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News & Events

Active 8!

28.01.2022

Group Of Students Playing Table BowlingÌý

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Some of our students have struggled with concentrating and maintaining attention in classroom based activities. Tutors have therefore been coming up with new ways to engage our students whilst achieving targets around turn taking, improving social skills, listening and their attention in class.

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We also wanted to promote the importance of movement and its’ role in helping many students to be at the right level ofÌýattentivenessÌýto focus, thus improving engagement. Movement also has a positive impact on mental and physical health.Ìý

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Student Enjoying Therapy Group

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With all of this in mind we have introduced a new therapy group called Active 8. This was developed jointly between our Occupational Therapy and our Senior Leadership Team.

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The learning objectives of the group are:

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•Ìý ÌýTo help students be at the right level of ‘concentration’ to engage

•Ìý ÌýTo develop active listening skills

•Ìý ÌýTo learn target vocabulary and categorisation skills

•ÌýÌý Develop turn taking skills and social interaction

•ÌýÌý Support use of augmentative systems e.g. Makaton or sign as required

•ÌýÌý Work on specific communication targets

•ÌýÌý Focus on understanding of language at a 1-3 key word level to meet our students needs

•ÌýÌý To encourage and increase the range of movement

•ÌýÌý To boost concentration levels by using movement and multi- sensory stimuli

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Student With Staff Member

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We continue to work our way round different student groups and work alongside various tutors to ensure that students have the opportunity to take part in Active 8 where appropriate. By working alongside tutors we can also provide them with the required tools to carry on utilising this group format or parts of it in the future.