What our children said at Lakeside!

Evaluation - Lakeside November 2011

UK

Belgium

Czech Rep

LAKESIDE, UK – Nov 2011

Evaluation Form

1. What did you like the most?

The friendliness of visitors and finding out about their schools.

      Discussing the way the staff teach.

Our students working with male teachers.

Discussing cultures.

Learning about different communication aids used in Belgium and Czech Rep. Opportunity to share photos and share good practice, resources and experiences.

How students with autism communicate in the partner schools.

How well the visitors interacted with our pupils.

How well our visitors spoke English!

Final assembly sharing work.

 

The Lakeside school received us very warmly. We had enough chances to be in contact with colleagues from the Lakeside school and our Czech colleagues during the meeting.

The program made for the meeting was varie.

We had different learning moments and the evening program was great for informal contacts.  d

The way the sensory stories are used in the classes.

The way the teachers and teacher assistants work together. 

We highly evaluated the teamwork of all staff Lakeside School and positive atmosphere at school.

The best experience for us was meeting many interesting and inspiring people and communication with colleagues.

We admired sensory corners in every classes and especially sophisticated methodology of work in Sensory room. 

Omni Vista is amazing device. We saw it the first time and we loved it very much.

Teachers and all staff were very nice. And yours program was really great prepared.

  

2. What can you use in your own school?

Apps for the Ipad from Lenka for communication as this is an area at Lakeside we would like to develop.

Keep signing as the visitors were very impressed by this means of communication. 

Sensory stories and also rhymes and songs from other countries.

Possible Boccia link with Belgium School

We will use the sensory story that we had from our partners.

We can use the intensive interaction we need to learn more about that.

The idea of an assembly starting the school day and ending the school day : We will propose this to our colleagues and want to do this on a weekly basis in our school. Start the week on Monday and end on Friday. Set a child or a class in the picture for something special they did during the week.

The way the sensory room was equipped all the materials are interesting to use. The way the teacher worked with the children in the sensory room. Each child had a specific approach. The way the session was started and ended. We hope we can have our own room very soon.

We dream about an Omnivista.

Certainly we would like to use the Sensory stories, because we use it only little in this form in our school.

And we often talked about method Intensive Interaction.  It seems to be very inspirational method for better progress of every child with special needs. 

We were also interested in aids for MOVE and verticalization of child. This all is inspire for us and our colleagues.

3. What would you like to learn more about?

Learning strategies used in our partners schools.

How they work with VI and ASD students.  ICT programmes used for this group.

Opportunities for 14 – 19 year olds, and progression. 

Specific strategies used in schools for communication.  

To see how Ipad Apps are used.  Also VOCAS. 

The structure of their schools – classes / timetables / curriculum. 

How they assess pupils ability and make decision for placement.  

Organisation and planning for literacy at different ages / stages in Belgium and Czech Republic.   

How special schools are lead and managed.

PE in partner schools

Learn more about the making of a sensory story. What is important, valuable tips,  how do you keep the attention from the children…

The use of intensive interaction.

Specific activities in the sensory room.

We would like to have a workshop about both during our next visit.

Forms of open discussion about school (content, organisation…) and school life.

We learned a lot of information during non formal meetings and chatting.

We interested in methodology of MOVE therapy for translating to Czech language.

To learn more information about success of inclusion SEN students in the mainstream school.

4. What did you learn about stories?

Use of Belgian Sensory Story – learning about Belgium.

Fantastic stories and rhymes from other cultures.   The children enjoyeds the stories. 

We knew the importance of storytelling but a sensory story adds so much more for children who are mentally retarded. We experienced that you have to practice this way of storytelling. The same story can be told many times and every time you will discover other things to do. Each reaction and intervention of a child was encouraged. The teachers took time to tell the stories.

The stories are very interesting experience for us. We want to inspire our colleagues to using in classes for students with severe disabilities.

We admired the lesson for children with several handicaps, which we saw.

5. What did you learn about communication?

Ipad Apps – Czech School  Can be cheaper and effective communication device.  Particularly English language ones. 

How much we do already as a school to try to allow all to communicate at their own level. 

How fantastic our visitors were at speaking English.  We need to learn Czech and Dutch!  We all need a method to communicate when we visit a country and do not speak the language – use of symbols for staff?

We learned that you can communicate in many different ways and on different levels.

We saw that the use of intensive interaction stimulates children even if they are on a mentally low level. We can use this intensive interaction for some of our children who can’t speak or children who have difficulties with interaction. Everyone took time to get contact with the children they didn’t force it.

Communication and interaction with other is important for everybody.

Our students can show to us that words don´t the most important for understanding. This is the same for UK, Belgium and Czech Republic too.

  

      6. How could the visit be improved? 

It was excellent!  Well organised.  Visitors having a little more time to observe and reflect in school ; to discuss communication with Speech and Language Therapist, the Sensory Zone, control and communication skills. 

First of all we would like to say that is was a good meeting that we all enjoyed. 

The Comenius team members of the host school should have more moments of contacts between them and the visiting team. This can only when these members are free of lessons during the visit, if this is possible for the school organisation of course.

Program, hospitality, care and accommodation were perfect.

First meeting was excellent. Tanis and her team did a great job.

Thank for all.

We hope that we too prepare the same successful meeting for us in Czech Republic.

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The 1st Comenius Visit to Lakeside, UK.

9th -13th November 2011
Our first Comenius visit with SAC – Lakeside School Welwyn Garden City, UK

Staff from our partner schools in Belgium and the Czech Republic enjoyed a warm welcome in assembly with songs, photos and greetings from the whole of Lakeside School. Students and staff learnt words of greetings in Dutch and Czech.

Van 9 tot 13 november hadden we een meeting in de Lakeside school in Welwyn Garden City. Dit is onze Engelse partner. We bezochten de school en mochten meewerken in enkele groepen. De sensory stories waren zeer interessant om te beluisteren en te beleven. Het zijn zeker dingen die we in onze school kunnen gebruiken. De collega's van de Lakeside school hebben  voor een goed gevuld en gevarieerd programma gezorgd. Leerrijke en ontspannende activiteiten wisselden elkaar af.
Het was onze eerste meeting met de Engelse, Tsjechische en Belgische partners.

UK meeting - Setkání v UK

9.- 13. listopadu proběhla první schůzka SAC v Lakeside school ve Velké Británii. V průběhu čtyř dnů jsme se seznámili s provozem školy, vyměnili jsme si své smyslové příběhy a také jsme všechny naučili českou písničku Pásla ovečky, minimálně DUPY DUPY a CUPY, CUPY :).
Velmi nás zaujal program intenzivní interakce, který směřuje k podpoře co největší aktivity i u dětí s velmi těžkým postižením. Celý pobyt nám přinesl hodně inspirace a také navázání nových přátelství s kolegy z Anglie i Belgie. Děkujeme Tanis a celému týmu za výbornou organizaci a těšíme se na další spolupráci.