Bubbles!!!

What a lovely last day we have had! A Nightingales breakfast with strawberries and croissants then a visit from the bubble lady!

This video of Saad shows an amazing response to the bubbles. We observe Saad attempting to blow the bubbles. Watch Saads mouth – It’s wonderful!

Thank you to all the parents for the kind gifts given to the Nightingales staff.
Have a lovely half term.

Celebration Assembly!

This week we had a special assembly to celebrate our wonderful children and young adults from Nightingales , Rabbits and Owls.

A massive thank you to Hillary Primary School year 4 choir who came to join our celebration assembly and were fantastic!

The wonderful Saad won the National Literacy Competition for ‘expressions’. The entry was Saad exploring the story of ‘going on holiday’ where Saad enjoyed grasping the small plane and was able to lift his arm to make the plane fly. Well done Saad!

All our children and young adults were awarded for their hard work and engagement. They are all superstars.

The week we also captured the wonderful Deeya posting books to her friends in Rabbits.

The ice cream man came to visit school this week! Happy pupils and happy staff when ice cream man came.

Tom and Zahra enjoyed rebound therapy this week.

Elliot was a superstar by holding on to the pool side. There was a moment where he began to reject the exercise but he persevered. Well done Elliot!

Lovely responses from Saad and Zahra in the pool .


Have a lovely weekend.

Being ‘me’.

Being ‘me’ is so important for our Nightingales. Our Nightingales need facilitated support throughout the day and where we can provide opportunities to be ‘me’ means Nightingales get to experience nurturing touch. This is reaching for a friend to show affection by either attempting to hold a hand or just a stroke of the arm. In every day life we see people greet each other with a hug but unfortunately for some they don’t get to experience this so we make it possible in Nightingales by having opportunities during floor time. We saw two of our Nightingales choose to interact with each other this week by holding hands. This close contact amongst peers is wonderful to watch.


Being ‘me’ also means showing I don’t want to engage with a familiar adult.

We observed some wonderful bench sitting and walking from Serenity.

Saad showed processing of information and stimuli during massage. We can see Saad attempting to offer the hand further away from the supporting adult.

We have a wonderful little visitor in Nightingales currently and I think the bubble bath for baby was enjoyed.

Have a lovely weekend.

Exploration and Routines

Nightingales continue to explore the beach and the ocean. Nightingales have been exploring activities alongside their personal physiotherapy management plans. Offering interesting visual settings has motivated many of our Nightingales to take an interest in their surroundings. Zahra is working on her head control as she carries out tummy time. It’s been lovely to see Zahra tolerate being on her tummy for longer.

Lovely to watch Aminah building sand castles and exploring the shells.

Serenity has been working on her upper limb stretches whilst also working towards the awareness of noticing auditory stimuli.

Serenity has also been engaging in fine motor skills by noticing an object through body awareness and then using her fine motor skills to grasp the object.

Tom was engaging in the awareness of when something in his environment has changed. Tom notices the bubble tube has stopped and is supported by a familiar adult to use his fine motor and problem solving skills to activate the bubble tube.

Saad has been under the sea and showing his awareness of interesting objects by using his upper limbs and visual awareness.

Elliot brought some of our Nightingales staff to tears when we observed him come to the table and begin to explore a yummy chocolate dessert. Elliot started using a spoon but then went in with his hands. We encourage food exploration so if a Nightingale wants to use their hands then we encourage this. It develops food confidence and allows our Nightingales to experience different textures. Elliot doesn’t always want to come to the table to eat so seeing Elliot exploring food was amazing! Well done Elliot! you are a super star!

Have a lovely weekend – The Nightingales Team.

Captain Ekohi

This week Nightingales said goodbye to our lovely young man ‘Ekohi’. Ekohi and his family will be starting a new adventure. Nightingales are going to miss the smiles and laughter. We dedicate this weeks blog to Ekohi and we wish him and his family all the luck with their new adventure.

Last week Ekohi was blowing bubbles for the first time and this week he was really brave and was dunking his head into the water.

We will miss this laugh.

Ekohi had an early birthday celebration on his last day.

What a beautiful moment we captured on Ekohi’s last day.

Have a lovely weekend – The Nightingales Team

Wonderful

What a wonderful week of engagement from our Nightingales. We observed some lovely interaction between Aminah and Ekohi during yoga. It’s wonderful to see how our Nightingales communicate with each other.

During swimming there was some fantastic movements taking place. Serenity was able to stand with support in the pool and take some steps – Amazing!!!

Ekohi was doing some brilliant kicking of his legs as he was supported to be on his front in the pool. Ekohi has also learnt how to blow bubbles in the water! Well done to Ekohi!

Aminah was supported to move through the water on her front and interact with a familiar adult with a ball game. A very happy Aminah in the water.

We had a lovely session with Bev outside where Nightingales experienced the visual tracking of the flying seagulls and the auditory awareness of the sounds of the seagulls.

With the beautiful weather we took the opportunity to take a morning sensory story outside. Nightingales are continuing their engagement with ‘Barry the fish ‘ and ‘Going on Holiday’.

Serenity showed some lovely engagement with responding to the tickles and then exploring the gloves and using her fine motor skills by manipulating them.

Elliot always likes to find the spot in the sun! Amanda engaged Elliot with the feathers and we see Elliot respond with a smile.

We observed some lovely intensive interaction between Tom and Lauren. Tom observed that Lauren’s box was different to his.

A lovely rebound session with Zahra. We observed some good head control while Zahra was on her tummy and she enjoyed the side rocking.

I want to say thank you to all the Nightingales staff this week. It’s been very warm in the classroom and they have continued to ensure the Nightingales children have a brilliant time and continue our routine on our timetable. Thank you all for your hard work!

Have a lovely weekend!

Social Interaction

We hope everyone had a lovely half term. This week Nightingales have enjoyed seeing their friends and we have observed some beautiful social interaction.


Jayne from SALT was in class and worked with two of our Nightingales on communication development.

Nightingales had a visitor this week from ‘Bag Books’. Chris Lowe from ‘Bag Books’ read two stories which included ‘The Funfair’ & ‘The Seaside’. Chris Lowe used resources to interact with Nightingales.

Tom has been working hard on his physical development skills.

The Nightingales team wanted to say well done to Serenity. We have observed some lovely engagement from Serenity this week. Serenity has engaged with familiar adults and peers throughout the week and enjoyed the range of activities that have taken place.

Have a lovely weekend – The Nightingales Team

End of Summer Term One

We have come to the end of summer term one. We have had some lovely sessions in music with Bev , started to explore summer sensory stories with Barry the fish and going on holiday, mindfulness with sensory yoga and our beach and seaside mornings. Nightingales will continue to explore our summer topic after half term to observe further engagement.

This week we have had some lovely weather so we have took the opportunity to take some of our sessions outside.






We had a lovely session with Bev where Nightingales explored the cello.


After Nightingales have eaten their lunch we like to give them time to choose how they want to spend their lunch break. This can be to allow the pupils o relax to enable processing time, choosing books to explore , toys to access or choosing something to watch on the computer. The latter is the most popular choice!!! Ekohi loves planes and enjoys watching the planes take off and land. Ekohi requested to watch cars this week so we put on formula 1. Tom who was being supported to walk, stood and held on to Ekohi’s tray table and watched formula 1 with his friend. Tom stood for 15 minutes and had a big smile!

We finished the week with some raspberries, strawberry’s and pan au chocolates kindly brought in by our Nightingale teaching assistant Amanda and crumpets by teaching assistant Denise.

Have a lovely half term and enjoy the wonderful weather!

Sensory Stories and Self Care

We started the summer term with exploring the sensory story ‘Barry the fish’. We are starting to see Nightingales build anticipation and awareness of the story. Especially when there is a CRASH in the ocean!

Two weeks ago we introduced our second sensory story for the summer term ‘going on holiday’. The story is about the journey and process of going on holiday. There is packing the suitcase, finding the passports, listening to the sounds we hear at the airport, visual tracking of the plane moving through the sky and experiencing body movements to demonstrate the movement of the plane. This story will support our Nightingales entry to the National Literacy Competition.

During well-being this week we observed some fantastic self care skills being developed.

Well-being also observed fantastic listening and body awareness with Elliot!


Have a lovely weekend! – The Nightingales Team

Summer Holiday Sensology & Pirates

This summer term Nightingales have been exploring their senses with the ‘Summer Holiday’ sensology session.

The session starts with listening to the seagull sounds and giving Nightingales the opportunity to track the sound as it moves around the room.Sand paper is used to imitate the feel of the sand and beach balls are used to encourage body movements. There is the smell of vinegar for Nightingales to explore which represents the fish and chips we may enjoy on a seaside holiday and fans to cool us down from the warm sun. Nightingales finish the sensology session with a hand massage which represents the sun lotion which we would use when the weather is hot.

The sensology session is repeated weekly across the summer term where we will observe the Nightingales reactions and how awareness and anticipations develop over time. So far we know the smell of vinegar is not a favourite of Nightingales but they love the feel of the fan as a familiar adult creates a cool breeze by using the fan. We have observed some lovely reactions to share with you.

Our Nightingales were fantastic pirates this week in our ‘exploring the ocean’ session. We observed perseverance and excellent work when using their upper limbs when removing their pirates hat.

A lovely rebound session this week with our physiotherapist Ben.

Tom did amazing with walking up the stairs for the first time to the rebound. A brilliant exercise and new focused skill to develop with Tom.

Zahra did some supportive sitting and experienced the bounce of the rebound.


Have a lovely weekend – Nightingales