Supporting your child at home

Hello to all parents and pupils working hard on their home learning at the moment! We are so proud of all our pupils at this time and are enjoying seeing all the photos of what they are getting up to.

On this page, the SEN team will be adding some extra resources, website links and 'top tips' to support your child at home. This may be particularly helpful if your child currently accesses some of our SEN interventions at school. If you get a chance, also have a look at our SEN intervention overviews in the 'Provision at Westacre' section to see what the children get up to in these interventions.

These will be in addition to the daily updates and other home learning documents which are being regularly added to each year group page and which include a range of activities to support pupils of different abilities.

Miss Brighton 

Mrs MacPherson

Mrs Burke

Mrs Eaton

General advice and support

The Babcock Prime website www.babcockprime.co.uk is updated daily with advice, guidance and resources that can be used to support children and young people.

Babcock Prime Learning Support Team Guidance for Parents:

Make learning as practical as possible. Children and young people do not have to be sitting with a pen and paper or looking at a screen in order to learn. The more practical and based in real life that activities are, the more memorable that they become.

• Set up a shop at home with a price list and give your child a set amount of money each day. As well as helping their maths this will also stop the constant requests for snacks through the day.
• Writing letters or emails is a great way for pupils to keep in touch while they are not at school. Many will be using Skype or FaceTime but in an email they could make a quiz, a wordsearch or a puzzle for their friends.
• Practical cooking, gardening and cleaning activities present the opportunity for many learning experiences with weighing, measuring, reading scales, following instructions, remembering sequences and making decisions.
• This is great time to ensure that your child knows their date of birth and their address. They can learn the days of the week and the months of the year.
• Times tables can be practised with toys
• There are a great number of websites that provide ideas and resources. BBC Bitesize https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize has loads of resources and also gives links to other useful sites.
• As always little and often is the way to go. Keep revising what you have already covered. This build confidence while ensuring that skills and knowledge are embedded.

Social, Emotional and Mental Health

https://www.babcockprime.co.uk/disadvantaged-and-vulnerable-learners/educational-psychology/resources-area/Educational-Psychology-guidance-during-the-Coronavirus-outbreak 

Speech and Language

There are lots of great ideas for how to support your child at home with their speech and language on the Worcestershire NHS Speech and Language website including video demonstrations.

https://www.hacw.nhs.uk/childrens-speech-and-language-resources/ 

During our speech and language interventions we always have time for targeted conversations highlighting our listening and questioning skills.

Have a go at this fun speaking game...lets get talking! 

Memory

Kim’s Game
Kim’s game is a great activity to help develop memory and concentration skills and you don’t need any expensive equipment to join in the fun.
Take about 10 or 12 everyday objects from around your house and place them on a tray or table. Players have about a minute to study and memorise the items on the tray. The tray is taken away and players write down everything they can remember (spelling needn’t be important). The winner is the person who correctly remembers the most items. The game can be made more challenging by including more items or choosing items of the same colour or category. 
An alternative way of playing is to remove only certain items or change their position on the tray. There are so many ways to have fun and the whole family can join in.
The name of the game comes from Rudyard Kipling's 1901 famous novel Kim, in which the hero, Kim, plays the game during his training as a spy.

Attention and Listening

Here are some ways to support your child to develop their attention skills while learning at home: https://www.hacw.nhs.uk/download.cfm?doc=docm93jijm4n1123.pdf&ver=2070

Games:

“I went to the shop and bought…” is a great game that all the family can enjoy. 
Go around the group and each member adds an item to the shopping list while reciting, in the correct order, all the items that have been said before finishing with their new item. Anyone who makes a mistake is out. The winner is the last person still in the round.
To vary the game you can choose different themes for your list e.g. “Before I went on holiday I packed in my suitcase…”, “I went to the zoo and saw…”, “I made a pizza topped with…” etc. The ideas are endless. However you play, have fun and remember, this is a great way to sharpen your attention and listening skills.
 

Touch Typing

Here are some links to some websites to support your child with their touch typing skills. We use these in our Touch Typing intervention. Have fun!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zf2f9j6/articles/z3c6tfr 

https://www.nitrotype.com/ 

Social Communication and Understanding.

Here is a link to a visual timetable that could be used while home learning:

https://www.hacw.nhs.uk/download.cfm?doc=docm93jijm4n1820.pdf&ver=3496 

Here is a social story which could be used to help children understand the current situation: https://www.hacw.nhs.uk/download.cfm?doc=docm93jijm4n1807.pdf&ver=3465 

Spelling and Phonics

Phonicsplay a site for interactive phonic games. 

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

Login is March20 and password home- free access to all while pupils are home learning.

Fine Motor Skills at home

Fine motor and eye-hand coordination skills can be developed through everyday activities:

• by preparing food e:g chopping, peeling vegetables, mixing, squeezing and spreading, making pastry etc.
• Puzzles 
• Drawing, colouring in and painting
• Cutting with scissors
• Play-doh
• lego

Here's just a few to get you started, enjoy!

Gross Motor Skills

Here are some fun activities suited for older children to help them build gross motor skills without making it seem like work.

• Playing throwing/catching the ball, turn it into a game, start throwing it to each other closely, move out a step each time to make it more challenging.
• Trampolining-Using a trampoline is a great activity to improve balance.
• Obstacle course- perfect in the garden using hoops, cones, balls etc
• Dancing- helps children develop balance, coordination and motor sequencing skills.
• Football, basketball, tennis, cricket etc.
• Yoga
• Roller blading, cycling.

                                                Enjoy!