Sunday 31 January 2010

Get rewarded for sharing your resources


The Times Educational Supplement has an offer which runs until February 28th 2010. For every 3 SEN resources you upload to the TES site you receive a £10.00 voucher to spend at specialneedstoys.com.
The website says each 'school' is limited to £500.
For further details
visit the TES website.

Saturday 30 January 2010

A report from NIACE

In recent years it has no longer been good enough to maintain the skills of students with learning disabilities.Teachers in F.E. have had to show that students are progressing . No doubt this has stopped the issue of the perpetual students returning to college year after year but it has also limited the learning provision for some students.
NIACE has recently published a report in which it found that nearly one-in-five (19 per cent) of Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funded learning providers reduced opportunities for adult learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities between 2006 and 2008.

The report

Impact of Changes in Provision on People with Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities Post 19

highlights how providers were increasingly making changes in their offer to ensure their provision met the LSC's focus on learning leading to progression. They also stopped courses considered to be of low quality and focused instead on areas of strength rather than opting for a very broad curriculum offer.


You can read about the findings in detail on the NIACE website

Wednesday 27 January 2010

Healthy Lunchboxes

BBC News has an article comparing healthy and unhealthy lunch boxes


There is also an interactive activity from the Food Standards Agency
Make a healthy lunchbox

.
Here are two resources to help in the discussion about healthy foods


Five a Day is a PDF available to download from TES

Sugar Stacks is a website where you can compare amounts of sugar in different foods. Lots of pictures

Free time activities on the computer

Here are three example of visual start pages. In these pages each picture links directly to a web site. This is ideal for helping students who cannot read to find websites.

The ICT Club activities
on the Parkfield School website is a collection of picture links to fun games and activities







Activities for free time -

my own collection on a website called Sqworl .You could make you own using either Sqworl or Tizmo (see an example below)







A visual start page at Tizmo

with games suitable for switch users from
Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs

Life Skills from the BBC


Thanks to the SLD forum I have come across a great collection of video clips made for students with a learning disability.

They can be found on the
BBC Learning Zone

The clips cover issues such as personal hygiene, personal safety, relationships and learning about personal belongings.

Thursday 21 January 2010

Basic skills from the Embedded Learning Portal

The read write/skills for Life resources are constantly being moved making it difficult to keep a tab on where resources are


They are now here http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/interactive-resources



UPDATE 24. 4.7.17




NONE OF THE LINKS BELOW NOW WORK 24.7.17


10 things to use in the classroom from the embedded learning portal



Text Pictures and Symbols Milestone 7




Letters of the alphabet Milestone 8





Reading Signs Milestone 8




Reading Signs Entry 1 an introduction to different types of signs





Listening for InformationEntry 1




Listening for Instructions Entry2




Comparing Measure Milestone 8





Ordering and comparing numbers (to 10) Entry1





Recognising Coins Entry 1




Counting out change Entry 2




Monday 18 January 2010

Safety in the home



Safety First DVD (to buy) about Personal Safety covers safety in the home and safety when out and about. We have it in our college library.



The Home Safety Game and online interactive game from Street wise - Liverpool Victoria



My Sqworl Hazards in the home 6 picture links to online hazard in the home activities



Safety in the Home my blog entry for a range of interactive home safety activities

Saturday 9 January 2010

Gardening Bingo

I am starting a gardening enterprise as soon as we get back from our snow break. I have prepared a couple of resources: A Gardening Bingo . It has 8 cards An A4 sheet showing 9 plants suitable for hanging baskets. Both resources are on the TES website (register on the TES website to download the resources free of charge.)
There is also a Gardening set of picture card on the TES site which covers gardening tools and equipment,weather,and parts of plants.


Also see my other blog entries on Gardening

Big Tree does Symbol surfing


This new project from the Rix centre on Symbol Surfing looks very interesting.The project will explore how people with a learning disability can access websites by using symbol cards which are read by a web cam. The Rix centre are offering the software free so that everyone can join in.
This short video
Symbol surfing demo from nick weldin on Vimeo is a good introduction
You can then head over to the download page to find out how you can join in.

Being Safe when you are out.

Here are some resources for teaching Personal Safety at Entry level.




Transport for London Out and about in London: My guide (PDF 3.98MB) is a guide for adults with a learning disability to help them when traveling independently around London.
It has information on road safety, using various modes of transport such as cab,tube ,bus and train,information on dealing with bullies and looking after belongings. It is still very useful even if you do not live in London.
The TFL web site also has a user guide(not currently available)
and a good auditory version of The Guide (with sound effects)
(not currently available)
Keep Safe : A guide to Personal Safety
Is a guide from the Home office. Good pictures ,simple language but lots of writing so the student will need help to access this document. It could be useful for creating your own resources.



Keeping Safe (not currently available)from Newham Easy Read Portal offers a series of short on line guides with sound . Suitable for adults with a learning disability to access independently
Includes

   
(not currently available)- where do all these useful resources go?

Thursday 7 January 2010

Resources for Bullying

I am starting Personal Safety this term and one of the issues we will be including is Bullying.


Bromley Mencap Bullying Video






What is Bullying - from the Young Mencap website-


Bullying Wrecks Lives (Easy Read)





Bullying wrecks lives A report about the experiences of bullying of children and young people with a learning disability from Mencap .Has 2 examples of bullying worksheets


Don't Stick it Stop it ! The Mencap site for children and young people to help them get involved in the Mencap campaign against bullying

Don't Stick it Stop it! Background information from Mencap on their campaign to stop disablist bullying and recommended links for bullying resources


Don't Stick it Stop it ! video on You Tube




From Bullying.co.uk


Instructions for Create your own anti bullying poster


Create your own anti bullying poster (will need support for reading the speech bubbles)


If Someone Bullies you
Transport for London Out and about in London: My guide (PDF 3.98MB) the Getting Help section
A powerpoint presentation on Bullying from Skoolio ( suitable for Entry level students)




Wednesday 6 January 2010

Make a poster from Bullying UK

This online activity would make a good class or individual project.Non readers will need help reading the speech bubbles.

Monday 4 January 2010

Welcome to the new year

Teaching News has shared this interactive fact of the day calendar from Mandy Barrow Woodlands Junior School. The first three months of the year are currently available.