In a teacher’s words:
“Linwood School includes students with a range of special educational needs and disabilities. I work at Springwood Campus which is for students on the autistic spectrum. I lead the students who started their lives in mainstream education and have transferred to Springwood because we are an autism-friendly environment and they can complete their education with the necessary support. There are six students in each class.
As part of their autism, the students all have some social, emotional and communication challenges. As well as academic lessons, we spend time in class building up their social communication skills. On Fridays we play a game like Sussed, charades, pictionary or the headband game. This gets students working together, communicating and turn-taking.
The Sussed cards are part of this programme. The students have really enjoyed playing the game over recent weeks. It has been a very good way for students and staff to get to know each other. It has also led to some very interesting discussions. Humour is very important in my class and we have enjoyed some of the weird and wonderful questions. We still laugh about asking one boy whether he prefers cleaning his ears or flossing his teeth!
They like to follow the rules and so the first time we completed a full game which took ages with six students and three staff. After that, we reduced the size of the groups - or just did one set of questions per session so it fitted the time available.
I asked the students to jot down some feedback so I could reply to you and they said lots of positive things, mainly about it being fun and interesting and that they liked the questions.”
