West Oaks School and Technology College

Elaine Hampson

The North East SILC (West Oaks School and Technology College) is a generic special school in Boston Spa, near Leeds. It is a SILC (Specialist Inclusive Learning Centre), one of five in Leeds.

Hilary McEwan, the former Principal of West Oaks, who sadly died in May 2006, was instrumental in setting up the No Child Left Behind Initiative in Leeds. He made a bid for Leading Edge funding in 2006 to work with three primary schools and a pupil referral unit in Leeds. As part of this project an Educational psychologist was appointed, and two learning mentors have now been appointed. The aim of the project is to work with children with behaviour difficulties, using the SEAL materials (Excellence and Enjoyment: social and emotional aspects of learning) to develop a programme which combines Social Emotional and Behaviour skills and literacy skills. A behaviour audit was completed and the planning was then based on the results of this by linking the information to the SEAL materials. The behaviour objectives are taken from the Going for Goals unit in the SEAL materials.

Jane Harrison, the Curriculum Assistant Headteacher, and Elaine Hampson, ICT Consultant to West Oaks, began a pilot study in November 2006 with three children from a primary school in Leeds. The use of ICT is integral to this project, and Clicker 5 has been used extensively to support the work. Images from the SEAL materials were put into a Talking Book based on expressions, and a variety of activities were set up, including observation, labelling, recording voices and lots of speaking and listening activities. The pupils used digital cameras to take photographs of each other and disposable cameras were given to the pupils to take home and take photographs of their families. The images were to show different expressions and feelings.

The boys were asked to think of feelings in terms of colour, and words on screen were coloured according to their responses.

Their photographs were then put into Clicker 5 with Clicker Paint, and the boys were shown how to use the tools to build up their picture and then the assistant layer was removed.

The boys are very motivated by these activities, and the responses from them in terms of the language used have been very good. When asked what do you think you have learned today, one reply, without any prompting, was, “How to express your feelings using colour.”

This project is still in its infancy and we hope to develop the use of Clicker Paint to support our children with a whole range of social and emotional aspects of their learning.