Home > School > Visiting Professionals
Welcome to The Bridge website. We are always keen to develop links with other schools and agencies. If you are interested in any of the material in our website and would like to discuss it please get in touch with us.
Below we have provided a range of links which our staff find useful and which we would like to share with you.
Of particular interest is the link to the website: www.whiteboardroom.org.uk which features work designed by staff of the Bridge School.
Useful links
What the Professionals say:
Nick Wonham, Teacher and Resource Designer
"One of the most fulfilling aspects of my work at The Bridge School is thinking of and making resources to support my teaching. Having trained as an illustrator, before graduating as a teacher, I love combining my skills, being creative, and thinking of ways in which I can meet the children's objectives and enable them to achieve their full potential. The greatest reward is experiencing the children's reaction to what I have created, and seeing the progress the resources help them make.
I started making resources almost as soon as I joined the school in 1996. I mainly used card, laminate and copious amounts of Velcro then, but around 2001 Sally Paveley, the schools ICT consultant, started training me in how to use PowerPoint on the computer. This tool opened new horizons of what I could create and quickly became one of the main methods I had of making resources.
I treat making resources for the children I teach just as any designer would when considering a product aimed at a particular market. My ideas come from my response to the specific situation facing me, and are influenced by many factors: the specific objectives I want to meet with a given class of children, their concentration levels, what motivates them, the terms topic, the subject aims I want the resource to cover.
Each year presents a fresh challenge, with new children joining the class, different topics, and the developing curriculum. Ideas also evolve and develop from one project to the next as I try to incorporate what has worked and reflect on what didn't.
Another influence comes from discussing ideas with colleagues, and through training. My most recent work has been inspired by the interactive storytelling ideas of Keith Park, which were introduced to me by Catherine Wilson, a speech and language therapist, who was working closely with my class. The use of call and response, integral to interactive storytelling, combined with my illustrations on the computer, allow the children to participate in, engage with, and access complicated stories such as Rama and the Demon King Ravana, which I wouldn't otherwise attempt to read them.
Many of the resources I have made over the last few years for The Bridge School are now available for free download from a website, The Plasma Screen and Whiteboard Room. This site, created by Sally Paveley, contains lots of great resources created by teachers from all over the country and can be accessed by parents as well as teachers."
The Bridge Speech and Language Therapy Assistant Project
The Bridge School is a state special school which caters for 143 pupils with autism, severe learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning difficulties. We have two sites, a primary site, which is adjacent to a mainstream primary school, and a secondary site, which is attached to a mainstream secondary school. We are committed to working with other schools and our local community. We consider an important part of our work to be introducing others to the wonderful pupils we work with.
We receive Government funding which comes to us via the Local Authority. However, most of this funding is spent on staffing as this ensures the pupils are both safe and provided with the best possible learning opportunities.
In November 2008 The Bridge received a visit from OFSTED which said that we are an outstanding school. We are a very forward thinking school and have lots of ideas for things we can do to further improve the learning opportunities and the lives of our pupils. We need to fundraise to implement these ideas.
A large focus of our work is on promoting communication and interaction. We work very closely with our colleagues from Health to develop our pupils language and communications skills. We receive an allocation from Health of Speech and Language Therapy time. These therapists advise out teachers and teaching assistants on strategies to promote communication.
We have recently piloted a project which meant that we replaced teaching assistants in some classrooms with speech and language therapy assistants. This has provided a bridge between therapists and teachers and significantly enhanced the communication opportunities provided for pupils. Speech and language therapy assistants are trained in the implementation of communication programmes in the classroom. They are also able to make the resources which encourage the development of communication and interaction. The pilot project has been an amazing success with teachers, therapists, assistants and parents all seeing the benefits.
We would like to extend this project next year so that instead of just some classes having the benefit of a speech and language therapy assistant, all classes would get this support. Employing speech and language therapy assistants in the place of some of the teaching assistants is not an option we can accommodate from the school budget. Speech and language therapy assistants earn more as their conditions of service dictate that they work longer hours and all year around, rather than just during term time. We are looking to fundraise for the additional costs incurred in the employment of speech and language therapy assistants.
The additional costs for one year amount to £52000. The additional resources bill is £5000.
The cost to fund one speech and language therapy assistant is approximately £4750.
We are very keen that those who donate funds, or raise funds on our behalf, are able to get involved with this work if they choose to do so. This might be through joining in with some of the activities that the speech and language therapy assistants facilitate, attending celebration events for the progress our pupils are making with their communication, or by joining our steering group which oversees this work.
