'A Space Adventure' - A Cross-curricular Approach Fostering Curriculum for Excellence Principles

This seminar will explore:

• Our experience of embarking on 'A Space Adventure' to engage, enthuse and inspire children in their learning

• The successes and challenges of undertaking a cross-curricular approach
• The appropriateness of this approach to learning within A Curriculum for Excellence
• Implications for working with individuals with additional support needs.

Within our class at Renton Language and Communication Unit, all of the children have either Autistic Spectrum Disorder or a Speech and Language Impairment. This meant that the topic had to be customised specifically to accommodate individual additional support needs. Below is a small ample of how our initial thinking for the topic began. This will be discussed and teased out further during the seminar.

Our class embarked on a Space Adventure. We received a video broadcast from Space where Captain Ted. E. Bear from the British Space Programme is stranded. He has asked us to help him and we have set up an e-mail link with him on the moon. From a pupil-led brainstorming session, it is established that we need to build a space rocket and go to the moon to save him.

Using a variety of different media we are covering all aspects of ICT which are appropriate for levels A-B and beyond. The children are using Language Skills to communicate through e-mail, through imaginative and functional writing within a space log. Their communication skills are also being reinforced through structured play to enhance children's social skills.

The children are at the forefront of all creative thinking and direction within this topic. The Adventure will end with a Welcome Home Party for Captain Ted.E.Bear where the children will get the opportunity to share their experiences with their families at an Open Day within the school.

Renton Language and Communication Unit is the only such facility in West Dunbartonshire. It caters for the needs of children on the autistic spectrum, and those with significant speech and language impairment.

The teacher in charge of the project is Libby McGarvey. Libby has been qualified for 2 years, and is now a permanent member of staff in the Language Unit. She came from a career in the police force, and was very keen to work in the area of Additional Support Needs. Libby is working in collaboration with a temporary member of staff, Lesley Watt, also a young teacher.

They have formed an excellent working partnership, and both have an extremely creative approach to teaching and learning. They are also fully committed to the principles and approaches of Curriculum for Excellence. Libby and Lesley are working the Primary 1-3 classroom teaching children with speech and language impairment and/or autism.

Both teachers know the value of active and interactive learning within a unit such are ours, as traditional educational approaches are often hurdles for our pupils. Libby and Lesley actively seek out learning opportunities which may be out of the ordinary, but are often innovative and highly motivational.

The recent addition of a Smartboard to their classroom has afforded them an even broader canvas to help them explore exciting learning and teaching opportunities.