Communicating with the Outside World

Discuss within your group and complete this sheet as an individual.

What have been the barriers to the project so far, please describe in as much detail as possible?

First of all our original placement pulled out so as a group we had to find a new placement which is now the Red Gates School.  Due to working with autistic children who also have other learning disabilities and observing their lesson it's clear that when planning a lesson we have to take into account all the children's personalities and their abilities the hardest thing will be planning their lesson as we can’t be sure if they will cooperate or how they will react to us being their new teachers for a session.  

How can you overcome these barriers, what have you done so far?

We have spend a morning with the children so they can become familiar with us, we are also planning to email and find out the children’s levels. Spending time with the children has relly helped to understand then and how they react in different situations.

What are the themes and issues surrounding your community group?
i.e: disabilities, attention constraints etc.

All the children have learning difficulties with many also being autistic, due this this our particular class are non verbal so the teachers communicate using macaton a sign language but depending on ability they don’t always respond and some get irritated by noise so their our headphones to cancel out noise they also don’t have  very long attention span they need to be constantly occupied.

How does this affect your workshop and do you need to explore further?

Our workshop needs to be engaging and very interactive as the work needs to be sensory. We need to have backups and be quick on our feet no matter how much we plan the children constantly change and so do their interests and reactions. We are going to email the teacher as she knows the childen best to see what would be the most effective as some and more physical than others.

How do you think this will shape your workshop?

The workshop with be split to the different children and will consist of mainly marking making and feeling different textures as the children really respond to it we plan to play music throughout the activity using lots of music.