Case Study Establishment name: Lancashire no. 01/039 Contact name: Email: Hillside Specilalist School for Autism Spectrum Disorder, Communication and Interaction. Lynn McCann Telephone no. 01772 782205 Award granted: Project title: head@hillside.lancsngfl.ac.uk Innovative Practice Providing ASD training courses Project summary In response to increasing enquiries for advice and support for pupils with ASD in mainstream schools, Hillside School set up an Outreach Team to provide a more specific source of support, training and advice for its mainstream partners and other schools throughout Lancashire. The Team already had successful inclusion links with local schools and we began by setting up one day courses about ASD and the strategies needed in mainstream schools. This has developed over two years to include more specific courses such as Social Stories and the provision of INSET for whole school training. We have visiting speakers as well as using the expertise of Hillside staff. This team has staff with mainstream as well as special school (ASD) experience and has successfully followed up the training in individual schools by providing on-going support. The training courses are normally over-subscribed and we receive very positive feedback. The main impact has been on the education of individual pupils with ASD in mainstream schools who are now being supported by well-trained staff who are able to meet their specific needs and so enable them to enjoy, achieve and make a positive contribution to their education. Specific aspect of practice to be accredited? Setting up a programme of training and support in Autism Spectrum Disorders for mainstream schools. Aspect of Every Child Matters addressed: Be healthy Stay Safe Enjoy and achieve Make a positive contribution Achieve economic well-being What were you hoping to achieve? To enable school staff to understand the nature of Autism Spectrum Disorders and to learn about the main strategies that would enable them to support pupils with ASD in mainstream schools.
How did you identify the need for this practice? Enquiries from many schools seeking advice about supporting their pupils with ASD, feedback from attending SENCO conferences and evidence from research and National Autistic Society that cited that Training was the most important factor in ensuring good support for pupils with ASD in schools. Briefly describe the main characteristics of the school? Hillside Specialist School is Lancashire EA's only special school purely for pupils with autism. Pupils attend from all over Lancashire and all have a statement for ASD. There are 60+ pupils from the age of 3 to 16, arranged into 10 classes. The school supports pupils with an eclectic approach that includes current best practice in ASD strategies. We have a Communication Team and a Sensory Integration Team that work with the Outreach Team to provide support in classes and for Inclusion links. What did you do? The project began with the appointment of myself as Outreach teacher, Julie Greenall as HLTA and Carol Griffin as admin support for the Outreach Team, as we became a specialist school for Communication and Interaction in January 2007. In the first year we began by putting on a 1 day 'Introduction to ASD' course and advertised this through a leaflet sent to a number of schools. Each course received very positive feedback but it quickly became clear from this that people wanted some areas covered in more depth and that certain questions were continually being asked of us during discussion times. We also delivered a number of INSET sessions at different schools during the first year. Again, very positive feedback was given. January 2008 we began to look at developing our course programme and with the new head teacher who came in February 2008, decided to increase 1 day course to 2 days and include an "Introduction to Asperger Syndrome" course with Val Cumine aimed at High Schools. We also sought accreditation with Edge Hill University, which was finalised February 2008. Now all course delegates can seek accreditation from our courses with Edge Hill University. (11 so far) Also a number of Hillside Staff have accessed this accreditation. (9 at the moment) September 2008 - introduced 2 phases of courses. Phase 1 covers the introductory courses for ASD and Asperger's. Phase 2 covers specific topics such as social stories, sensory integration, behaviour and transition. So far more than 150 schools have accessed our training courses, (primary, secondary and special) some returning with new staff and on phase 2 courses. Other establishments that have attended our courses include PRU staff, Educational Psychologist, Ribble Valley Council Inclusion Officer, SaLT. Over 250 delegates have attended over 2 years. October 2008 - trialled Sensory course for Hillside parents. Feedback stated that the cost was prohibitive (we made a loss as we had had to pay for a specialist therapist to run the course). February 2009 we offered a social stories course for Page 2 of 6
parents run by Hillside Outreach staff. This we could offer free and was immediately over-subscribed. We also offered it to parents of children with ASD we had been working with in mainstream schools. Result was that we ran 2 days so everyone could come and there is further demand for the course to be run from Hillside and mainstream parents. So far 35 parents have accessed our courses and we have had positive feedback. To present date the INSET has been very popular. We have done twilight sessions and INSET days at 14 schools throughout Lancashire including mainstream, special and PRU schools, with 4 other schools having booked recently. We have attended SENCO conferences in Preston and South Ribble and from this have developed a specific INSET course aimed at High Schools. The feedback from our first session with this course was very good and led to our course being recommended to the South Ribble SENCO conference in May 2009. We have provided free training and course places for our partner schools who also support us in hosting pupils on inclusion links. We have been involved in joint inclusion projects with them, which have always involved a teacher from Hillside giving some basic training about autism to the pupils from the partner school. This has also led to myself providing disability awareness lessons in the local high schools. We host students from the local college in Preston and we have done ASD awareness lessons a number of times at the college. March 2009 - we are currently in negotiation with the National Autistic Society with a view to provide further courses for parents of children with ASD, using Hillside as a venue. This would be beneficial to our pupil's parents and the parents of mainstream pupils that we support. Our current plans are to continue with the two phases of courses held at Hillside (all are now advertised on the schools portal and are often over-subscribed), and to further develop our courses for parents. We are very passionate about providing good quality training and staff are involved in personal study to keep up-to-date with current ASD practice. Our trainers are also practitioners who work regularly with pupils who have a range of difficulties. The feedback we get from courses is that this is appreciated. Outreach visits to schools that have accessed our training have shown us that staff are able to put our advice into practice and have a much greater understanding of the pupil's needs. It is the progress shown by the children with ASD that provides our greatest success. PTO Page 3 of 6
Which members of the establishment and/or wider community have been involved and what was their role? Lynn McCann - Outreach Teacher and main trainer. Has written and delivered all courses not delivered by visiting speakers. Written and delivers INSET training - with Julie Greenall. Delivered Disability Awareness and ASD awareness lessons to High School and college students. Also supports a number of mainstream schools as outreach teacher. Julie Greenall - HLTA for the Outreach Team and trainer. Carol Griffin - provides admin support for team. Has set up all our booking systems, marketing and is first contact for many schools making enquiries. Carol sets up the conference room on course days and organises all the resources and lunches. Val Cumine - Senior Educational Psychologist for ASD. - Has run Asperger Courses for us aimed at High Schools. Julia Dyer - Specialist Sensory Therapist. Works at Hillside to assess and implement Sensory Integration Therapy for our pupils. Has run an SI course for schools and for parents for us. Helen Kerrel - BILD trainer. Has run Social Stories course for us. Sally Slater - Behaviour expert. Has run behaviour course for Hillside staff and for our course programme. How has the progress of the project been monitored and evaluated? The course programme is regularly discussed at Governor's meetings and SSAT termly meetings with our mainstream partners. We collect feedback from every course which is then summarised for our records and enables us to follow up any issues or people interested in further courses and/or accreditation. Also the quality of our courses has been measured by the increased demand for places and INSET. Often the training leads to Julie or I following up the school with an outreach visit to help them implement the strategies or deal with particular challenging issues. For this we write the school an action plan which has clear evaluation criteria which we can monitor and evaluate our training with. We also ask schools to fill in a questionnaire about our involvement as it comes to an end. The course feedback has also enabled us to adapt our content to deal with common issues. How has the practice been modified or improved during development? One of the main adaptations was to extend the Introduction to ASD course to 2 days so that we could cover the subject in more depth and add a time for each delegate to fill in an action plan so that they had a clear idea of what to implement from the course. We also began to introduce a 'bring a parent free' offer because we wanted to encourage schools and parents to work together for the purpose of the child with ASD. A number of schools have taken up this offer and it has proved to be a positive experience for them. Introducing the 2nd phase of courses along with the Edge Hill accreditation has given us a much wider scope to enable schools Page 4 of 6
to help their pupils with ASD. We did have an outside trainer doing social stories courses for us but she was difficult to get hold of and was based in south Wales. When she came to Hillside she was surprised that we were not doing the training ourselves as we have much experience and knowledge about social stories. The trainer gave us her own materials and we have now adapted these to run our own social stories course. This has meant that we are able to offer free social stories courses to parents. The development of courses for parents came out of many conversations with parents whose children we were supporting in mainstream. Many felt isolated and found it difficult to access any kind of training. What has been the impact of the project on pupils learning, achievement or enjoyment and how has this been measured? These courses have had good impact on many pupils. By following up the schools who have had training with us we have been able to see for ourselves how a greater understanding of ASD and how it affects the pupils they work with makes a significant difference to the relationship staff have with the pupil in many cases. We see for ourselves how implementing the strategies we teach can improve the access to the curriculum, attention and concentration and behaviour of many pupils. ASD is a lifelong, social disability and it has been very encouraging to see so many teachers and teaching assistants grasp this and put social skills support in place for pupils. We measure this through our action plan evaluations and visit notes. Some teachers have taken on board our inclusive ethos and introduced many whole class strategies that benefit many pupils. These include class timetables, visual supports and behaviour strategies. For Hillside pupils, those who are involved in inclusion projects and links have benefited from the inclusive strategies and ASD understanding from teachers in our host schools. When mainstream pupils come to sessions at Hillside they too have an understanding that gives them strategies and encouragement to increase the interaction between them and our pupils What are the next stages in the development process? To continue with the 2 phases of courses and to look at how the phase 2 courses can be offered as INSET packages. We would also like to develop our expertise in training and support for pupils in KS3 & 4. What aspects of this practice may be useful for other establishments to consider? Have someone find out about marketing before you begin. Do some research so that you can match your training to real needs. People value our courses because we talk about real children in real schools and take into account the realities of dealing with a challenging pupil when there are also 30 others in the class. It is also worth considering providing some support and training for parents. In any area this can be valuable whether it be subject training or SEN training. Accreditation partnership with Edge Hill University can be easily arranged. Contact Edge Hill Continuing Professional Development Team at Woodlands, Chorley. Page 5 of 6
Any other comments: Interested persons can visit us at Hillside Specialist School by arrangement. Page 6 of 6