Sherwood Park Newsletter

Dear Parents /carers

It has been another busy week on both campuses - we celebrated World Book Day in style, with a variety of costumes and activities! The children had a great time and lots of fun was had by all.

As many of you will be aware there have been some changes to COVID guidelines in England. We have updated our procedures to reflect this so please do read the following:

Sherwood Park School will be continuing with the following guidelines until further notice:

· Encouraging twice weekly lateral flow testing of staff.

· Isolation at home for at least 5 days if a staff member/pupil tests positive for Covid-19. Staff/Pupil’s can return following two negative LFT tests and they are feeling better / not showing symptoms.

All other previous restrictions will no longer be in place.

We will continue to ensure that good hygiene control measures remain in place including regular hand washing, good respiratory hygiene, maintaining appropriate cleaning regimes and keeping occupied spaces well ventilated.

Your child’s class teacher may contact you in the near future to discuss specific activities going forward, for example community outings.

We are very pleased to announce that we are planning to reintroduced the Right Respecting School Award at our School. The UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) works with schools across the UK to create safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured and they are able to thrive. The Rights Respecting Schools Award embeds these values in daily school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.​

Sherwood Park School was awarded Level 1 (Silver Award) in March 2017. We have been advised that the Rights Steering Group should review the outcomes at Silver and Gold and decide whether we want to go back to the silver level or go for gold. We will keep you informed regarding the Steering Group decision!

And finally - it’s a career mufty day on Friday the 11th. So we’d like the pupils to dress up in uniforms e.g. police officer, astronaut, doctor/nurse, footballer, headteacher or business person etc.

I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Simon

This week, Thistle Class have been super busy accessing their individualised learning programmes. Sam enjoyed his gym session and managed a whole 5 minutes of fast walking on the treadmill, Charlie went out on the minibus and ordered himself his McDonalds using the app, Junayd used his initiatives to locate and collect litter using the pickers when on a community walk, Frazer has developed his independence when shopping knowing where to find his items in store, Ben has been accessing a new timetable with more structure to support him in managing his regulation, Reece and Josh have been working really well as a team to complete problem solving challenges that occur during their day. We hope everyone has a great weekend. ​

In Capri we made pancakes this week with Shaun and James.

We did our sensory story "giraffes cant dance" with music cha cha slide, rock n roll, Tango Marian and Jayden were amazing doing the Tango together. We also had the waltz the whole team danced with the boys it was so much fun. We made dancing giraffes for our display, we made edible paint for Liam who loved using his hands and fingers whilst painting them. Joe has enjoyed doing lots of matching colour activities and construction tasks. Isah has transitioned from school to swimming really well. They all have had fun with the swimming pool at Sherwood Park school this week.

​Teal class had another busy week! Students loved Pancake Day, we explored what ingredients are needed to make a pancake mix. All students had lots of fun cracking the eggs into the mix. We also tried different pancake toppings our number one was whipped cream with strawberries. We are really proud of Nana, Zac and Lulu for tolerating to get messy and touching different food. Nana even tried a strawberry which is amazing! ​Book Day in our class was a real success too this week. We loved all the costumes and having quality time reading with all our students. Well done to Oliver, Zara, Luke and Ritam for participating in super warm sensory story and looking for spaghetti warms in sensory trays and sticking them on the paper. Have a lovely weekend.

This week in Lime class we have been looking at our new colour ‘green’ and in art we made beautiful handprint trees exploring the different shades of green. Everyone loved pancake day and this was a real highlight of the week. We really enjoyed putting toppings on pancakes and eating them and exploring all the ingredients to make pancakes! We also had lots of fun on World Book Day where we focused on reading all day. We explored lots of different letters and interacted so well with the immersive technology in the sensory room and we all looked great dressed up too! Our celebration star this week goes to Ethan for trying new foods! Well done everyone and have a lovely weekend.

This week the students in Sapphire class have enjoyed lots of sensory activities. As it was book day this week we have also had lots of stories, they particularly liked a sensory story Where's my mum"

Olive have had another busy week working on communication, transitions and numbers. We are concentrating on 2 books this half term, Handa's Surprise where we are identifying the animals and trying the different fruits and The Colour Monster. We based our book day activities around The Colour Monster and had lots of fun sorting colours, designing our own t-shirts and looking at feelings and emotions. Narjis dressed up as Anna from Frozen and Diya came in as Peppa Pig, the rest of us had bight colours on to go with our book. Our star this week is Narjis for some fantastic listening and joining in sessions she finds hard, well done Narjis.

Indigo class have had a great week. We loved our Easter art lesson making Easter Eggs and our play lesson in the sensory gym. We are working hard to acknowledge and play with our peers rather than just our adults which is going really well. A special mention to Charlie this week who had a fantastic end to the week. We are all very proud of him and was great to hear his singing and laughing again. Well done Charlie.

This week Mint class had a busy week. We had swimming lesson on Monday where students are truly showing their improvements in aquatics. On Wednesday, we celebrated Pancake day where children had a go to make a delicious pancake. They explored ingredients firsts and then participated with adult support to mix and roll the dough. Then we chose the topping and expressed likes and dislikes.

Finally, we really enjoyed celebrating the World book day and it was lovely to see students dressed up. Children participated in share reading and explore sensory story trays.

Our star of the week will be for Yusuf for verbally requesting to play peek a boo. Well done!!

This week Iris Class have been busy enjoying road safety learning and walking to the park.
Well done to Ayo who has been transitioning well from school to different places in the community.

This week lilac class have begun preparations for their Easter Enterprise by making posters to advertise and starting work on the crafts we will be selling.

This week in Violet class we have been looking at different food groups, and talking about making healthier choices during lunch and snack times, choosing one healthy alternative a day.

WOW of the week goes to Hasham who has been able to transition well around the school in a regulated state, and joining in with group games with his peers.

Lavender has had an exhilarating week! On Monday, we celebrated Harvey’s birthday and prepared for a party. We visited Sainsbury’s, and learners used their core boards to choose their favourite snacks. Back in class, we made bunting and decorated the class. Everybody participated in entertaining games, such as pass the parcel and hitting the pinata. This week in creativity, we explored the artist Mark Rothko and imitated his work through mark making and selecting awesome colour combinations. Lavender class has enjoyed our new sensory lights in the relaxing tac-pac sessions and yoga sessions led by Dalma. Tim has made sensational progress in swimming and is now confident in going into the deep end of the pool. The star of the week goes to Louie for his focus during painting and balance during the ‘tree pose.’ Well done Louie!

This week in |Marigold Class we worked extermley hard on Our Narrative stories and our play and Lesirue sessions trying new play scenarios. We had a great world book day and even made pancakes. This week we would like to Celbrate Mila, Who has had exceptional engaement in all learning session, But her best moment was using new visuals to support her play during our funtional play session where we had a dogy salon role play set and she was able to request equiment and decied if the dog was sleeping, licking or barking! Well done Mila.

This may seem like a cop out but everyone in Sunflower Class gets a star achiever this week. Bouna came in for the first time in over a year; Ellie helped over zoom during my lesson observation; Freddie, Leland, Ayaan, Lara and Lottie all took costumes to a new level on World Book Day.

Well done David you are our star of the week in Bamboo, when working with one of our volunteers from Wallington Boys School you were persistent in gaining his attention through direct looking with intent. You are an amazing young man.

Lily Class Star of the Week is Lucy for really great engagement in attention bucket sessions and taking herself off to her area in the classroom to self regulate.

​Sushmi is Daisy Class Star of the Week. Sushmi has worked really hard and is now showing greater awareness of his peers and is reaching out to interact with them in class. Well done Sushmi.

Hebe class have been busy exploring the features of The Gruffalo, our sensory story for the term. Our ‘Hero’ this week is Benjamin for participating in all activities and trying really hard to listen and follow instructions. Well done, Benjamin.

Tulip class have had a busy and fun week. In our cookery session most of the class made pancakes for shrove Tuesday and thoroughly enjoyed choosing and exploring the ingredients to go into them and helping them to flip by pressing a switch. Everyone enjoyed sharing, listening and participating in sensory stories for World book day. We have had some great achievements this week. Jayden demonstrated how well he can turn to look behind him when sitting on the therapy bench. Jack and Liam increased how far they have been walking in their walkers. Our star of the week though is Jeysha who has been trying to initiate interactions with her peers by coming up to them and reaching and giving really great eye contact and vocalisations.

Bluebell’s star of the week is Ibraheem S. Ibby has been off for a very long time and now he’s slowly coming back to school. He’s happy all day, interacts with his peers and play with them. He enjoys adult led activities too and his transitions inside the school are getting easier. Well done Ibby, and he keep up the hard work.

For world book day Poppy Class acted out our favourite book, Supertato in assembly to show the whole school what we have been learning about in class. The children loved running away from the evil pea from the story and saving the vegetables from his terrible plan!

Inspired by the story Alfie created a wonderful piece of artwork on the computer of Supertato and the evil pea so he was the star of the week for this magnificent digital drawing.

Sycamore star of the week goes to Laurena, Jennifer, Vasyl, Tate and Miranda for participating in Football tournament beautifully. They followed instructions, they joined in fully engaged and... had lots of fun too!! Well done everyone.

Orchid class ‘Star of the week’ is Albert for clearly communicating when he would like to play outside and for learning how to open the conservatory door independently.

Park campus - Leo from Lily Class engaged really well in his joint Occupational therapy and Physiotherapy session this week, he sat on the Bolster swing for the first time and showed his interest in having another turn on the swing with a big smile on his face and ‘hopping’ towards the swing on his knees! Well done to Leo for trying something new and for tolerating stretches on his right foot.’

Hill campus - Zac has settled well into Sherwood Hill. He is using his coreboard to communicate about things in his environment and is learning to remove himself when he needs a break to help him regulate. Well done Zac.

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Have you heard about the Parent Carer Wellbeing Study?

www.parentcarerwellbeing.org

It’s a national survey of parent carers in England and by sharing your experiences you can help researchers develop better support for carers in crisis.

The study is being led by the University of Exeter and the survey has been co-designed by carers.

There’s no limit on the type of illness or disability your child has and parents, step-parents, foster parents, kinship carers, and legal guardians are all welcome, as long as you live in England and your child is under 18.

To complete the survey online, or request a copy by post, go to www.parentcarerwellbeing.org

Videos

If you want to include a video with the social media posts, here are links to two short films about the study:

Anna’s Story: The Parent Carer Wellbeing Study – Anna’s Story - YouTube

Julia’s Story: The Parent Carer Wellbeing Study – Julia’s Story - YouTube

Twitter

Have you heard about the Parent Carer Wellbeing Study?

If you're a parent carer in England, with a child under 18, they'd love to hear from you. Your input will inform better support for carers in crisis.

Get involved at www.parentcarerwellbeing.org