Donard School

CLASS 12 & 13 

Fabulous February in Class 13

We have all been enjoying our topic of 'Up, Up and Away'. We completed STEM experiments - creating our own balloon rockets and making hot air balloons fly in the sky using a hairdryer. During our Attention Autism Sessions we visited the moon - walking on the moon wearing our glow in the dark shoes and forming craters. We have been getting lots of outdoor opportunities through Forest School and our daily movement activities.  

january

Hello January

A great start to the New Year in Class 13. We have been exploring Winter and polar animals.  

We have also been lucky enough to take part in some music therapy sessions with Hannah our music therapist. They are so much fun!

Toward the end of the month we moved to our next topic - Up and Away where we are learning about things in the sky.

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December

Dear Santa,

Class 13 have been very good this year. We worked really hard in school exploring Christmas and the topic of winter. Our favourite joint attention activity was dancing around the Christmas tree to songs about you.

We hope that you have a smooth journey on Christmas Eve. Please give our love to Mrs Claus, the elves and all of your reindeer.

Love,

Class 13 xo

November

Wow, what a wholesome November! After feasting on Halloween sweets we worked out lots following our new fitness regime doing noodle cardio drumming, cycling and visiting the park. We had amazing attention autism and joint game sessions which were great opportunities for us all to interact with one another.

Class 13's Awesome October

What a busy month we have had!! The pupils in Class 13 have been practicing skills that they can use in their home, including hanging up the laundry and folding their school uniform. We have created many yummy snacks by following visual recipes and copying our staff demonstrations. We developed our English and Mathematic skills through our Autumn and Halloween topic and enhanced our engagement during Attention Autism and 1:1 intensive interaction sessions.

 October in Class 12
In October we have been enjoying lots of musical experiences.  Hannah our music specialist has been exploring rhythm through a range of songs and instruments.  Class 12 have shown great control and rhythm when joining in.  We’ve had lots of fun with music this month.   

September in Class 12 

In Class 12 in September we have been settling into a new room, working to build new relationships and enjoying a range of new activities. Music, sensory play and drama through stories have been motivating activities in September.  

Successful September in Class 13

Our three pupils have came back to school after their summer holidays happy and ready to learn. We have enjoyed putting new programmes in place and identifying new motivators, likes and dislikes that can be used to aid their teaching and learning. We are all looking forward to a fun year in Class 13.

Joyful June 

We really enjoyed the amazing weather in June. We enjoyed lots of outside activities especially the water balloon hunt and the Fire Brigade visit. We hope everyone has a lovely summer. 

Majestic May in Class 13
Lots of fun and exciting activities in Class 13 in Majestic May. We loved our tea party - we made coronation chicken sandwiches and some soldier biscuits.  

March mayhem with the girls

The girls have enjoyed lots of different activities based around the different colours of food. 

With the warmer weather we have completed more activities outside, enjoying our walks and the sensory garden. 

February fun with the girls

The girls have had a fun February creating their Valentine's gifts and making yummy pancakes for Shrove Tuesday. We are enjoying our food topic; focusing on our sense of taste and exploring different tastes.  

Happy New Year from Class 13

We hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas break. All our girls are back to school and enjoying their new Winter Topic. We have been doing lots of work on our IEP targets and focussing on our emotions. 

Merry Christmas from Class 13

We have had lots of festive fun in Class 13. Our three lovely lady elves enjoyed putting up all of our Christmas decorations. We have had snowball fights with fake snow, real snow and snowballs that we made using tin foil and rolled up paper. You can guess who won!! We enjoyed learning how to look after our babies and learning how to bath them, make and give them their bottles and put on their nappies. Such caring girls in Class 13.  

Roll up, Roll up for some circus fun in Class 13

Our lovely ladies haved loved our new circus topic. Lots of fun popcorn activities, paticipating in circus acts that included walking the tight-rope and juggling and using fluffy paint to make candy floss. SO much fun.

September Success

We have had a positive first month back to school. The girls have all settled back well, enjoying our Circus topic and revisiting targets from last year. We had 3 birthday girls this month, so enjoyed lots of cake and celebrations. We are looking forward to fun-filled, successful year in Class 13.

CLASS 13 - Girl Power

Class 13 caters for 3 lovely young ladies who require a little bit of extra nurturing and care. We deliver all areas of the Northern Ireland curriculum through sensory and practical based activities. Activities are planned to promote independence and a sense of achievement whilst having the flexibility to adapt our lessons to support their health, behaviour and emotional state. Teachers and Classroom Assistants work closely to support the overall well-being of each pupil.

May 2022

In May we enjoyed exploring our Spring and farm topics through art and TacPac. We had creative arts sessions and enjoyed exploring all the musical instruments. We’re working hard on preparing our own snack each day. 

April 2022

In April, we enjoyed continuing our topic of Spring, focusing on flowers and nature, and learning all about Easter. We finished off our ceramic flowers for the sensory garden and took part in the whole school "showstopper bake-off challenge" making yummy treats for our In The Town theme. We've continued to build on our self-help and independence skills, working on tasks like wiping down the tables after meal times. 

March 2022

In March we continued with our colour topic and enjoyed learning about colours through activities like art, Attention Autism and TacPac. We had lots of fun and made lots of mess experimenting with paint to make different colours. We also started to explore spring and looked at minibeasts and spring weather. It was great to get some sunny days to get outside and play with the ball. We enjoyed going to the hall to make a ceramic flower with Mount Ida pottery for our sensory garden. 

February 2022

We finished our winter topic this month, exploring areas such as winter weather, arctic animals and fun in the snow. We enjoyed sensory art, TacPac and winter stories. We had fun around Valentine's Day, exploring the colours red, pink and purple through art and sensory trays and we enjoyed a Valentine's themed sensology. 

January 2022

It was great to get back to school after the Christmas break. We're continuing with our self-help skills, focusing on being as independent as possible and we're focusing on building our attention and engagement during our attention grabbing sessions. Our topic this term is 'Seasons and Colours' and this month we've enjoyed learning all about Winter. We've been completing winter crafts, reading winter themed stories and going out on winter sensory walks. We've also been exploring colour. In art we've been doing some experiments with winter colour mixing and we've enjoyed colour matching activities at our work station. We're looking forward to continuing this topic next month. 

December 2021

December was all about Christmas! In Class 13 we made lots of Christmas crafts, sang Christmas songs, enjoyed Christmas Tacpac and participated in the Daily Mile Santa Run. We continued to make our own snack each day and have started to make some choices about our favourite activities to do during relaxation. 

November 2021

In November we continued our topic of Autumn with themed stories like 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' and 'The Gruffalo'. We also celebrated important dates like Children in Need and Anti-Bullying Week. Our focus during this week was 'One Kind Word' and class 13 looked at the word 'super', completing some fun sensory art. We worked on our self-help and independence skills, making our own snack and tidying up after ourselves. 

October 2021

Throughout the month of October we explored our topics of Autumn and Halloween. We worked on our turn taking skills and had lots of opportunity to make choices during our school day. We also had a big birthday celebration which was lots of fun with balloons, party food and cake. 

September 2021

September has been a busy month in class 13. We've spent time settling back in to our new classroom and getting used to new routines. We've been working really hard on our self-help skills and enjoyed lots of learning through sensory activities including sensory art, tacpac, sensory cookery and sensology. We're excited for the rest of the year.

CLASS 13 UPDATE - MAY 2021

CLASS 13 UPDATE - APRIL 2021

CLASS 13 UPDATE - MARCH 2021

CLASS 13 UPDATE - FEBRUARY 2021

Class 13 Update - January 2020

The pupils in class 13 don’t even realise how much Maths, English and ICT they are learning—They just think they’re having fun! This month they have learned how to time travel with ‘Age Booth’ app on the iPad. Many are making their own books about projects of their choice, they’ve planned and cooked themselves a healthy meal. They’ve even learned how to divide a packet of crackers evenly amongst the group – it’s amazing how much they have learned just by doing things they lov