Howes Hoose Are Working Hard On Work Experience 

All pupils in Howes Hoose attend at least one work experience placement each week. It is a great chance to be out in the community, meeting new people and practising a variety of life skills. We currently attend 3 different placements. Somebody Cares at Hazelhead  is a local charity shop where pupils help to organise and tidy the donations. Our  Airyhall Community Centre placement gives pupils a chance to practise cleaning and hoovering and Honeycomb Community Cafe at Sheddocksley Church  provides the opportunity to practise using a dishwasher and interacting with new people.  It is always a really positive experience and pupils look forward to getting out and about into their community. 

Howes Hoose Enterprise 

Pupils in Howes Hoose have begun their soup enterprise project and already have lots of happy customers!  Pupils are involved in every aspect of making and selling the soup. Work begins with going round the school to ask who would like soup that week, a great chance to practise interacting with less familiar people. Next is shopping for ingredients and then making the soup in the Hoose. Selling the soup is another opportunity for practising communication skills as well as handling money. We then do some learning activities around the money we have raised! 

The first week we made leek and tattie soup with tatties we grew ourselves in Outdoor Education – it was a hit! 

Futures Event

Thanks to all parents, carers and partners for supporting the Orchard Brae Futures Event last week. It was great to be back in person for this annual event and there was a lovely buzz in the hall as you took the opportunity to network and chat informally to the providers in attendance. The presentation from the event is below. Feel free to get in touch if you wish to discuss anything further.

Howes Hoose Work Experience

The pupils in Howes Hoose have been very busy on work placements. They now have the opportunity to work at Airyhall Community Centre and Somebody Cares. Work placements are very important for the pupils to meet and work with new people, increase their confidence and independence. Everyone on work placement is working hard and they are very polite to people they meet. Well done to all the Howes Hoose pupils for representing Orchard Brae in the wider Community in such a positive way.

Room 13 Supporting Remote Learning

Room 13 have been distributing classwork to pupils at home who cannot access the school during the epidemic.

Our pupils delivered work to pupils in Class 8 this week so that they would all have things to do at home.

At the moment Room 13 is delivering learning packs to around 20 students per week as well as delivering food through the Fare Share to households.

Outdoor Education Update

As the weather gets cooler, classes have been making a bug hotel in the new sensory garden.  We have been exploring different plants and textures to make a place where insects can keep warm over the winter.  We have used grasses, thistle down and a variety of plants to create a cosy environment for our tiny guests to stay in over the colder months.

We have also been setting up tasks for pupils to help keep our playground tidy, like raking the sandpit.  These jobs are great experience and provide a fantastic opportunity to be involved in real work.

We have also been establishing bird feeders outside class and in the new sensory garden.

Working Hard: Room 13 Enterprise

Class 13 are all together again after almost 5 months disruption. We are all glad to be back to something like normal.

One of our jobs this year is to collect food from Tesco at Westhill and take it back to school for distribution. We have had some teething problems but hopefully it will be a weekly enterprise for us in Room 13, alongside the students in Howes Hoose.

Here you can see us offloading the food from the school bus so that it can be classified.