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 4 Timetable
Term Four Start Date: Monday 19th February
Term Four Last Day: Thursday 28th March
Staff Development Day: Monday 15th April
Term Five Start Date: Tuesday 16th April
Term 4 Focus
Hello/Good Afternoon
Pupils will say hello/good afternoon, share how they are feeling, identify their feelings on our 'Zone of Regulation' boards.
PE with George
This term, George will be leading the Meerkats during PE.
English (Positional Language)
The pupils will be working on developing, extending and generalising positional language.
Maths (Time)
The pupils will be focusing on understanding, using and applying aspects of sequencing time, understanding clock faces and comparing digital and anologue.
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.
Inclusive Sport
A fun physical education session to run by an external company. Staff support pupils to engage and participate in a range of PE activities led by experienced Inclusive Sport members of staff.
Rebound/Trampolining
We are lucky enough to have our very own Rebound trained member of staff in class - Danny. Danny works individually with the pupils to develop their confidence and skills when using the trampoline. This also targets regulation strategies as well as physical abilities.
Community Learning - Shopping
We will be undertaking weekly visits to a Supermarket. The majority of pupils will walk there developing their road safety understanding. The class will use a shopping list to locate items that will be needed to undertake a cooking sessions. Pupils will be encouraged to help pay for and pack away the shopping.
Opt-in Book Exploration, Cooking and Relaxation Sessions
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:
Term Three was a really fantastic term. It was amazing to witness each pupils' progress.
Please see some photographs of the pupils in Meerkats engaging really well in the school day.
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.
