Expanding horizons and building confidence in the SEND classroom

Rivermead Entry Partnership Room (EPR) is part of the Rivermead Inclusive Trust, where our mission is to ensure young people have every life opportunity and are supported to progress to the best of their abilities, in a complete holistic way.

At Rivermead EPR, we help children and young people with complex additional learning needs develop key life skills which will enable them to thrive not only in the classroom but also prepare them for independent living and future employment. Our learners at EPR are ali post-16 leamers who are not quite ready for college environment and in need of additional education support.

As a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) teacher, supporting all students no matter their age or ability, to excel both academically and as a well-rounded young person, is something very close to my heart. Typically, my learners have high medical or cognitive needs which all require personalised care and attention, and so we provide a holistic education experience which empowers them to progress and realise their full potential. We follow a tailored curriculum which has a focus on life skills, to help learners develop their independence, resilience and communication abilities as well as literacy and numeracy.

Many of our learners are highly sensory, and given their learning challenges, can find it difficult to develop key skills via traditional learning methods. As such, I am always looking for innovative ways of engaging our learners and bringing the learning to life, which is why our classroom looks a little different from most! To best support their learning, we try to create an interactive learning experience which helps learners connect their knowledge with practical skills. For example, our EPR is designed to replicate the experience of independent living with a domestic kitchen, accessible bathroom, living room area and a garden where learners can have lunch, relax and grow their own herbs and vegetables. This gives children the opportunity to leam how to take care of themselves and cook and clean.
As part of the sensory leaming experience, we use Lyfta, an immersive story-based learning platform to help students 'visit' other parts of the world and develop their cultural awareness. The platform uses real-life based videos and an immersive environment to introduce children to new perspectives and experiences from people and communities around the world. Each 'storyworld' leşson is linked to the national curriculum and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, to give children the broadest possible education across a range of topics.

Some of my learners experience the world in a different way to other students, and so immersive learning has been a brilliant way to open a window onto different cultures and places and introduce them to the ways other young people live around the world. The learners have loved this ability to 'travel' from the comfort of the classroom! For example, one storyworld took our learners to an Afghan bakery where they learned about traditional methods of making bread and the experiences of children who work and barter in the street markets. The learners explored the spaces and sounds of Kabul as they virtually move around 360-degree environments, while the lesson prompts them to think about what they can hear, the different smells, and what the people in the story might be feeling. This is particularly helpful for our learners with autism who can struggle to visualise and critically reflect on their learning. With immersive platforms, learning is brought to life in the 'here and now', making it easier for children with autism to engage and stay focused.

Absolutely. To help learners further connect these global experiences to their own lives and solidify their leaming, we've been using the stories as part of a cross-curricular approach. For example, to complement the Afghan bakery story, we made our own flatbreads in cooking class. The learners had great fun testing out their culinary skills while thinking about the experiences of the bakers in Kabul and how they make breads as their livelihood. As part of another real-life story looking at beekeeping, we brought in homemade honey for learners to taste. These activities made the learning more concrete in a dynamic and enjoyable way, whilst encouraging them to continue reflecting and thinking critically.

It's great for reinforcing learning because the resources are so flexible. It's easy for teachers to adapt lesson plans, use the videos as lesson starters or to round-off topics, as well as starting new conversations. For instance, as part of our health and hygiene teaching, we virtually take learners to Ethiopia to experience life inside a medical clinic. The lesson helped to reinforce the importance of health and welfare and provided students with a reference point which they could relate back to personal medical experiences, a particularly timely topic in the current pandemic. Most interesting of all, the learners noticed the similarities between the Ethiopian clinic and UK medical centres more than the differences. The similarities provided a source of comfort for the learners as they understood they were not alone in experiencing health and wellbeing scares.