Snack Time: communicating, choice making and participation

Background
All our pupils have an Individualised Education Programme (IEP). Each has between 10 and 12 long-term targets, with each then broken down into three short-term targets. The long term targets must be SMART and pupils are expected to achieve these in an academic year. The targets are divided into three categories, Language, Maths and Personal and Social Development (PSD).

Targets in PSD aim to help our pupils:

	develop confidence and self esteem
	develop independence
	to care for themselves
	to form positive relationships with other children and adults

Snack-related targets
Many of our pupils in Prospect Bank have communication difficulties and targets have to be very carefully planned to allow them to develop in the identified PSD areas. In Classes 1 and 2, we have found that planning targets around snack times works well. It is a sociable time with inbuilt 'rewards' and choices appreciated by pupils and is, therefore, motivating. Progression can be planned and the targets can be measured.

A sample of snack-related targets demonstrates their diversity and potential:

	to choose between two snack items
	to name ten snack items
	to match the above items with pictures
	to choose between two pictures of snack choices
	to form a pictorial phrase making a request for snack
	to ask appropriately for a snack item

Practicalities
Some of our pupils can be very passive when they begin school, if early care has not also stimulated independence, so they have to be taught how to make appropriate choices. They also have to learn the hard lessons of what happens when they do not really choose, but gesture, take or point at the first item they see, "Oh no, cheese on my plate, when I really wanted banana".

This is particularly relevant for our pupils with communication difficulties, many of whom rely on a picture system to help them communicate their needs and also to organise their day. In the reception class, the children concentrate on identifying and making choices using real objects. The second class progresses into making choices through a pictorial system using Boardmaker pictures. The majority of the pupils in this class have communication difficulties and therefore make requests pictorially as well as verbally.

Every child has a base board with strips of velcro. At snack time, a choice of appropriate snacks if offered pictorially on these boards (see Pictures E and F), the children form a pictorial phrase making their request, always backing this up with words, if possible, or even just one word. Snacks are served in small amounts so that children are motivated to ask for more. The multiple servings make it a busy time and hard to manage. Help was sought from the older pupils. Class 7 pupils are now invaluable in the class, arriving every day to be our class helpers at snack time. They are greeted enthusiastically by the younger ones and snack time becomes a very sociable affair. They also have to 'read' the pictorial requests being made and hand out the correct snack in appropriate quantities, for example, they have to pour out a small amount of drink, so that if is it spilled it is not a major catastrophe, and also so that the children can ask for more.

Benefits for all in participation
The children in Class 2 are gaining in confidence and learning to make choices which directly concern them; the self esteem of the Class 7 pupils is increasing because they recognise they they are essential to the smooth running of snack time for the younger ones. They can also read the pictorial requests from Class 2 with ease, highlighting their own progress over the years.

Class 7's inclusive residential experience

Preparation for change
Prospect Bank has a tradition of pupils going on residential stays with school staff. New contexts stimulate new learning and stronger relationships. For the last three years, Class 7 pupils have joined mainstream Primary 7s for a week-long school camp, initial partners being Abbeyhill Primary School. Last year, all four primary schools in the Drummond Community High School Cluster enjoyed a week together at Lagganlia, near Kingussie. So successful was this that a booking was made for 2002 the week after they returned to Edinburgh!

Learning from the successful link-up with Abbeyhill, planning began early. In January, the staff from all four schools met the director of Lagganlia to plan the activities for the 85 pupils. The staff gave up their own time to look at the abilities and skills of the pupils and linked them in groups of eight or nine with a mix from all four schools. The majority of the pupils from the three mainstream schools will transfer to Drummond Community High School. In these schools, there were several children with special needs, one pupil would be transferring to Pilrig Park (secondary special) School along with the pupils from Prospect Bank. The groupings took account of pupil interest, abilities and interpersonal skills. The staff allocated themselves to groups to ensure support for specific individuals. Out of the 85 children, some children required 1:1 support. There were two children whose epilepsy was so severe that a member of staff had to carry medication to be administered in the event of a seizure, another was diabetic and needed to be closely monitored, others had mobility impairments and social and emotional difficulties. How to support these young people unobtrusively and enable them to participate in the exciting activities on offer was a real challenge.

Challenges galore!
The activities offered were gorge walking, abseiling (see Picture G), tree climbing, hill walking, archery, canoeing, mountain biking, using the dry ski slope, problem-solving outdoors, mastering a rope course and crossing the mud over the slippery barrel. The pupils were thrilled to test out their skills in all these new activities but the staff could see them developing many other skills that would be useful throughout their lives:

	organising their own belongings
	being responsible for making their own packed lunch and carrying it
	working as part of a team with unfamiliar peers
	facing up to their anxieties about trying new skills
	supporting others in the group and in turn trusting their peers and their instructors
	appreciating the environment
	considering the needs of others

Not everyone approached the experience with the same enthusiasm. For one boy, homesickness marred his stay but the boys sharing his room consistently tried to include him and to distract him from missing his family. For some Prospect Bank pupils it was difficult to keep pace with their mainstream peers but the emphasis of the Lagganlia instructors and the accompanying school staff was on the whole group achieving success in the tasks. Some activities were simplified for the pupils with special needs so that they could succeed within their abilities. For everyone, pupils and staff, a major task was keeping track of all the equipment to be dried overnight and ready for use the next day. Pupils from all four schools learned about taking responsibility for themselves; in simple domestic matters as well as in the great outdoors.

A positive verdict
By the end of the week, there was real pride in their achievements and all pupils, including those from Prospect Bank, were generally more independent. At the disco on the final evening, everyone participated and mixed well. There were many promises to keep in touch with the friends made at camp.

Conclusion

At Prospect Bank, we emphasise our pupils' abilities and potential but, at the same time, they do experience many barriers to participation. However, the combination of their own efforts, the sustained support of families, and the creative approaches to enabling learning that are deployed by the collaborative teams in school, mean that our pupils can participate more and more in school and in the wider community.