Our class ethos

Shipley class provides a pathway to learning through adapted practical and hands on activities, putting great emphasis on nurture and sensory needs. We offer a bespoke curriculum to support all pupils of varying needs and implement the TEACCH approach, providing our pupils with an organised and structured environment centred on individual skills and interests that supports their learning journey. 

We begin our day with greetings that includes signing along to our good morning song, looking at our visual timetable and using the Zones of Regulation board to help identify emotions and relate to their feelings. We have regular opportunities for brain breaks woven into our timetable to support regulation, sensory needs and individual well being. We have an active start to the day with fun action exercises that help our pupils get ready for a day’s great learning.

We have a fantastic outdoor learning program, which includes Forest Schools with our trained teacher providing our pupils with opportunities to experience a natural environment in which to explore and discover. Weekly exciting outdoor learning sessions for science will provide great opportunities to investigate experiment and learn new things in practical and hands on lessons. For all our lessons, including English and Maths outdoor learning is incorporated into the planning and provides exciting, fun and engaging regularly throughout the term.

During 2024-2025 we will be covering a range of topics which support holistic, enriching and thought-provoking learning experiences, all linked to acquiring relevant knowledge and skills:

• Autumn 1 – Me and my memories (History Focus)
• Autumn 2 – Make some noise (music Focus)
• Spring 1 –  Let’s get Fit (PE Focus)
• Spring 2 –  Exploring our neighbourhood (History Focus)
• Summer 1 – Nature detectives (Science Focus)
• Summer 2 – Colourful Carnivals (Music Focus)

Beyond Bennerley sessions mean we get to experience outside classroom learning and have regular visits into the community to shops and cafes to support pupils in gaining independence and confidence outside of school and home.

Pupils will develop their life skills in the home by participating in activities such as how to wash clothes, use an iron and vacuum cleaner. We will also be practising skills for making healthy snacks and learning to use equipment safely.

Important Information

Monday - Community visits PM. We will let you know where we plan to go a few days in advance and provide visual support.

Tuesday - PE and Sensory circuit PM. PE kit is required on this day.

We will be doing Forest School in the summer terms; we will let you know about kit for this separately.

We will send you updates about your child throughout the week using our class email. If you need to contact us, we check email before and after the school day. If you need to report anything urgent please use the main school email address or phone the office.

As part of our christmas week Shipley class have enjoyed:

• getting to meet Santa 
• Making christmas hats
• sharing christmas dinner with our friends across school
• Making christmas crafts
• Decorating biscuits 

Shipley have enjoyed making their maths lessons active this half term and taking them outside to explore addition and subtraction.

During English we followed a set of instructions from our key text poem to make our own pizzas. We have also used our senses to explore a variety of food to help us to think of different describing words.

As part of our Beyond Bennerley we went to visit Shipley Park and Visitor Centre. As part of maths we were able to exchange money for desired items in the shop. 

All maths sessions this term has given many opportunities for outdoor learning. When learning units of measure, length and height pupils compared objects they found in Forest school using non standardmeasures and had fun comparing different heights of friends and adults in our class. For number and place value we set up ‘stations’ around our outdoor space so that pupils could participate in a range of activities linked to learning to count objects to 10 using numicon, number lines, 10-frames and inviting and engaging resources. When learning addition to 10 pupils carried out hands on practical activities to identify that, the whole is made up of parts. Using hoops, an assortment of manipulative and concrete objects to support building on prior learning and get pupils to think about all the possible ways of finding number bonds up to 10.

For our topic ‘Memories and me’ our book text has consisted of two fiction and one non-fiction.Our Paper Dolls story was enjoyed through sensory experiences and roleplaying parts with props along with learning the sequence and narrative of text. For our book Once There Were Giants we observed how we change as we grow with a focus on building short sentences and basic punctuation. Our non-fiction book You’re body, You’re Senses gave us lots of opportunities to explore our senses through sensory experiences along with identifying key features of non-fiction text.

Our first topic is 'Me and my Memories' (History focus)