Ideas for working with children with ASN

Sandra Miller kindly shares some ideas from her vast experience working with children with Additional Support Needs

My name is Sandra Miller and for over 20 years I was a teacher in the Support for Learning Service within Fife. I worked in 3 different areas – within a Special School, in a pre-school group for children with cerebral palsy and lastly within a specialist service for adults and children with poor or no speech – Fife Augmentative and Alternative Communication Team, (FAACT).

In my first job in Fife, as a class teacher in what was then Lynebank Hospital School, myself and a colleague were asked to write an RE policy!! Now, the school population was very varied, with class groups ranging from nursery to school leavers and it included learners with very differing levels of physical and/or cognitive challenges. To be honest, we weren’t very sure where to even begin! At that time there were few written resources available and even less appropriate training!!

However, after some coffee, some chatting and sharing of ideas, lots of head scratching and thinking, more and stronger coffee…you get the picture…we came up with a few ideas – and over the years, I have developed a few more. They might be useful to those of you working in this area, or they might spark off some bigger and, no doubt, better ideas – who knows!

Sensory

An idea – pinched from a Speech and Language Therapist – is to choose a Bible story, a story with a moral, a ‘rite of passage’ e.g. baptism, or something as part of a Christian Festival like Harvest, Christmas etc. in which you can use lots of sensory resources – things to touch, hear, smell, taste etc. as well as crafts to make, clothing to dress up in, active games etc.

Passover is a good one with lots of smells, tastes etc. Teaching around baptism can be supported by showing photographs – maybe even of themselves at their own baptism, or, even funnier, of you! – touching and feeling christening robes, Bibles, having water sprinkled on the learners, or even, if you have a willing parent, have a real baby dressed in his/her finery!!

Ask you minister or school chaplains to come in dressed in their robes etc. and let the teacher, or even the kids, have a wee shot! Some have very interesting ad colourful preaching scarves that are good to look at and feel.

Some other ideas

Bible stories written with repetitive lines and/or actions are good and can encourage those children who find speech difficult to join in. Just remember to slow your speech down, simplify your language and go at a pace they can manage, even if you just let them fill in the last word.

Use lots of consistent visuals and/or actions or signs to support your Bible stories or singing. It’s good to get advice from your SLT here. Consistency is really important if you want to help support your learners’ access to literacy, even within their RE input! Using a good, symbol set is always MUCH better than using clipart that changes from use to use or classroom to classroom. The same goes for key-word signing e.g. ‘Signalong’ or ‘Makaton’. Any signs or symbols used should be the same that are used throughout the school in any other curricular area.

Sharing Time Together

One of the best outcomes of our head scratching was to develop a time when everyone in the school came together. This didn’t happen routinely, and we felt it was something we lacked – a ‘whole school’ identity – for staff as well as pupils. Our plan was to invite any classes who wished to join us into my classroom last thing on a Friday afternoon to be together, learn some Christian action choruses etc and celebrate the week’s successes and news. This was not universally welcomed at first. Myself and another couple of teachers knew about 5 guitar chords – you’d be amazed at how many songs you can sing with so few! – and that’s what we used, guitars rather than a piano – which two of us actually could play – because it is such a barrier. So, we started small and then, gradually, other classes joined us until we had to move out of my room into the school gym. We even had the physios and OTs come and join us if they were free and some of the adult learners from the ALD school section, along with their instructors. We even used to have the taxi drivers come in if they were early and join in! It became known as the ‘Holy Singing’, given the name by the person who was perhaps the most ‘agin’ it to begin with, but quickly became a real advocate! It was a time when all of us, staff and pupils, felt welcomed, valued, included and, dare I say it, loved. For me it was a real time of sharing the Christian ethos of God’s love for all of us – no matter our circumstances, our abilities, our age or anything else.