Welcome to Aspen

Aspen is Orchard Academy and Shepherdswell Academy’s Specialist Communication Department.

We have two classes in Aspen:

• Orange class with Maria (Teacher), Marie (SEN TA), Farzana (SEN TA), Kasia (SEN TA), Natalia (SEN TA) and Raffy (SEN HLTA)
• Purple class with Josh (Teacher), Natasha (SEN TA) and Fay (SEN TA)
• Katie (Department Lead) and Raffy (SEN HLTA) who supports in both classes.

The Curriculum

Each half term we have a topic or theme that we focus our learning around.

This half term's topics are below:

• Autumn 1 - Once Upon a Time
• Autumn 2 – Food, glorious food
• Spring 1 – Famous People
• Spring 2 – Minibeasts
• Summer 1 – Let's go to the rainforest
• Summer 2 – Growing and changing

Literacy

As part of each topic, we study a range of stories to extend the children’s knowledge and vocabulary, as well as providing opportunities for communication with adults and peers. All work is completed in short teacher lessons, followed by supported small group and 1-2-1 work.

Sensory stories Autumn 1

• Orange – Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Rapunzel
• Purple – Rapunzel, The Elves and the Shoemaker, Rumpelstiltskin

As part of these stories, we will be reading them daily, as well as completing independent work to help us understand how stories are made – the sequencing, the key characters, how to describe the characters and how to write descriptive sentences about the characters and what’s happening in the story.

Numeracy

Each day, we work on numeracy skills to help our pupils build context to numbers and what they’re used for. This could be everything from number recognition to measuring to multiplication. All work is completed in short teacher lessons, followed by supported small group and 1-2-1 work, which is targeted to each pupil’s outcomes.

• Autumn 1 – Place Value and Number Recognition

PE

Aspen will have PE twice a week on a Tuesday and Wednesday. Please ensure your child is wearing the appropriate footwear and are not wearing any jewellery, specifically earrings. All long hair should be tied back.

Homework

If you would like specific homework for your child, such as a reading book or phonics work, please speak to your class teacher directly. We encourage you to read with or to your child as much as possible, as well as taking them out to different places with different people so they can experience new situations. Any money recognition and safety recognition – crossing the road, etc. - that you can do would be excellent.

General

Please ensure that your child has their named book bag and named water bottle (water only) in school every day and that your child’s uniform is also named. Please check your child’s book bag each day, as notes or messages from the day are often sent this way. We also ask that you check your Arbor account regularly for any whole school communication. 

If you have any questions, please talk to either your child’s class teacher or the school office. 

Useful websites

• Primary resources, homework help and online games - BBC Bitesize
• https://www.topmarks.co.uk
• https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/index.html 
• https://www.purplemash.com/login/  - Your child should have their personal login to access personalised learning activities given in the coming weeks.
• https://www.sumdog.com/user/sign_in - Your child should have their personal login to access personalised learning activities given in the coming weeks.
• Alphablocks - CBeebies - BBC - Alphablocks can help pupils learn phonics and sounds