Welcome to the Marvellous Meerkat page!
About Us
We're a lively and highly structured class that offers a range of techniques and practices to support each child's uniqueness.
Our learning is structured around the Beech Pathway. This delivers a unique and personalised curriculum to develop social communication and emotional regulation skills. Activities are tailored to encourage and develop the pre-requisites for learning including joint attention, engagement and participation, communication, mutual regulation and self-regulation. This curriculum is delivered in a highly structured environment with room for personalised flexibility within routines to meet a range of needs. Due to the nature of this curriculum, content is taught cross-curricular through highly motivating activities; including curriculum and multisensory.
Term 2 Timetable
Monday 30th October - Staff Development Day
Tuesday 21st October - Friday 15th December
Term 2 Focus
Hello/Good Afternoon
Pupils will say hello/good afternoon, share how they are feeling, identify their feelings on our 'Zone of Regulation' boards.
Horse Riding
We will be going to Cobbes Meadow in Chartham every Monday morning to have a turn riding a horse. This is a fantastic activity that the majority of pupils use well to help them regulate.
Trampolining/Rebound
A great active session that is enjoyed by all. All pupils have an individual amount of time on the trampoline, working on their moves.
English (Writing)
We will be working on developing our writing skills through various activities.
Maths (Money)
The pupils will be focusing on identifying, sorting, adding and using coins in a 'shop' themed activity.
Attention Autism (Bucket)
Bucket is a learning approach that aims to develop natural and spontaneous communication skills in children through the use of visually based and highly motivating activities.
Community Learning - Swimming and Shopping
We will be undertaking weekly swims at Heron's Pool in Herne Bay. Afterwards, we we be using a range of skills to access a supermarket to purchase our own individual snacks.
Computing
A fun session to develop our communication and IT skills.
Opt-in Fine Motor Skills and Creativity
During the opt-in sessions, pupils are encouraged and invited to take part in a range of motivating activities that target key skills and areas of knowledge. If the pupils decided not to opt-in, staff members will work on different aspects of their development bespoke to their needs and targets.
How We Learn
In Meerkat Class, we follow the TEACCH cycle (for Maths & English sessions).
This structured approach aims to:
- Build independence.
- Allow pupils to interact and communicate with peers.
- Retain attention throughout the lesson.
- Teach key functional skills.
- Increase predictability.
The pupils rotate between three stations - Workstation, Group Table and Leisure.
Group Table
This is often the place in which new learning is introduced with a particular focus on English/Mathematics concepts as well adding the social element with peers too.
Workstation
Pupils will have short independent tasks pitched at their ability.
Leisure
A brain break for pupils, with an opportunity for them to relax, explore or initiate play amongst a variety of resources.
Important Information
Daily Key Essentials
Snack, spare clothes (including shoes), waterproofs, squash and drinks bottle, suncream, any personal aids (for communication or physical) and any medication.
Evisense
You will be able to track your child's progress through the use of photos and videos, using the online tool - Evisense.
If you need to support to access this please contact Jasmine.
Contact Details:
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions:
Jasmine McPherson
Meerkat Class Teacher and Beech Pathway Lead
j.mcpherson@stns.org.uk
01227 464316
Gallery
News update:
We had a fantastic first term of the year. The pupils responded and participated really well in shopping trips to local supermarkets and purchased a range of items to complete some creative cooking creations.
Please see some photographs of the pupils in Meerkats engaging really well in the school day. This includes using Intensive Interaction, a personalised individual schedule to promote independence and the Zones of Regulation to understand emotions.
Meerkat Class
Home Learning:
If you would like to carry out some home learning with your child please see the documents below. These are to support with developing independence with some day-to-day activities.
