Centre for Autism

Class One

All About Class One

Class 1 is made up of the Reception and Year 1 aged pupils of the Centre for Autism.  We currently have 9 pupils who are led by a staff team of 1 teacher and 4 teaching assistants.

Our classroom is designed for the children to be independent in selecting resources, with space for quiet and shared sessions, as well as access to a small outdoor area. 

We are a very friendly and outgoing class with a keen interest in exploratory play and every day brings a fresh challenge which we can’t wait to meet.

Class 1 are always active	Everyone is happy when we share the toys	I can write a story all about me
Mess is best	Mud pie for everyone	Our children are welcomed for inclusion at the Main school
Our minibus drives us to exciting places	School is a happy place	There is writing everywhere
This is Oscar our class bear	We all know how to clean up	We can read and write our names
We love noise!	We love our class guinea pigs - Peppa and George	We make our own snacks

Life Skills

Developing life skills is a key aspect of Class 1.  The children are encouraged to be independent in their own care, as well as that of their peers and environment.  We try to introduce the children to or replicate real-life situations so as to build their understanding of and confidence in appropriate behaviour. 

Building together	Caring for each other	Exploring with friends
Role play	Sharing a spooky story	Taking turns with a puzzle
Two is a team	We care for our guinea pigs

Our Learning

Every term our learning follows a new theme and we closely link these topics within all aspects of the curriculum. 

Christmas 2010

Every year Cage Green presents Christmas productions and our pupils were thrilled to be joining their Main school counterparts in 2 wonderful shows.  Reception showed off their skills in ‘The Sleepy Shepherd’ and Year 1 were involved with a brilliant display of ‘It’s a Baby’.  In amongst busy rehearsal schedules, the children were treated to a day visiting Santa in his grotto at the Bluewater Winter Wonderland, where they each received a gift and celebrated the Christmas season with lunch at McDonalds.  A great time was had by all.

Merry Christmas!	Our 2 Christmas Angels	Santa invited us to his Winter Wonderland
Super Shepherd	We went to McDonalds!

Term 1 'Treasure'

Term 1 was our ‘Treasure’ focus and the children loved dressing up as pirates to hunt for buried gems.  We explored numbers and counting through coins, fine motor drawing on treasure maps, and learnt to play team games like hide-and-seek.  At the end of the term the children followed a magical map to the local bakery where they had to each seek out a personalised ‘gingerbread pirate’ prize.  The elaborate costumes were great entertainment to the locals who waved us on our merry way.

All aboard the pirate ship	Perfect Pirate	Pirates
Ready or not, here I come!	Treasure Hunting	X marks the spot

Term 2 'Patterns'

Term 2 was adorned by ‘Patterns’ and our learning began with grinning pumpkins and the sparkle of fireworks night.  The children spent the term creating artwork with shapes and colour and were particularly entertained by a focus on the book ‘Pants’ by Giles Andreae and Nick Sharratt.  We explored animal print and the beauty of colour and patchwork in the ‘Elmer’ series.

Elmer the patchwork elephant	Fizzing fireworks	Halloween carving
Lovely Love Hearts	Pants to be proud of	Pretty Patterns - Zebra
Super colour patterns

Term 3 'All About Me'

Term 3 has surrounded the children learning about themselves, their feelings, and their place in their communities - home, school and the locality.  We have discussed families in books and loved acting out stories such as ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’.  Basic emotions have been a focal point of all learning and the children have been encouraged to consider the emotional effect of their actions on themselves and others.  We have visited the local pet shops to show one another what pets we have at home and to acquire items to make our class guinea pigs even happier.

Angry face	Fabulous family	Happy face
Surprised face	The animals in the pet shop are exciting	We counted the members of our family to make them biscuits
We made Valentine's Day presents because we love our families

The Timetable

The Class 1 timetable encompasses all 6 areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and encourages the children to learn through play and exploration.  We are always active and hands-on with our activities, enjoying sharing resources together which helps build friendships as well as knowledge.  As often as possible, we like to walk to the local shops and library.  Access to the community is vital in our development of the children’s life skills and we are always keen to encourage the children themselves to ask when we need help when shopping or would like to borrow books to read in class. 

Horse Riding is every Thursday afternoon	ICT time	Learning our ABCs
Number time is great	Soft Play is an amazing treat	Storytelling
Talking time is exciting	We are all fantastic at writing time	We visit the local library

Class 2

Timetable

letter term 3 toys.docx

letter term 4.docx

All about Class 2

In Class 2 we follow the National Curriculum.  We are a mixed year group including years 2,3 and 4.  We provide a creative curriculum approach to learning and try to make learning practical and fun.

Term 1

Our topicin term 1 was the ‘Circus’.  The children had great fun at our Cage Green Circus Day.  All children got involved dressing up as different circus acts.  We enjoyed practising our circus skills such as juggling, trampolining, spinning plates and being circus animals.

Within this topic the children learnt about the different acts that are performed, different circus animals and about the different places the circus may visit.

Within the history element the children learnt about The Colosseum in Rome and the Roman Empire.  The children went to Tunbridge Wells Museum and were able to handle Roman artefacts.

Term 2

In term 2 our topic was Transport.  Class 2 and 3 combined to have an Airport Day.  We pretended to go on holiday to Ibiza, we bought our luggage to school, experienced passport control and even tried flying a pretend plane.  The children enjoyed spending time relaxing at our imaginative seaside!

Getting ready to board the Cage Green plane.		Children relaxing at the beach.

Term 3

In term 3 Class 2 covered the topic Toys.  The children enjoyed sharing their favourite toys they received at Christmas and bringing their favourite toy into school for the day. 

During the term the children have been learning about how toys work, what they are made from and what countries they were made.

In Art and DT the children have especially enjoyed making their own sock puppets, board games as well as designing their own LEGO characters.

Sharing our favourite toys from home.

Toy Workshop Day

Class 2 had great fun on their toy workshop day.  They had an opportunity to play with new and old toys from Maidstone Museum.  They were allowed to handle some artefacts that were hundreds of years old.  They enjoyed learning about how the toys were made and how they worked.   
 

Toy Workshop playing with puppets	Learning to use a Diablo.	Making our cup and ball from clay.
Making our board games

Term 4

This term Class 2 have been learning about Clothes and Dressing Up. We had a dressing up day exploring different outfits we wear. We have researched different outfits people wear to work, sport and for leisure. The children had great fun trying on different outfits. The children have been learning what people wear in different countries, what we wear for protection as well as seasonal clothing.

Our dressing up board.	Trying on different hats!
Trying on fancy dress costumes. This was our class favourite!	Dressing up as a Knight.	Darvader came to visit class 2.
We showed each other our favourite outfits we like to wear.	Dressing up as a Fireman.	Dressing up as a builder.

Art based on Andy Goldsworthy

In Art we have been studing the artist Andy Goldsworthy. The children made their own pictures using natural materials found in our outside environment. We have also been tie dying materials.

Getting messy is lots of fun.		Using natural materials to make a masterpiece.
Using natural materials to make a masterpiece.	Our work based on Andy Goldsworthy.

Fire Engine visits Cage Green

Tonbridge Fire Station visited us and we tried on their uniforms and went on the Fire Engine.

Term 5

Our topic for term 5 will be Night and Day.

Kinaesthetic Learning

In Class 2 we endeavour to make learning practical. The children enjoy using their hands and learning in a fun way.

Making biscuits.	Making our pumpkins.	Using blocks for problem solving.
Using Lego to find a solution to a maths problem.	Getting messing using clay.	Using practical objects to develop our counting skills.
Sorting objects	Going on a Bear hunt as a starter for our story writing.

Class 3

Class 3 had an exciting P.E lesson using a variety of apparatus in the hall.

All class 3 children are very proud of the progress they are making in maths. They have been working on a range of written methods for addition. Here they are demonstrating how to use partitioning. 

In our term 3 our active topic was 'The Active Planet'

Kieran is painting a building for the village.	Marshall and Joshua are working together to create the village train station.
Luke made a house with our junk modelling boxes.		The whole class helped to form a volcano out of a large drinks bottle and mod-roc. Once it had dried everyone painted the volcano and surrounding landscape.
We moved our village outside in preparation for a science experiment, which was to make the volcano erupt. Class 3 children chose how they wanted to arrange their village.		The children took turns in adding the ingredients. This experiment was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
We also had fun making volcano tarts and watched them erupt in the oven!.