Transition and Beyond

Newham Easy Read site is about the issues that face young people with a learning disability when they leave school or college.

Some of the information is geared to London and the Newham area but there is lots of information which could be used by anyone in the UK. There are sections on relationships, travel training, leisure, work,money,support, day services,living on your own,safety and education.
It is written in simple language with pictures and sounds so that it can be used by young people with a learning disability.

Pictograms from Axelia

Axelia Pictogram is a French site which has a free library of symbols to download .
These can be used for non commercial purposes.The page can be translated if you find it is in French when you open it. Google has a translate option.
I have found the best way to save the pictures is to download by categories which can be found under the Library pictograms on the home page . Each picture is labelled in French so searching by name is not an option for me!
The download is a Zip files . On my computer these automatically open with WINRAR.
First create a folder in My Pictures .Choose the Save option. Save to your new folder when the download is complete .Choose the Open Folder option. You will see a zip file logo. Right click on the logo and choose Extract Here. The pictures will appear in the folder!
Also see my blog entry How to open Zip files

Common Knowledge1+2

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Common Knowledge1+2

View more presentations from guestd55a36.

Cumbernald College get Crafty

Cumbernald College get crafty
is a news story about a fundraising craft project undertaken by students with a learning disability at Cumbernald College . It features photos, sound and a short You Tube video.
The story is featured on CK Click .This is a fully accessible Internet magazine for people with a learning disability which is on the Common Knowledge website.
The slide show on my next blog entry gives an over view of the Common knowledge website.

The Jim Green Memorial Award

The Jim Green Memorial competition is an annual event held at the South of England Showground at Ardingly.The competition is for young people with a learning disability who attend Further education colleges /schools in the Sussex/Surrey area. It is aimed at encouraging a range of skills. Some tasks have to be done on the day and others completed in advance and taken along, together with plans and photos of the work in progress. Subjects include horticulture, baking, woodwork, craft skills as well as team activities such as building a scarecrow, digging a border and fruit and vegetable identification.
Colleges taking part include Manor Green College, Chichester College, Downsview Link College and Plumpton College. Its a fantastic day out and a well organised event enjoyed by all the students.

A Night Out

All over the United Kingdom young adults with a learning disability have been benefiting from night clubs and discos especially for them.
In 1995 Heartnsoul piloted a club night event called The Beautiful Octopus Club with live performance and DJs. Beautiful Octopus club is now also in Leeds at West Yorkshire Playhouse. and HeartnSoul have helped to set up the Barrucuda Club in Belfast.
This You Tube video from Heartnsoul features young people talking about why the Beautiful Octopus Club is so important to them.


Brighton and West Sussex also have night clubs for adults with a learning disability . These are run by Carousel an arts organisation and include :
The Blue Oasis Club, Horsham
The Blue Bird Club, Crawley
The Blue Wave Club, Bognor Regis
The Blue Starfish Club, Worthing

The Brighton based Blue Camel Club was recently featured on BBC South Today . Watch a 3 minute video here.

A day at the Engine rooms

Biggerhouse productions has been working with students from Bridgwater College and Avalon School link . They have posted their new films on You Tube. You can watch Cheryl's film below

Vist to an Airport

You may be lucky enough to be planning a residential / holiday with your students .This interactive airport activity The Birmingham International Airport experience explains how the airport works from arrival to take off and includes photos and has lots of short videos, This resource is suitable for young people and adults with a learning difficulty. There are a couple of pages that have literacy and numeracy questions related to the airport which can easily be skipped over if the level is too high.

Going Out

“It is heartbreaking to watch your child grow up in a world that is alien to them and see them struggle, so I knew I had to do something to change that.”

Nicole Hamerton ,Stars in the Sky ,Fareham

Stars in the Sky is a dating and friendship service for adults with learning difficulties .

It is based in London, but now has branches in
Birmingham
Essex,
Fareham

Isle of Wight (via the Gateway club )

Leeds

Bristol.
Stars in the Sky was featured in a Channel 4 documentary

.Truly Madly Deeply in July 2006 although it doesn't seem to be available to watch at the moment.

There is a good Easy read PDF available to read on Our Say

Once you've left school .Milestone 1-3 PMLD

Kate at TLMSN blog (from USA) has written about the next step for her students once they have left school. It is a well written piece : Where do we go from here? It sets out the most important things she hopes her students will learn. Well worth a read.

Me and You. Learning about ourselves and others

I have started doing some work on awareness of self and others with my milestone 8 /entry 1 adults. I am using the Talkabout books: TalkAbout: A Social Communication Skills Package





and the accompanying Talkabout Activities. To supplement this we have used Face maker to help with describing and looking at others and for a bit of fun! Facemaker can be found on Trans-active which is a project from Mencap for teenagers with and without severe learning disabilities working together.
The website has a Teenzone which is the fun and games side of the site.
I have added this to my Sqworl.

Using picture links

I am using Sqworl to make a series of picture links for my Milestone and Entry level students to use in I.T.

It is still a work in progress. We will add further favourites as we go along and I hope it will allow some independent working . I have a list of You Tube links that my students like and other sites they enjoy in their free time. I also have some simple games as alternatives to Sensory World! The links are public :

Choose a learning game

For using in free choice time

I also have a public Tizmos page which I am also experimenting with

http://www.tizmos.com/mainbanana

Literacy and Numeracy for Reluctant Learners at E3

If you have Entry 3/ Level 1 reluctant learners this interactive resource may be for you. Bling it on develops literacy, language and numeracy skills.

The game was designed to hook reluctant offender learners and their families into a ‘first step to learning’ The subject matter of driving cars was chosen to appeal to male learners and has been piloted in prisons .The developers say the initial feedback has been promising!

You can also read about this on the blog e-learning stuff