Broadlands Hall

ASC Specialist Teaching All staff receive CPD regarding strategies that help autistic children learn effectively. These include approaches that work equally well in the home: • Work with routines and tight structures: the strange and unexpected unsettles many students with ASD. • Provide visual plans, timetables and instructions. Similarly, lesson content should be as visual as possible. Visual frameworks, symbol or instructions and clear written instructions really help students to understand and keep track of their progress and work independently. • Never assume you have been understood – check. • Use every learning opportunity to practise social skills, emotional recognition, numeracy and communications: repetition in a range of contexts assists the embedding of learning. • Keep it simple and explicit. Students with ASD hear words literally and find ‘wordy’ instructions confusing and have difficulty with abstract terms or metaphors. Similarly, absolutely refrain from irony. • Sometimes students need to understand ‘implications ‘or the concept of ‘degree’ and ‘variation’ to prevent them developing intolerance and extreme viewpoints. They may also need additional support imagining situations or with invention. Support this type of learning with visual aids. • Do not assume skills learnt in one subject area will be transferred to another. ASD students need to repeat skills learnt in a variety of contexts to embed their total understanding. • Be patient: do not expect instant answers. Many ASD students need to evaluate and process each element or word before arriving at understanding. Allow silent time (additional instruction may only confuse) while students process the challenge or the task set. • Rewards, mnemonics, rhyming rules and story-board rules all help ASD students maintain focus and thereby help them learn and memorise information and complete tasks they find uninteresting.

Resources and Learning Systems at Broadlands Hall include: • Communicate in Print (CIP): this computer software symbol programme enables teachers to build visual resources to help students acquire and develop language and share feelings and ideas. • Makaton: this signing system gives non-verbal students a means of communicating with those around them whilst also helping them develop oral ability. All staff are trained to use Makaton thereby creating an inclusive community of learning. • Social stories and comic strip conversations: we create these to explain any situation arising to help understanding. They can be used to explore emotional and friendship issues, aspects related to puberty and growing-up and right and wrong behaviour. • Comic-strip statements: personalised rules and recommendations serve as visual reminders to students regarding focus behaviours and personal targets. • Sound Foundations: a reading and writing system used to help students who require extra special help with the understanding how written words work. • The Incredible 5-point Scale (Kari Dunn Buron): helps develop emotional awareness and empowers students to understand and control their reactions and behaviours. • Mymaths, Mathsletics and Spelling Pods: interactive computer-based learning programmes that enable students to practise their computer use skills as well as direct the pace of their learning and thus build independence.