangia stove, all in preparation for our residential expedition next year.

Fun Science in Room 14

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Room 14 have been doing some fun Science experiments in class recently. We have been learning about how we can mix two things to make something new! We took turns to mix baking soda with vinegar to inflate a rubber glove. Everyone enjoyed giving high fives to each other hands! Nobody liked the smell of the vinegar but it was worth it for the fun!

Room 16 Make Bird Feeders

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In October we made eco bird feeders, by coating pine cones in bird seed. It was a sticky job and took a lot of concentration.  The next day we hung some in the school playground and took the rest to hang up at the duck pond.  We then gave the leftover bird seed to the ducks.

A Busy Term in Room 15

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This has been a busy term in Room 15, with lots of new experiences!

We have lots of fun with messy learning in Room 15. In our Secondary Department, all S1-S3 pupils complete the ASDAN New Horizons course – we have begun with building our communication of key information about ourselves.  We have hidden under blankets and revealed ourselves when our name is called (activating a switch talker to announce “I’m here!”), we have practiced our Makaton signs for our names (and those of our friends) and (best of all!) located our photos in sensory resources and written our names in mixed media.

We’ve also introduced bucket time to Room 15. This activity looks to build focused attention – and it seems we’re more focused the messier it gets!  We have used bucket time to build our spontaneous communication too – ready, steady and … “go!”

We have been using intensive interaction to build our communication skills in a variety of different contexts – we’re speaking and using more signs since the start of the year already!

We have been working a lot on life skills, particularly road safety. We use our eyes and ears to look out for traffic, and use our communication devices to say when to stop and when to go.

We have also begun to explore using talking mats to share our thoughts about our day – what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we’re not sure about. On the whole, we’re liking our school day!