Teaching and therapy
Students are exceptionally well supported by an experienced and well trained teaching team who have been trained in PECS and TEACCH. All of the teaching staff have extensive experience of teaching students with autism and in managing the challenges that face the students.
Each classroom is headed up by a teaching team. Students usually work in the same group with the same teaching team. The familiarity with their surroundings and the adults who are working with them helped to reduce students' anxiety so that they can learn more effectively. The teaching team is headed up by The Director of Care and Education, who also teaches music, maths and literacy to groups.
Teaching areas are bright and cheerful, and are enlivened by displays of the students’ work. The Shires follows a TEACCH approach to learning and students have their own individual work stations where they can concentrate on independent tasks as well as working in groups at times.
Students are supported by a well qualified team of specialists, including a speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist, music and creative arts therapists and a clinical psychologist, who work with the core staff developing individual programmes to extend the students’ skills. Therapists train core staff so that therapeutic programmes are consistently followed in the care and education settings. The educational psychologist regularly visits the school, working on individual programmes with students and helping staff to develop meaningful behaviour and care programmes that advance the students’ skills, self-knowledge and independence.
What Ofsted says...
Consistently good teaching and the effective support provided by outside professionals, enable students to make outstanding progress in all areas of learning.
