Welcome
Welcome to “What’s the Difference?”
“What’s the difference?” is written by pupils, teachers and teaching assistants for pupils, teachers and teaching assistants. It is about pupils with special educational needs and learning differences, those who teach them and those who support them. We value contributions from everyone, not just those directly affected by having special educational needs but anyone with something to express on the subject. We hope this blog will serve as a community type blog, inclusive to all pupils and members of staff at Olchfa but where learning difficulties gets a chance to take centre stage. To this end the success of this blog is, in part, down to pupils getting involved and saying just how it is having special educational needs and how it effects your everday life, not just in school either. Tell us about your hobbies and whatever you want. Tell us how you don’t let your special needs get in the way of your education and having a fun time generally.
We have so many areas for you to explore. We have recently had short stories, PowerPoint presentations, videos, art work and photograghic slides from pupils and members of staff. So send us loads more. We also have a back catalogue of Olchfa’s contribution to YouTube, in OurTube, with another couple of contributions on the way, so watch this space. The Update Bar, above, will continually keep you up to date on all recent additions to this blog as well as eventually having information on everything from training courses to upcoming events, new plug-ins to important dates. A planned “Noticeboard” page will give you a visual snapshot of the lunchtime and after school clubs you can join at Olchfa. The recent comments box below will keep uptodate with what users think of the blog.
Your Art work will be placed in our “Gallery” section, plays and other performance arts such as “A=DHd”, being rehearsed below and recently performed at Year 7 assembly, can be found in the “Arena” section. “Class Apart” shows how various school subjects can be presented in new and creative ways, an example of which is also below. Hopefully a few contributions on creative science are in the pipeline. Budding animators will be showcased in our “Animation” area. Those wishing to send us blog links or wishing to write their first blogs can access “Blog Zone for more details. All these posts can be found in the “ExtraCurricular” zone. Along with “Schools Out” which, as the name implies, is about what we get up to when not in school, on school trips or outside activities and the soon to be included “Good Sports” which will be dedicated to those of us representing the school at sport or in any other endeavour. We want to hear about all of these so send material on them to us.
There are just so many ways of getting involved so get in touch. If there is anything else you would like to see on the blog just let us know via Your Page or the various comments boxes and we’ll include them.
“What’s the difference?” primarily hopes to make a difference to SEN provision in the school by spreading the word about special needs, getting the low down not just from pupils but from the other side of the equation, the TAs and teachers too. We will have stuff on this blog dealing with serious stuff as well like top tips for teaching and supporting kids with dyslexia, ADHD, Aspergers, hearing impairment, pupils with language problems, with global delay, you name it we got it. It is intended to be a comprehensive in providing resources for helping teachers and teaching assistants teach and support pupils; that solutions to any given learning difficulty is literally a finger tip away. In every classroom and at any time.
The “Areas” part of the blog deals specifically with information about various learning differences and offers advice on how to improve SEN provison.
A PowerPoint on this blog and a supplemenary animation by a TA and pupils will be hitting the screen some time soon as well! Keep checking the Update Bar. It’s all happening so just plug in and get connected.
Lets have a closer look at how all this is put together. First up is the ‘Areas’ section which is dedicated to everything you ever wanted to know about learning differences. This part of the site is broken down into different sections depending on what you’re looking for. You can look at all the information relating to a specific area by clicking one of the ‘Area’ links on the left. For example, “ADHD-ADDitup” gives you useful tips on teaching pupils with ADHD, tips for TAs on how to support pupils with ADHD, what it is like to have ADHD through pupils’ personal stories, poems and presentations and weblinks dedicated to understanding ADHD further. You can also access real life accounts of what its like having ADHD through You Tube videos dealing with various experiences of having learning difficulties.
We also have instant weblink access to numerous Teacher.TV videos which show how different schools throughout Britain and further afield deal with a wide range of areas of SEN provision. It is an invaluable resource. This format is then repeated for every category in the ‘Areas’ section. And every learning difficulty.
Specific advice for teachers and TA’s can be accessed through the ‘Advice’ menu, and the section ‘Perspectives’ contains articles, presentations and views on various topics by people living with a variety of special educational needs.
We have also included a category dedicated to Parents who have children with special educational needs and this can be accessed through the ‘Advice’ section also; ‘Parenting Special Needs’ deals with a wide range of issues, offering information, advice and comments on various learning difficulties.
The final section ‘ExtraCurricular’, as already mentioned, looks at what we get up to outside school, our talents, creativity - artwork, writing, photography, performance, etc. Plug into ‘Gallery’ and ‘Arena’ among others to see more. We want to see the hidden you…
Everyone is welcome to contribute, all pupils and staff.
We hope that “What’s the difference?” has everything a teacher, pupil or teaching assistant could want and, if it hasn’t, will soon have if you let us know what you’d like to see on this blog through our messageboard page – YourPage.
And, in the meantime, here is some Pivot Stickman animation to fire your imagination!
Vocabulary A to Z
http://www.vocabularya-z.com/vocabweb/home.do
