At Overchurch Infant School, we acknowledge that children sometimes require additional support to access the curriculum. Therefore we have opportunity for children engage with a range of alternative interventions to support learning and development.
Below is an overview of some of the interventions we offer:
Active Group
As part of our commitment to being an ADHD Friendly School, we offer a sensory circuit for a range of children who require physical exercise before beginning the school day. This may be due to having a diagnosis of ADHD, to raise self-esteem with a positive start to the day, or to reduce anxiety around coming to school. Participation in a short sensory motor circuit is a great way to both energise and settle children into the school day, with the aim to focus concentration in readiness for the day’s learning. The children work with a Teaching Assistant and Sports Apprentice around the circuit following an ‘alert, organise, calm’ program for around 10 minutes before returning to class.
Nessy
The aim of this intervention is support reading and spelling strategies, and is based on a researched informed, web-based intervention. The company who owns Nessy sells their resource as a dyslexia intervention. However, purposeful and engaging reading and spelling resources will support all children with their learning without requiring dyslexic tendencies. Our version of this program also incorporates assessing phonological gaps, assessing common exception words (CEW) from the Year 1 and 2 National Curriculum and using a range of none computer based strategies to support the pupils with their learning.
We have seen both tangible and anecdotal results support a range of pupils over the past 18 months. Alongside increased confidence and improved work ethic, the children who participate in Nessy, on average, learn 173 new sounds or common exception words and independently complete 3 pieces of additional homework per week. This supports reading and spelling and helped 13/15 of the children who didn’t pass the phonics screening check at the end of Year 1, to pass at the end of Year 2 (1 pupil improved their score from 14 to 31, missing the pass mark by 1).
Lego Therapy
Lego therapy is a social development program for children, which uses collaborative Lego play to help children learn communication and social skills. The children work in groups of three. Each child is assigned a role. There’s usually:
• an engineer, who has the instructions
• a supplier, who has the bricks
• a builder, who builds the model
Lego therapy is used to teach children skills like turn-taking, sharing, listening, conversation, teamwork, shared attention and problem-solving.
Lunchtimes
We recognise that some children find the unstructured time during lunch break challenging. Therefore, we have set up a range of clubs at lunchtime to reduce the level of anxiety and distress some children feel, and use the time productively to establish friendships and develop self-esteem. Some of the clubs on offer include:
• Art
• Library
• Forest
• Choir
• Music
• Sport
• Lego
