Dear Parents, This term seems to have flown by and as we approach the festive break it is a good opportunity to reflect and celebrate all our achievements this term. From new buildings to qualifications, from different events to awards, it’s been a busy time for the schools. As you will know, the decision was taken not to move at half term as the new Tram House building was not going to be ready for the scheduled hand over. The great news is that we are looking forward to receiving the keys of Tram House School before Christmas and will be undertaking the move before the

22nd

December 2017. We are very excited about this and would like to once again extend our apologies for the disruption and our thanks for your understanding. As part of our work with different stakeholders, we have visited several schools over the last term. We visited Snowflake School to establish a partnership with shared observations of practice, work sampling moderation and developing the concepts of assessment data management. In October Kieran and other staff went to visit ‘Step by Step’ to begin a piece of work around moderation of similar settings. Our first visit was looking at EYFS and how we record progress for pupils within the EYFS. The meeting went well and future moderation dates have been organised to look at teaching across both schools, to ensure judgements and expectations are aligned and have been externally validated. We have held a number of coffee mornings throughout the term, the first of which shared the schools outline development areas - developing middle managers, mapping the curriculum to understand our children and young people’s learning journeys and the quality of data management and reporting. Following the coffee morning we created an email forum for

parents to discuss and feedback on our report formats, making sure that we report the information that parents need in a clear and simple way. The second coffee morning was for prospective parents and current parents, led by Robert Love (a solicitor who works with families through the tribunal process) and his team. The coffee morning focussed on some of the trials and tribulations of having to go through the appeal system and appropriate advocacy for young adults moving to Post 16 and Post-19. The third coffee morning was a round table activity looking at the schools SEN Report – we discussed the current SEN Report and how to improve it to make it more reflective of our current schools. The last coffee morning of the term was a workshop with parents and Governors which was part of our work with key stakeholders to redefine the values of our organisation.

Autumn Newsletter

2017

We also held a parents evening this term, which was well attended and very positive. As part of our ‘upgraded’ IEP system we will be looking to hold another in January 2018 to discuss the progress your child is making against their targets and to share the revised report formats. Our standards committee and full governing body meetings recognised the excellent attendance across the school, the developments in data management and reporting and the progress the school is making against the key development areas, shared in September 2017. We are always looking for more ways to work with parents and families so please let us know if you have any suggestions of different ways of doing this.

Working within and being a part of our community is integral to all at BeyondAutism. This term we have endeavoured to be more visual in and amongst other schools within Wandsworth and have taken part in several sporting competitions. This has included a Boccia tournament, where pupils from Tram House School competed against peers from other specialist settings. The pupils really enjoyed the event, so much so we have started a Boccia Club where pupils are honing their skills! Our pupils also attended a swimming gala at Balham Leisure Centre in December. Thank you all so much for your donations to our food collection for Harvest Festival, the generosity this year was amazing. All food was donated to local food banks and equated to well over 200 meals, which is a great achievement. We have had several reasons to celebrate this term; attendance has been over 95% and improving month on month, 14 students achieved a pass grade in their ASDAN results and initial views of termly progress being positive over both schools. It has been a really positive start to the academic year. We hope you all have a restful festive break and look forward to the pupils returning in the New Year.

Kieran Bird Jon Ascot Head of Park House School Head of Tram House School

Autumn Newsletter

2017

Autumn Newsletter

2017

Term Dates 2018

Spring 2018

Term starts: Wednesday 10th January

INSET days 4th, 5th, 8th & 9th January

Half Term: Monday 12th - Friday 16th February

Term ends: Friday 23rd March at 12:30pm

Summer 2018

Term starts: Monday 9th April

Bank Holiday 7th May

Half Term: Monday 28th May - Friday 1st June

Term ends: Friday 27th July at 12:30pm

Staffing and Recruitment

We’ve had a number of staff join the team since September. A big welcome to the following ABA Tutors… Rachel Cartin, Claudia Bearman, Christian Brown, Faith Francis, Shannon Darby, Anna-Evangelia Nikitaki, Ayesha

Shad, Anisa Awaleah, Cornelia Pistian, Anna Dowd, Eliot Keirl, Celia Berton, Clemence Grelier, Timea Balogh, Polita Lopez-Valle, Borja Gonzalez Marian, Emily Childs, Jamie Allen, Aaliyah Adeniji, Aaron Barker, Vanessa Caceres, Daniela Pisani, Camila Tondelli, Maria Acosta Ortega, Annabel Willetts, Fatima Marzia and Brittany Farnan. Welcome also to Karen Talty, Jalpa Shah and Liz Burns (ABA Supervisors), Bernadett Rankasz (Head of Outreach), Jessica Hargreaves (Occupational Therapist), Charlotte Phillips (Speech and Language Therapist) and Izabela Paradowicz, who is covering for Agnes (Cleaning Manager) whilst she is on maternity leave. Welcome back to Sofia Rey who is retuning from maternity leave. Congratulations to Chloe Jorgensen who has been promoted to ABA Consultant! We are sadly saying goodbye to the following Tutors and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavours…

Bamini Kathiramalai, Athena Sideri, Catuxa Barrero, Kirby-Ann Mead, Claudia Taveres, Tayo Hamzat, Barbara Cespedes, Vitoria Viana, Nadia Richards, Anna Garcia Barbena, Ana Centeno Lopez and Eleni Tontikidou. Finally congratulations to Edna Fernandes who is going on maternity leave!

Admissions Update

We have had 8 new pupils start across the two schools this term which has been exciting and challenging! We are continuing to recruit new pupils in a variety of classes and are carrying out informal assessments on a rolling basis throughout the year.

Upcoming School Events

1st Half Term

Parent coffee morning (10th Jan)

Geography and language week (15th-19th Jan)

Safer Internet day (24th Jan)

Spring dance (31st Jan)

Careers Fair (9th Feb - TBC)

2nd Half Term

World Book Week (26th Feb - 2nd Mar)

Mothers Day Assembly (7th Mar)

Parents evening (14th Mar)

Spring concert (22nd Mar)

Staff Training

We currently have a number of members of staff working towards their Masters degrees: Yllka Rexhepi, Matt Le Blanc, Amy Sarrasin, Shona Burton, Carrie Caceres, Carla Oliveira, Jubran Khokhar and Rebecca Lowes We are proud of each and every one of them and the new knowledge that they are able to bring back to their day-to-day role.

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Autumn Newsletter

2017

Highlights of the term

Jack Petchey Awards

This term we have had two winners of the award, one pupil and one teacher. The winner of the pupil award was Natanya and for a variety of reasons! Natanya has been learning to manage her emotions well and informing her tutors not only when she is feeling sad or upset but also why, and this has drastically reduced her problem behaviour. She has also become increasingly independent around school, learning to make her own lunch and how to independently type so that she can play her favourite songs on YouTube by herself. Not only have her independence skills improved but Natanya has been increasingly initiating conversations with her peers and knowing when and how to say hello and goodbye appropriately. Using her improved interaction skills she has started talking with staff to find out if they would like café food on a weekly basis. Natanya used her prize money to hold a party for her and her friends. A band (who previously came in for Black History Week) came in to play some jazz and soul music and there was a range of food and drink for her to enjoy with her peers. Our staff winner, Matt Le Blanc, continually goes above and beyond at work and his greatest asset is his ability and eagerness to organise a vast variety of events for our pupils; from discos, to cultural days and inter-school sports competitions. Matt's events are hugely successful and loved by both the children and the staff. He is always willing to go the extra mile for the benefit of the pupils and is constantly making an effort to establish new links in order to give our pupils exciting and diverse experiences. Matt is an extraordinarily dedicated individual and constantly exceeds his own duties in order to support and help out his colleagues, always making himself available and often 'saving the day' by being the extra pair of hands needed. He is always open to helping others out and is a great source of advice for all staff.

Well done to both of our winners!

Black History Week

In the first half term pupils took part in a range of activities allowing them to experience and embrace different elements of black culture.

In the morning, pupils were given the chance to create their own African inspired jewellery to wear for the day, and made personalised bracelets and necklaces.

Broken Connexion, a jazz/reggae band, came into both schools to perform songs from different influential black artists such as Ray Charles and Bob Marley. Musical instruments, recently purchased from the Rainy Day Fund, were placed around the room for pupils to play along with the band. This opportunity was seized by many of the pupils who danced, sung and played the afternoon away!

Whilst enjoying the music, traditional African and Caribbean snacks such as plantain and spiced buns were laid out for pupils to try. Tram House School also had a go at making their own banana fritters with ice-cream.

Autumn Newsletter

2017

Autumn Dance

In what is fast becoming a termly tradition, in October we held a dance for the pupils of both schools. This term the dance took place at the Anchor Church Hall who were kind enough to allow us to use their building. There was music, games and dancing all afternoon with Park House School and Tram House School taking it in turns to share the party. Thanks go to Sainsbury’s St. John’s

Hill who provided party snacks for the students.

Road Safety Week

This term our pupils learnt about the importance of keeping safe whilst they’re out and about in the community. Classes were taught about crossing roads safely and about the difference between pelican and zebra crossings. They also learnt about the importance of traffic lights and what the different colours mean.

After pupils had spent time discovering in the classroom, they were given the opportunity to go out into the community and practice what they had learnt. Several classes went on class trips last week and the pupils were able to demonstrate road safety awareness on their journeys to the cinema and Winter

Wonderland!

Boccia Tournament

A group of Tram House School pupils visited Burntwood School to take part in a Boccia tournament this term. Boccia is a sport originally designed to be played by people with cerebral palsy but has since been played by people with a range of conditions affecting motor skills. As a game it is very similar to bowls and it is a regular in the Paralympic Games having been inducted as a Paralympic sport in 1984. We took two teams to compete in the secondary school event alongside 11 other school teams from the local area. Both teams were made up of three pupils who played three games each. Every pupil played valiantly and had a mixture of wins and losses. There was a great sense of sportsmanship throughout the day with everyone enjoying each other’s success. Thank you to Burntwood School for hosting the event and hopefully this will be the first of many Boccia tournaments for BeyondAutism Schools.

Autumn Newsletter

2017

Festive Celebrations

Over the past couple of weeks the festive activities have been ramping up across the two schools. We had two Christmas trees very kindly donated to us by Homebase Wandsworth and the pupils enjoyed making decorations to hang on the trees and around their classrooms. Song Club got into the Christmas spirit and went to Clapham Junction to sing Christmas songs. They sang and signed brilliantly and the collection raised over £140 for Rainy Day Fund. Moving into the last week of term we are looking

forward to the Nativity play performed by Park House School, Christmas jumper day, and of course the much anticipated whole school production at

Thomas’s Clapham on the final day of term.

Class Trips

We’ve had a number of class trips this term: Red, Orange and Yellow Classes went to see an autism-friendly screening of Ant Bully at Clapham Picturehouse. The film fitted in nicely with their theme for the term - ‘animals in their habitat.’ US1 and US3 went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. Pupils could choose which rides they wanted to go on before going to the circus to watch the acrobats and escape artists. Sixth Form 2 enjoyed going to Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes on their trip. The pupils enjoyed a game of bowling and then after lunch had their own private karaoke room to sing out their favourite songs.

Swimming Competition

Earlier this term seven of our pupils set out for BeyondAutism Schools’ first ever swimming competition. The event was led by Enable Sports and was set up for students with a statement of special educational needs from schools all over Wandsworth. The atmosphere was fantastic and there was great sportsmanship shown by all schools, not to mention some stellar performances from our pupils. We had a silver and a bronze medal in the junior and senior 10m freestyle. This was followed by a gold medal in the senior 25m backstroke and a silver medal by the same student in the senior 50m backstroke! It was a brilliant day and

our thanks go to Enable Sports for making it happen!

Autumn Newsletter

2017

A word from the charity

Tracie Linehan, CEO

We’ve had a busy term welcoming new staff and pupils, albeit not in our new school building yet. All the indications

are that Tram House School will be open in January 2018 with staff, pupils and parents having visited before the

Christmas break.

Our new Head of Outreach, Bernadett has done a fantastic job of generating new partnerships with mainstream

schools and following up on enquiries. We have engaged 3 Associate Consultants, all BCBA, to help deliver training.

We are seeking to expand this team and are looking for other specialists, SaLT, OT and specialist teachers, to

compliment the work that the behaviour analysts do. The Early Years project will run again in January with 6 families

already signed up and we are waiting to hear whether our stage 1 application to the Big Lottery Fund has been

successful.

Post-19 is developing to meet the needs of young adults within their own communities. The staff team are learning

new skills, underpinned by the experience they already have, to ensure that each learner is on a pathway towards

successful supported living; ensuring they have choice and control over their lives.

We are now in a period of evaluation as we draw to the end of year 2 of the 5 year strategy and are preparing to set

the goals for year 3. Part of this is aligning a fundraising strategy to achieve these goals and we will be seeking to

appoint a Fundraising Manager in the New Year.

I hope you have a restful festive period and look forward to all that 2018 will bring.

Challenge Events

Congratulations to all of our event participants from this term and a huge thank you for all of your hard work!

Royal Parks Half Marathon – We had 9 runners in this year’s race, raising a brilliant £9,900. The runners this year

included staff members, parents and two people who flew all the way from America to take part!

Octopus abseil – following on from the success of last year’s abseil, Octopus ran the event again for all five of

their chosen charities raising £2,650.

If you would like to take part in any of our challenge events please speak to Dan Thurman on 020 3031 9705 or

email fundraising@beyondautism.org.uk to find out how to get involved.

Octopus Investments

At the end of the year our partnership with Octopus will be coming to an end. The company has been incredibly

supportive of the charity over the past two years. They have provided almost 100 volunteers across the two years

and have donated over £115,000 to the charity. We are extremely grateful for their support and hope that we will be

able to continue the relationship in other ways going forward.

Quiz

BeyondAutism’s annual quiz night will be taking place in May next year. Further information will be sent out in the

New Year so keep an eye out for further updates.

Tram House Appeal

With the new school opening up to pupils in January, the appeal is coming to an end. Since the appeal launched in

December 2015 we have raised £1.1m towards the new build through a combination of grants, sponsored events

and donations. Thank you to everyone who has supported the appeal by donating, taking part in a challenge event or

taking a table at quiz!