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Gymtrail at school

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AttilaTheMeerkat · 07/03/2007 07:34

I have been taking my son to the above school run programme for a couple of years now but I do sometimes wonder how effective it all actually is. The school tell me that their one is based on what the physios/OT advise. I'm not saying it doesn't help at all (it has helped my son to a certain extent but then he also has a Statement which gives him a set number of hours of support per week which undoubtedly has also benefitted him) but this School place a lot of emphasis on GT and invite parents to bring their children to it.
My cynical head thinks that this school is using Gymptrail as a way of saying, "well we are helping your children, honest".

I do wonder whether such programmes have been properly evaluated. I'm also thinking here of the various criticism levelled against the Dore programme of exercises. Part of me also thinks that these children could be also be just as well served by giving them more and better support in class but that's another matter entirely!. For those who don't know what this is Gymtrail (probably has several different names) uses physical activity and fine motor skills work to help children with co-ordination difficulties. The one we do is a 15 minute programme done most days during the week. This may involve throwing tennis balls at a sticky target, threading beads, using a hockey stick to push along a ball between cones etc. This particular programme we attend also starts before school. I know of people who have declined to send their kids to gymtrail for this very reason.

OP posts:
mymatemax · 07/03/2007 10:14

Hi Atilla

DS1 nt (7) does gymn trail 2 mornings. It was originally suggested just to help with his self help/organisation type skills & these have improved. I'm not sure if this is due to gymn trail or if these skills have developed naturally. A mixture of sn & nt children take part & they do all seem to progress through the tasks it is done at the start of the school day in small groups.
I have not researched any formal assessments of the benefits but I see it as the school investing their time in the children when individual difficulties are identified.
Is there any individual GT progress records you can look at for you to judge its effectiveness in your sons case, does he have 1 to 1 during GT?

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