Your ideal SEN class.

[fartingrainbows]

Hi! I have recently been approached by my local authority to set up a new Send class. It would be for KS 1 children 6-8 places. Children with Asd and learning difficulties.
I have a few ideas but would like to hear from parents, what would be your ideal? Layout, curriculum, staffing, ethos, routine. Anything that's important to you/your child is helpful. Thank you.

Asc..... sorry!!

it needs to help the children there. Its a small enough number you can reflect them and thier needs. ASC is a broad spectrum.
My son likes a nice clear timetable of short lessons, with a proper movement break between each lesson. He likes his own desk space. His special school has the children in a horseshoe each with their own desk. They teally idividualise the curriculum which he needs.

There should definitely be the ethos that “once you’ve met one person with ASC, you met one person with ASC”. So many teachers, including SEND-trained teachers presume that all children with the condition will react / respond to stimuli in the same way and learn in the same way. It’s just not true.

Supercircuits in the morning before lessons start with some alerting and calming exercises have worked for my DC.

My Ds is in KS1 in a special school for children with ASD and MLD.

They seem to do short lessons, which involve being read to (they have a book of the week) and themed activities linked to the book or topic, fine motor activities (threading, mark making, tweezers etc), phonics, numbers, craft, organised play - might involve dressing up, small world toys, again linked to topic.

They also have movement breaks/OT, they have a soft play room and they play outside too.

They have morning snack at tables to help with eating and drinking skills - my DS struggled to drink from an open cup when he started and they helped with this. They have staff support at lunch in the hall too.

Staffing is 1 teacher, and I think 4 TAs (not sure if some are part time) for a class which is usually about 8 children. High staff levels as there are children who are not toilet trained/non-verbal/easily distressed/refuse to take part in activities (this is often my child according to his communication book!).

The classroom looks like a recpetion classroom, but smaller, a lot less busy, and some visuals on the wall and a massive interactive whiteboard. They don't have desks yet, but have some tables. I think they get their own desk higher up the school. I noticed there was a lot of high shelf space to put stuff out of reach of children, and locks on all doors.

I don't think they do punishments or cloud and sunshine type bollocks - they do zones of regulation, which I love.

We have home school communication books, which is good at most children get school transport so don't get chance to see the teacher every day, we can email too. You can request to speak to the teacher in person on Fridays after assembly, and she will make time to see you. They have more parent evening type events than most schools - so one every half term - but in the day not evening.