SEND - Home/School Learning and Support Pack

A dedicated helpline and email system has been set up to support needs of families with SEN/D. Please click here for full details.

https://chattalearning.com/chatta-club-2/

"Chatta"is a simple teaching method. It is used in classrooms across the world and by families at home with their children. Chatta Club provides activities for children every day which support progress in language, literacy, memory and wider learning."

Visit https://speechandlanguage.info/parents for lots of speech and language resources, advice and tips for parents working at home with their children who have SLCN.

Routine/ Structure:

All children, with or without additional needs are different but what many children will commonly find difficult is the lack of structure and routine in the event of school closure. This is particularly true for children with ASD.

How you can help this:

Ensure a routine is in place as much as possible in the morning and throughout the day (washed, dressed, breakfast/ mealtimes etc...)
Have a daily plan of activities broken down in to chunks, use a visual timetable to show activities. Timers can also be useful to support with children reluctant to engage in tasks and set a manageable and achievable expectation which can then be followed up with a short, highly-motivating activity as a reward.
This is a good opportunity to allow your child to build their independence skills, without having to rush out the door for the usual school-run (as is sometimes the case for many of us). Allow your child to engage in real-life tasks around the house which build their independence and resilience and all of which are important life skills (helping with cooking, tidying, DIY, tying shoe laces, cutting up their own dinner, doing buttons etc...)

Social stories are a good way of helping children to explain everyday situations or experiences that they may be finding difficult, such as the Covid-19 pandemic (link to document can be found in the linked documents/ resources section).

Carol Gray, a leading specialist on ASD has also made her social stories website available for free during this time when you register:

https://carolgraysocialstories.com/carols-club/

Supporting Speech and Language:

If your child is known to the speech and language service, they will have a care plan that outlines ways you can support your child’s development. You should also have been sent, wherever possible, some resources to support you with this. Look at the activities and ideas and spend small chunks of time working on the activities set out.

In the linked resources you will also find a number of suggestions of how to support your child’s speech and language skills through play-based games and activities.

General learning opportunities and ideas:

School can be a very fast-paced environment for many children and so for those with additional needs, opportunities to over-learn, revisit, recap and revise are hugely beneficial. Creating mini projects either electronically or on paper can be a great way of going over a subject or topic that has recently been taught and learnt.

All year groups have provided an outline of work and resources relevant to your child’s year and these should be used, as well as looking at alternative ways to build on children’s learning experiences such as:

Vocabulary building/ mind-mapping class based topics to pre-teach and learn upcoming vocab that will be used.
Opportunities to learn creatively and record in alternative ways such as video recording, electronic presentations, posters and other forms of art work. Learning through multi-sensory approaches: seeing, doing/making, and hearing.

Online spelling tools, word searches/games and activities

Touch typing (BBC Dance Mat Typing) to learn valuable typing skills which help with children that find writing difficult: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zf2f9j6/articles/z3c6tfr)
iPad Apps- there are a whole host to support mental maths, spelling, letter formation and many aspects of learning!

Memory games (visual and auditory memory skills games- see pack)

Use of video recording/ phone- film an explanation video or short information presentation about a topic of your choice

Be the teacher- explain to your parent/ carer or sibling how to do an activity of your choice. (Recount how you did this-use own choice of recording method).

Activity sheets are available in the linked documents with games and ideas to support children with the following: motor skills development, balance and co-ordination and ball skills. See attached documents for these leaflets.

Design and set up an obstacle course in your garden. Draw the obstacle course and time each family member completing it- who can be the winner?

Set up an indoor or garden scavenger hunt; find particular objects, answers to calculations, numbers, sounds etc.

See the Change for Life website for lots of ideas of how to get your children moving more:

https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/activities?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjcfzBRCHARIsAO-1_OoXNNzrRFEvKwvXmh0o-Rr0Y2tWYbEJdgti701MrISPzf9jwqex-AUaAnOIEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

The Body Coach (Joe Wicks) has many children’s workouts available for free via YouTube and if you have an Echo Dot/ Alexa you can also access workouts via this service.

Garden mini beast exploration- what did you find? Draw and explain/ count numbers of insects etc. to support maths and record in a table/graph.

Try something new- food/ activity and choose a way to tell someone about it (through art/ drawing, writing, filming etc)

Be creative in the kitchen (cooking and scientific experiments).

SPEECH & LANGUAGE

Help your child’s speech and language skills during the holidays/ break:

For many children, especially those with additional speech and language needs, the holidays can be a long time and we want to build on the progress they have made with their language skills this year. To help you support your child, we have put together a number of fun suggestions to continue to build on your child’s language skills, without making them feel they are having to do lots of work over the holidays/ break.

ï‚·Choose a favourite game. Teach someone else how to play it. Think about and describe each thing you need to do, one at a time.

ï‚· Think of a place you would like to go to. Make a list of all the things you would need to take with you.

ï‚· Learn 5 new words related to things you have done.

ï‚· Take several photos of what you have done during one particular day. Then put them in order and tell someone back the story of what you did. Make sure you talk about each picture one by one.

ï‚· Read a new book. Choose a character in the book and talk about how they felt. See how many different feeling words you can think of.

ï‚· Learn your address (if you don’t already know it), days of the week, months of the year, alphabet (forwards and backwards).

ï‚· On the way home from a trip out, take turns with an adult to name as many things as you can think of that you saw.

ï‚· Learn a joke and try it on a friend or someone in your family.

ï‚· Take a trip to somewhere you know well. See if you can give an adult directions of how to get there.

ï‚· Phone up a friend or someone in your family. Remember to say hello and goodbye and to tell them who is talking. Tell them what you have been doing that day and find out what they did too.

ï‚· Collect some objects from things that you have done during the holidays. Put them in a bag or box. Feel each one without looking and describe it. See if you or the other person playing can guess what it is. Pull it out and see if you are right.

Also remember the importance of reading: listening to and reading to your child.

The local library runs a reading challenge over the summer which is free to sign up to. The library offer a wealth of books, including audio books too, for all children’s abilities and it’s free to join the library! (Contact your local library for further details).

The Libby App is also available to download via Google Play or Apple which is an online link to your library account. You need to register and set up your account with your existing library account but you are then able to access a wide range of reading and audio materials through this service for both children and adults.

You will also find linked documents to support the following areas of need:

Sensory needs and sensory processing difficulties (including ideas for sensory circuits)
Auditory processing difficulties
Visual memory difficulties
Occupational therapy activity ideas to support balance/ coordination and motor skills
Relaxation techniques & mindfulness
Calm down strategies and behaviour support ideas
Paired reading approaches to support those with reading difficulties

Mrs Hudson

SENCO