Newsletter 27th April 2009

Jack Taylor School

NEWSLETTER

Week Beginning: Monday 27^th April

REMINDER

BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY 4^th May

School Closed.

AWARDS

Well done to pupils who received STAR of the week for their efforts in class.

Yellow Class: Yared Hailu for tolerating wearing his splints

Blue Class: Keith Phil Omoqui for Independent working

Red Class: Christian Ssozi for holding objects of reference in the circle

Purple Class: Ezaz Chowdry for good behaviour

Senior 1:. Hilda Mbetola for road crossing during travel training

Senior 2: Sabia Begum for good switch work during the day

Senior 3: Sean Martin for jumping on the trampoline

Post 16: Joanna Cross for good attendance last week.

AUTISM

Thank you to all those that attended the Autism Training on Health related issues.

The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 19^th May at 10am and will be on Sensory Issues.

This week there will be an additional twilight training session for staff in school to build on their knowledge and understanding of autism practices. This is so we are able to keep up to date with current and new practice in the field of autism and ensure that our pupils are receiving the highest quality delivery possible.

Jack Petchey Award

Well done to Aaron Ford in secondary 1 class for receiving the award.

Jack Taylor School Sensory Garden Opening Invitations.

We hope that all parents, carers and friends of Jack Taylor have received invites to the official opening of our garden on Wednesday 13^th May. After 4 years of planning we are thrilled to have a new outdoor space. Please come and give your support by joining us in the event and meet some of the people who were involved in the project.

Secondary 1 Class

The KS3 students have been working hard to maintain the flower beds in our fantastic new sensory garden. It's a bit tricky always knowing the difference between a weed and a plant but both are getting well watered! Meanwhile the KS4 students have been busily putting their best work together to put forward for Accreditation for Life and Living by the OCR exam board... The Secondary One students are telling us (through their reviews and from what we notice about their great behaviour out and about) that travel training is their favourite subject, so we'll be doing lots more of this during the summer term. The students have come forward leaps and bounds in their ability to sit sensibly and not interact with strangers, learn about road safety and look after their Freedom Passes. The Disabled Persons’ Freedom Pass (DPFP) scheme allows Camden residents, with a permanent disability affecting their mobility, free travel within the Greater London area, on the following services: London Transport buses, including low floor mobility buses and Stationlink, London Underground, Docklands Light Railway, national railways services and the Croydon Tramlink. An application form can be obtained on request from the Accessible Transport Service on 020-7974 5919. Alternatively you can download on application form at at http://tinyurl.com/dghxm7

Emma, Jane, Michela and Errol

Communication Partners.

Our speech and language therapist is working to support our communication with pupils through weekly tips that we want to share with you.

TOUCH CUES

A TOUCH CUE is a touch, made in a

consistent manner, directly onto the child’s

body to communicate a message alongside

speech.

We are trialling a set of TOUCH CUES

at school. These are suitable for children

with physical and sensory impairments. DRINK.
Slow firm ‘flutter’ movement of fingers against cheek

Signs of the week.

EAT

DRINK

Newsletter 30th March - Happy Easter

Jack Taylor School

NEWSLETTER

Week Beginning: Monday 30th March

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter Holiday from us all.

REMINDER

END OF TERM: FRIDAY 3^RD APRIL @ 1PM

BACK TO SCHOOL: MONDAY 20^TH APRIL

Sensory Garden Mural.

We are pleased to see the arrival and installation of the tactile mural in the sensory garden. Thank you to Lifeline4kids charity who kindly donated it.

AUTISM ACCREDITATION.

The school and in particular, the staff in the autism resource base are working hard to gain accredited status from the National Autistic Society for their excellence in autism practice.

There has been lots of hard work over the last year to fulfil the criteria that will achieve the award of accredited status.

As a result our provision for autism and the specialist teaching that the children receive has developed and continues to improve towards excellence.

On Tuesday we have our first formal visit by our area advisor who is coming in to observe lessons and give the teams some feedback.

Our main review date by the NAS is set for July 6^th and will be a full week of inspection.

A big thank you to Irena and Emma and the staff in the resource base for their continual hard work towards this.

REMINDER!

AUTISM PARENT TRAINING ON HEALTH RELATED ISSUES. TUESDAY 21^ST APRIL @ 10AM AT SCHOOL - ALL WELCOME

AWARDS

Well done to pupils who received STAR of the week for their efforts in class.

Yellow Class: Lascelle Farell for independent choosing

Blue Class: Rubel Shah for his excellent cooking skills

Red Class: Ikhkas Mohammed for imitating adults’ actions

Purple Class: Adnan Adam for keeping his head up and his progress in physio

Senior 1:. Hilda Mbetolo for independent work

Senior 2: Khali Youssef for being alert and good physio

Senior 3: Joshua Brown for excellent behaviour

Post 16: Whole class for their Step into Dance performance.

Step into Dance.

Thank you to all the senior students and staff who took part in the Step into Dance performance last week.

Well Done

It was a fabulous show.

Wednesday 1^st April @ 2pm. We are looking forward to a whole school FLAMENCO performance which should be a colourful music and dance spectacular!

Purple Class News

Purple class have been looking at the customs relating to Easter and Spring – especially new life, chickens, eggs and rabbits. Students have been making special Easter eggs and baskets, using all their painting and craft skills.

We’ve also been practising signing the words to My School. The students have been learning their colours and recognising the colours of everyday objects. Counting games and counting songs are also very popular.

Purple Class wishes everyone a happy and safe Easter Holidays and look forward to meeting up again in the new term.

Ron, Sharon and Linda

MEDICAL REMINDERS

Medicals are happening in school this Friday, 3^rd April and on the first day back on Monday 20^th April.

Please remember to arrive on time as the schedules are tight!

Thank you.

Thank you to senior 3 Class for their help with the signing assembly.

Communication Partners.

Our speech and language therapist is working to support our communication with pupils through weekly tips that we want to share with you.

TOUCH CUES

A TOUCH CUE is a touch, made in a

consistent manner, directly onto the child’s

body to communicate a message alongside

speech.

We are trialling a set of TOUCH CUES

at school. These are suitable for children

with physical and sensory impairments.

EAT (Oral)

Tap hand on cheek x 2

Signs of the week.

SCHOOL

HOME

Newsletter 23rd March

Jack Taylor School

NEWSLETTER

Week Beginning: Monday 23rd March

STEP INTO DANCE PERFORMANCE

By Senior Students.

The final performance will be this Wednesday 25^th March in the hall at 11am.

ALL PARENTS, CARERS AND FRIENDS WELCOME.

AWARDS

Well done to pupils who received STAR of the week for their efforts in class.

Yellow Class:. Umar Rahman for swimming on his own

Blue Class: Ikhram Shekh for reading names

Red Class: Christian Ssozi for locating sounds

Purple Class: Catalina Banol for using the smartboard

Senior 1:. Mizan Rahman for settling back to school so well

Senior 2: Shahidul Haque for working in the circle with Sabia

Senior 3: Hassan Araghi for working hard n music

Post 16: Omar Mattar for crossing roads in travel training

Video Interaction Guidance (VIG)

Camden’s Educational Psychology service is introducing a way of supporting parents, carers and staff’s interaction with children using Video Interaction Guidance (VIG).

This is a series of sessions with a psychologist looking at video footage of interactions an adult has with their child. A discussion will be about the positive interactions and how this can be used in the future.

This involves filming a positive interaction between adult and child so that the adult can explore what is happening when things are going well.

The purpose is to support the adult and expand on good relationships and skills.

The video will only be seen by the adult and psychologist during the sessions together.

If any parents or carers are interested in taking part in this project or would like more information, then please contact Lucia at school.

Alternatively telephone Chris O’Nions, senior educational Psychologist on 020 7974 6500

Please could you let us know by FRIDAY 27^th MARCH

Friday 27^th March

FRANCIS HOLLAND and JACK TAYLOR SCHOOL DISCO.

5^th and 6^th form students from Francis Holland School are holding their annual disco for our senior students

11 – 1.30pm

END OF TERM : FRIDAY 3^RD APRIL AT 1PM

BACK TO SCHOOL : MONDAY 20^TH APRIL

Red Class News

This week in Red Class we are continuing our work about our story ‘Today is Monday’. The story goes through the days of the week with different food and animals for each day. Last week we explored the different foods including runner beans, spaghetti, fresh fish and ice cream. Then following on this week we are making collage pictures for a display all about the story.

In our team meeting last week we talked about the achievements the pupils in Red Class have made with their IEP targets. Everyone has been working really hard and doing their best which is great. Well done everyone.

Nick, Linda and Cheryl

Francis Holland Donate Cheque to School.

We are thrilled to have received a cheque from Francis Holland School for £2,500 with an additional cheque due on Friday for £500 which they fundraised through a variety of sponsored events. Gary Mac was invited to pick up the cheque at the school assembly presentation.

A HUGE thank you from us for their donations and their continued support for our school and pupils.

Remember JACK PETCHY NOMINATIONS are due soon. This award is for non-academic achievement.

Communication Partners.

Our speech and language therapist is working to support our communication with pupils through weekly tips that we want to share with you.

TOUCH CUES

A TOUCH CUE is a touch, made in a

consistent manner, directly onto the child’s

body to communicate a message alongside

speech.

We are trialling a set of TOUCH CUES

at school. These are suitable for children

with physical and sensory impairments.

WELL DONE / PRAISE

Hold hand and tap back of hand X2

Signs of the week.

GOOD

BAD

RED NOSE LETTER

This is the first of our Newsletters to be placed on the blog - Hopefully we'll work out how to include the pictures in forthcoming weeks

RED NOSE LETTER
Week Beginning: Monday 16th March

AWARDS

Well done to pupils who received STAR of the week for their efforts in class.

Yellow Class:. Shirwa Osman - staying in the swimming pool.
Blue Class: Thambir Bahar for his PECS work .
Red Class: Class effort for making delicious cakes – Red Nose Day.
Purple Class: Ezaz Chowdury for speaking and signing 100 words
Senior 1:. Hilda Mbetolo for counting down to events
Senior 2: James Cho for finding his picture during circle
Senior 3: Siham Nurr for her good eating
Post 16: Reem Derwish for her college work

JTS RED NOSE DAY 13-03-09
Thanks to all those who contributed. We are STILL COLLECTING so please send in you donations.


AUTISM TRAINING
for Parent, Carers and Friends.

The next AUTISM training is scheduled for Tuesday 24th March at 10am in the school Library.
This is an informal training for any of you who want to know more about autism. It is open to friends or others you know that may be interested in coming along.

The session will focus on issues surrounding BEHAVIOUR ISSUES and explore behaviours related to autism. It will give you a guide to strategies to support and understand behaviours presented by people with autism. There will be lots of useful tips for helping to support you at home.
You will have lots of opportunities to ask questions and talk to others.
Refreshments provided.
REMINDER
Parent and Carer Groups
ALL WELCOME

The next meeting is WEDNESDAY 18th MARCH 10am – 12 (in the Library).
We will have after school club representatives visiting to talk to you about places and what’s on offer for your child.

TOUCH CUES

A TOUCH CUE is a touch, made in a consistent manner, directly onto the child’s body to communicate a message alongside speech.
We are trialling a set of TOUCH CUES at school. These are suitable for children with physical and sensory impairments.

Step into Dance Performance.
Some of our senior students have been working hard this term on the Step into Dance project.
The performance will be next week at school
Wednesday 25th March at 11am
ALL WELCOME
Thank you to Blue Class for leading the signing assembly last week.
Communication Partners.
Our speech and language therapist is working to support our communication with pupils through weekly tips that we want to share with you.



Hello,
In Blue Class this week we are going to be reading a new picture book – Rainbow Fish. We will be focusing on reading sight vocabulary and writing exercises. We will also working on everyday hygiene and independent skills. In Maths we are planning to explore position and direction. In art, cooking and humanities we are going to celebrate St Patrice’s Day. Thank you to all the parents who contributed to Red Nose Day.

The new Jack Taylor News blog

Hello

This is an experiment - we're going to see if it's useful to place school news on this blog - we should be able to put our weekly newsletter up here quite easily - we'll see how easy it is and how useful as we experiment. Keep coming back for more updates - and don't forget to leave comments

Stephen Smith, Headteacher