Room 17 – Orchard Brae School

Working with Assistive Technologies in Room 17

By Cailean Jaques 9th March 2023 9th March 2023 Room 17

As part of our SQA, ‘Working with Assistive Technologies’, Room 17 have been exploring lots of different ways of using assistive technologies to give us more independence whilst carrying out different activities, and making our learning fun. We have enjoyed using switch buttons for musical activities, and playing with different toys. We have also used different switches for small appliances, such as the popcorn maker, and the hand blender which we tried to carve different pumpkins with (it’s harder than it looks!). We even used a switch for operating a hair dryer to paint with – that was good fun!

Happy New Year from Room 17

By Cailean Jaques 16th January 2023 16th January 2023 Room 17

Happy New Year! We hope all our family and friends had a lovely holiday!

Before the holidays, Room 17 had lots of festive fun. We decorated our classroom, made some fun crafts to share with you at home, and played some games (it didn’t get competitive at all – promise!), and made some reindeer food and hot chocolate cones to sell at the school fayre. Phew, it was busy! We are looking forward to seeing what 2023 has to offer!

Like Robin Hood in Room 17

By Naomi Farrimond 14th October 2022 14th October 2022 Room 17

Room 17 have been practicing their archery skills. Some of us were better at it than others but we all tried really hard and had lots of fun. We thought it was great fun to knock down the castle with our arrows. We also enjoyed target practice with lights – when we hit the target there were some sensory lights came on in our classroom.

Leaver’s Ceremony 2022

By Naomi Farrimond 1st July 2022 1st July 2022 Howes House, Room 17, Room 18, Secondary Department, Senior phase

We have reached the time of year again where we say goodbye to our S6 leavers.

We are very proud of all of them and will miss them immensly. Keith and Emmeline worked with them all to make a video for their leaver’s ceremony. We hope you enjoy it.

Everyone at Orchard Brae wishes our leavers all the very best in their future endeavours. We will miss you!

Bendrigg 2022

By Naomi Farrimond 30th May 2022 30th May 2022 Howes House, Room 17, Room 18, Secondary Department, Senior phase

Last week, pupils from Room 17, 18 and Howes Hoose embarked on our first trip to the Bendrigg Centre since 2019!

Pupils took part in a range of activities- Sensory Swing, Zip Line, Climbing, Canoeing, Caving, Archery and Biking. Thankfully there was a huge amount of food available to keep us well fed!

As you can see from the photos, all of our pupils worked incredibly hard and pushed themselves to try new things. We heard the words ‘I did it!’ and ‘keep going’ over and over again and the smiles on faces show exactly what it meant.

A huge thank you goes to the Bendrigg Trust for looking after us for the week and also to the Friends of Orchard Brae for supporting us with funding for the trip. We had a wonderful time and are already looking forward to next year!

Room 17 Art Gallery Visit

By Naomi Farrimond 17th May 2022 17th May 2022 Room 17, Secondary Department

Room 17 had a very exciting visit to the Art Gallery. One of our class was in an exhibition celebrating 150 years of Voluntary Service Aberdeen (VSA). It was really exciting to see a video with Waleed and his family projected on to a huge wall in the Art Gallery. We all enjoyed our bus outing and seeing our friend in his starring role.

Room 17 quix

By Naomi Farrimond 1st April 2022 1st April 2022 Qualifications and Awards, Room 17, Secondary Department

In Room 17 we have been trying hard to look after our environment. We have been working hard at reducing, reusing and recycling. This week we have been exploring different materials and finding out how long they stay in our rivers and seas if people don’t dispose of them properly.

We would like you to guess how long it takes for some items of rubbish to degrade in the water. We’ve given you a couple of answers to get you started. Next term we will give you all the answers.

Good luck from Room 17

Item	Degradation Time
Paper ticket
Banana skin
Orange peel
Cigarette butt
Plastic bag	10 – 20 years
Foam cup
Tin can	50 years
Aluminium can
Plastic bottle
Fishing gear
Glass bottle

PE SQA

By Naomi Farrimond 1st April 2022 1st April 2022 P.E., Qualifications and Awards, Room 16, Room 17, Room 18, Room 19, Secondary Department

Our pupils from Howes Hoose have taken part in the Nat 2 course Factors Affecting Performance. In this course they have been identifying what parts of the body are involved in different exercises and how exercise affects their body.

Pupils from Room 13, 16 & 18 have taken part in the Nat 2 course Taking part in Physical Activities. During this course they choose different activities that they would like to take part in, and they are learning about the equipment that they need for it as well as setting up and tidying up after using it.

More shape in Room 17

By Naomi Farrimond 28th January 2022 28th January 2022 Room 17, Secondary Department

Room 17 have been continuing to explore shape. We have been identifying 2D and 3D shapes. We have been actively participating in exploring a variety of 2D and 3D shapes and using them in class. Last term we made some trash band instruments and explored the 3D containers we used to make these instruments. This term we have also had a tongue drum that we enjoyed exploring and playing. Some of us liked our own trash band instruments and some of us really liked the feel and sound of the tongue drum

Shape in Room 17

By Naomi Farrimond 28th January 2022 28th January 2022 Room 17, Secondary Department

Room 17 have been learning to be responsible citizens and help look after the environment. We have been reusing containers to make trash band instruments. We’ve also been learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We actively participated in exploring the 3D containers we used to make our instruments.