Resources for SN HE - exams.

Here's a list of the info on exams for HE kids with special needs I've collected to date. M is a few years off needing this yet, but it might be helpful for others.

Where do I start?

 It's full of information and a good place to start finding out taking exams...
http://he-exams.wikia.com/wiki/HE_Exams_Wiki

Fiona Nichloson's website has an exam page (she also has a lot of knowlege on college for 14-16 yr olds).
http://edyourself.org/articles/exams.php

This is the email list for people doing exams...
https://groups.yahoo.com/.../HE-Exams-GCSE-A_AS.../info

There is also a facebook group...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/HELinksUK.IGCSE/

Special Access Arrangements

Details on how to arrange special access can be found here....

http://ehe-sen.org.uk/exams.php

Alternative Qualification route to Uni?

US High School Diploma + SAT test.  This curriculum is aimed at 14-18 year olds.

An alternative qualification route to Uni for those that feel GCSE's/A Levels aren't right for their child is the US High School Diploma + SATS. Here's one accredited homeschool provider for SN kidshttp://www.setonhome.org/special-services/ . This one is Catholic, but should give you an idea of how the US system works as a starter for 10. This provider also has a dedicated SN department.

w/c 22nd September 2014 Highlights

Monday began with a global breakfast - this week we tried Japanese cuisine. This led to a couple of hours looking at how miso is produced on youtube and exploring all the different processing methods for the humble soya bean. It was especially interesting for M as his dairy free diet means that Soya is often offered as the alternative.

We also began this MOOC https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/science-experiments and thoroughly enjoyed the first experiment. Marking his points on a graph for his experiment has sparked Marc's interest in a maths topic he found rather tricky last year with Briteschool. We'll use some of our non-time tabled hours over the coming weeks to continue this line of study I think. Strike while the iron is hot!

On Monday evening M took his new puppy to his first training class. M is acting as the puppy's handler. Valuable social interaction is a key reason for attending these classes. M can work on improving his ability to follow complex instructions, and the very unpredictability of puppies means that the class is a way of helping him to extend his flexibility of thinking in a fun, yet challenging way. It's also far easier for M to make friends at groups based on common shared interests.

I have to praise the staff at Swansea Dog Training Club. They were so patient with Marc as he struggled with his left and right, & a pup that had been very travel sick in the taxi enroute to the venue. The class is very, very busy - I counted about 35 dogs. As these are all pups and most handlers have either kids or partners with them, this can be considered the most challenging environment Marc has coped with for a long time. It was great to see M coming out of his shell and chatting to other children while awaiting his own turn. It was also fantastic to see him applying all the active listening skills he's learnt over the last year with the help of Briteschool to a busy, unpredictable, real world situation. We caught the bus home, and M stayed far calmer than usual.

Briteschool geography homework involved taking photographs of the clouds at dawn, so on Tuesday M was up and dressed by 5 am, ready to go out into the field behind our house to take his photographs. Sadly, it was a misty morning so we didn't see interesting cloud formations. However we did get to appreciate living in such a beautiful location before the usual morning routine of walking the whippet, and seeing to the cat and chickens.

On Saturday we got our first ever egg laid by one of the bantam cuckoo marans we hatched from an incubator at Easter. M ran around the garden squealing in excitement and it was truly one of those parenting moments that I'll remember into my dotage. He was over the moon, and considered his first egg to be  a just reward for the months of care he has put into looking after his 3 little bantams. The first egg laid was tiny, so for fun M is going to plot the weight of his eggs on a graph against time. This will allow him to reuse the scientific method he learnt this week on his future learn science course, and embed the knowledge. He considers it maths revision, and fun combined.

The bantam egg is held next to a supermarket egg so you can see just how tiny it is.

We took advantage of the sunny weather to visit the Swansea Boot fairs on Saturday and Sunday morning. This gave M the opportunity of practicing his mental maths and social skills as he searched for bargains to purchase with his saved pocket money. We found a set of digital binoculars which should enable us to add some images of the amazing views in the Swansea are to this blog. M really enjoyed his time with his 15 year old friend & our neighbour instead of just M to compare and discuss items with.

The first vegetable patch was created in the garden, ready for enrichment with the compost Marc has been creating all summer with the aid of his chickens. Creating a reasonably sized growing area is going be a major task, as the garden hasn't been cultivated in anyway for at least 16 years prior to our arrival. However the heavy work involved is excellent OT style therapy for M, as it helps him to regulate his sensory responses a little better. 

w/c 15 September 2014 Highlights.

Briteschool homework was fun this week : )
Instead of writing a report on cell structure M chose to make 3D models of animal and plant cells. This week we started work on the animal cell.

It is so nice that Home Ed allows M the time to explore new concepts and find alternative methods of recording his knowledge. He finds physical handwriting so challenging, yet is not short of ideas or lacking knowledge. This also helps build his motivation and self confidence as time goes on.

M utilised the site http://www.neok12.com to watch several age appropriate videos on cells and took the accompanying quizzes for fun. I read the questions and M gave me the verbal answers - this means I am confident M has mastered this topic.

We also had several interesting conversations about the lessons fairy tales try to teach us, which involved several trips to the bookshelf, before M finally came to his conclusions and wrote up his homework report on Monday. He is struggling a little with creating his own Fairy tale as this is a task that directly challenges his ASD style thinking, requiring as it does quite a lot of imaginative creative thought. Tasks like this require a couple of hours a day, spread over the week to complete.


We also signed up for a 5 week Reading eggs trial just to mix up reading practice a bit.
Our Skills sharpener for Grade 1 Reading from Evan Moor publishers arrived and looks suitable for daily practice. We are using Evan Moor daily for Literacy and Maths. The workbooks are clear and nicely structured which suits Marcus. It will be interesting to see how quickly he moves through the grade levels this year.

Friday was an interesting trip to collect our new puppy, an hour's train ride from Swansea North into rural Carmarthenshire. M was fascinated by the scents and smells (sheep and cow farming country) enroute in the car to the breeder. He also engaged really well and asked lots of very sensible questions when selecting and then being taught to care for his new puppy. Since coming home he's followed those instructions to the letter. We've chosen a miniature poodle so M can to do obedience and agility classes, as the pup grows. All going well Marcus and his new pup, Coal, will be attending a weekly puppy class and building their skills together. I've sourced a lovely a dog training club that accepts children as handlers and am hoping that this will open up a new friendship group and broaden M's social horizons over the coming years.

Black curly hair means we match!

w/c 8th September 2014 Highlights

A short update only this week.

We are once more enrolled in the Upper Primary Timetable (KS2), and the Junior Science (KS3) with Briteschool. This is a live, online primary school that enables M to enjoy a normal school experience and interaction with other pupils without the sensory overload that so hindered his progress in mainstream. M was keen to start back, but I can tell it'll take him a week or two, to get back into his homework routine. We also started our Daily Literacy and Maths Skills Practice. Next week I will add handwriting to our daily tasks.

Due to set lesson times with Briteschool we are restricted to only being able to attend Home Ed groups on Mondays and Fridays during term times. We attended the Porthcawl Home Ed group for the first time this week. It seems a very nice group, but perhaps not quite as inclusive as the now defunct Rhos group we attended last year. Due to the journey time & cost, we won't be able to attend every week, but will instead aim for once a month for the time being. It keeps M in touch with some of the friends he made last year, and myself in touch with local goings on in the Home Ed Scene.

The Friday Porthcawl group is attached to the Wednesday tutorial group in Brigend which offers Arts Award (GSCE equiv) and some GCSE courses for older children. For the time being it is the social aspect we need to supplement our home programme. It was a lovely end to a hard working week for Marc as the weather was lovely. It runs in the afternoon and as it's located next to the beach I can see us making a day trip of it whenever the schedule coincides with fine weather.

Resources - Autumn Term.

Year 7 Resources - Autumn Term 

www.briteschool.co.uk Each week M has 8 hours of formal classes with this provider. These are small live groups, run by qualified teachers and are aligned with the NC. M would be in Year 6 were he still at school so he joins the English, Maths and Humanities primary classes. He also joins the KS3 science group as this is where his passions lie. Homework for each class is set weekly. 

The lessons are recorded, so if M misses the inference of a term used in the live class discussion then he is able to listen to the recording after the lesson. This is incredibly useful for a child with a social communication disorder. It is also helpful for him to be able to participate in live group work and team projects as this was something he was unable to do in mainstream school. The confidence he has gained from feeling able to contribute to the group has been lovely to see over the last year. Class sizez are small - M's largest set only contains 8 pupils and the average seems to be about 6. 

For a child with anxiety and sensory issues attending Briteschool means he gets the benefits of "school" in terms of peer interaction, specialist subject teaching, group participation, structure & routine etc with none of the sensory overwhelm that made mainstream school so unbearable for him. 

M's learning resources 

Note these resources supplement the work M does with his online school, they are not intended to form a complete curriculum. Homeschooling offers us the chance to build upon M's strengths and support his additional learning needs in a way that's not possible in mainstream school. In addition the LA points us towards some specialist  resources at our termly meetings, which in order to preserve M's privacy I will not be posting here.

Literacy & Language

M is not yet a confident reader and has receptive language issues. This presents challenges across the whole curriculum. His motor co-ordination issues also hinder progress in the usual way with writing. In order to address these issues we've separated out the various literacy learning strands so that he can focus on learning a specific skill at any one time rather than becoming to overwhelmed. e.g We either focus on content OR on handwriting at present, only combining the two for shorter pieces of work than is the norm for his age group. In this way we've found progress can be made without M becoming overwhelmed at the scale of the task. 

Active Listening:- 

We are using the following sites for their audio stories. This allows us to focus on discussing the content of the story and gradually improves M's comprehension skills over time. 

Storynory.com - the narrator's voice can be slowed down to help pick out individual syllables in words using audacity software. This enabled M to make progress with phonics last year, and so will be continued throughout year 6. 

This terms long text. For sheer fun we are currently listening to the audio story for "How to train your Dragon" available here:- LINK. In October there is a live webcast by the author we will be tuning into.  In November we are going to the free screening of the animated film run by the Intofilm festival with some of his Home ed friends. We will be looking for the differences between the animated film version of the story and the book version as part of our discussions.

https://www.flatstanley.com/ We have purchased the "World Adventure Series", and will be listening to this, before joining the UK creative writing scheme next term.

We also use storylineonline &; reading planet  if nothing catches our eye on our weekly trip to the library. 

Reading 

http://www.headsprout.com This course is popular with ASD/SCD students as it offers a highly structured, precision taught, structured reading comprehension course. However we are having trouble logging in at present, following a move to a new support platform. Very frustrating, but hopefully the customer service staff will demonstrate their usual efficiency and we'll be back on track in the next day or so. 

For fun we will trial the free 2 week trial of a programme called reading eggs, just to add a little variety to our termly programme. 

We have a weekly trip to the library where M can borrow books from the High Interest/Low ablility list (seperate blog post) for his daily reading practice. 

Writing 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Daily-Language-Review-Grade-1/dp/1557996555/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410446441&sr=1-1&keywords=evan-moor+daily+language+grade+1 Our daily literacy programme. As M has real difficulty with writing this will take us approx 30 mins to an hour. I'd expect most children to complete it in 10-15 minutes. We both like the structure of the Evan Moor Literacy resources so we shall be trying several titles in the literacy series this year. 

Writing Programme We are following a well known OT supported handwriting programme 

Geography 

Europe resource from Evan-Moor as our starting point. It's intended for US Grades 3-6 which translates to UK grades 2-6. 

We are using a free resource from this site to begin an investigation into the food production of grains. Monday mornings are particularly fun as we start the week by preparing a "global breakfast" together and discussing the culture of the nation it comes from. In the spring we'll plant some heirloom seeds from http://www.realseeds.co.uk and produce our own grains just for fun. 

Science 

M loves science and his interest in this area is his motivation for trying hard at the literacy work he finds so challenging. 

Basic Science MOOC  Future learn offers some fantastic resources for pupils from secondary level onwards (M started KS3 Science in Term 3 of Year 5).

DT - we are doing our electronics wizards apprenticeship this year. Expensive but hopefully worth it.

http://www.my-gcsescience.com This is a GCSE site we use when M wants to research furtherr on a topic that catches his attention.

Maths 

Sadly a very chequered school career prior to Home Ed has left gaps in M's knowledge of the basics. While he enjoys his Briteschool lessons it's important that we spend time identifying and filling in those gaps. As a result we do some daily remedial maths practice. Last year we used mathswhizz for this task in order to track progress easily. However by Easter we were bored, so regular useage became more sporadic in favour of montessori type games. 

This term we are working through a skills sharpener series with Evan-Moor starting with US grade 1 (UK Year 2). Link to resource here. We may use an IT based resource later on in the year if we feel we need it, but for the moment,  this seems a good place in our day to encourage paper and pencil usage.  

General 

We like Neokid12 for the videos and quizzes. This term M is learning biology with Briteschool in his junior science, so we've used this resource for homework research and revision.

Khan academy - this site is used for all sorts of topics.

Make me genius - simple video animations that explains science some maths topics.

Mum - 

When I feel it is relevant, I'll include the details of any additional training, conversations or courses I may undertake to support our journey.

2 free MOOCS with Coursera.org.

https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalstorytelling

Digital storytelling training for educators

https://www.coursera.org/course/dyslexiaintro 

Supporting children with difficulties in reading and writing

Year 7 Autumn term goals

This terms goals:-

Note - We do part time online school with Briteschool.co.uk. Primary, Maths, English and Humanities + Junior (KS3) Science. Homework is set by the school, and this keeps us roughly in line with the NC. So these goals cover those targets for non-online school days only.

Academic - Core

Complete headsprout early reader programme. - 1/2 term
Evan-more Grade 1 Daily Literacy programme. - Xmas
Select a new online maths programme for daily practice.
Future Learn Basic science experiments course. (MOOC)
Create a youtube channel to record science experiments
Redo Theodorescu's "write from the start" handwriting programme by Xmas.

This year we are using Evan-Moor to support Literacy, Numeracy and Geography.

Project Work 

- ongoing all year, it'll take as long as it takes lol!

DT 

- Electronics Wizard Apprenticeship - a year long Course.

Geography

 -  2 year long open-ended autonomous projects planned.

Farming - 

We are using resources from the Grainchain.com to learn about farming grains (we did livestock and chickens last year). We have a world breakfast every Monday from a different nation on our world map to discuss healthy eating, diet, cultural differences and to familiarise Marcus with the world map.

Europe - 
To tie in with beginning French with briteschool we are using The Evan-Moor Europe, Grades 3-6 textbook as a starting point for an open-ended project on Europe. It will be interesting to see where this takes us!

Social
Find 2 weekly group social activities as the Friday Rhos group we enjoyed so much has now closed. We are going to try the Community Farm and The Porthcawl  & Carmarthen Home ed groups to begin with.

Fun
Swimming - we intend to go swimming 2x weekly.
Learn to ride a bike with stabilisers.
New puppy? The hunt is on for a new pup to take to obedience and then agility classes.

Mum is going to do the following coursera.org  MOOCS - "digital story telling" and "difficulties in literacy" in order to support M. She is also going to start to research touch typing learning options for M to start after Xmas.