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Designing
and Making for Children With Special Needs |
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School: St James Church
of England Middle School, Bury St Edmunds |
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Fellow: Ricky Wilkinson |
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Email: Ricky5844@aol.com |
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Final report |
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Outline of the project |
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As part of the National Curriculum
Design and Technology course, all year 8 children
at St James Middle School design and make
aids for children with special needs in the
community. |
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Design problems to solve come
from Occupational Therapists, REMAP, Teachers
and carers from special schools, Child Development
Centres and Opportunity groups locally. Often
the problems are telephoned in to the Technology
department directly. These design challenges
are added to a design opportunities list to
be given to the new Technology Group when
they have the first session of their 9-week
Technology course. |
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Children work in Design Groups
of 2 or 3 and start with a brainstorming session
to sketch some initial ideas and possible
solutions to one of the challenges from the
list of problems after they have listened
to a talk, watched a video and seen examples
of previous projects. |
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A visit to research the problem
is made by one member of the design group
to meet the child with a special need and
discuss the problem with the Therapist, Teacher
or parent of the child. The design group writes
a design brief and a working sketch enables
them to start making. |
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The device or toy is made in the workshop
by all members of the group using a wide variety
of materials. |
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Another visit is made to present
and test the finished product and see whether
any modifications are needed using advice
from the expert who set the challenge or from
observations with the child using the product. |
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Successfully completed projects
qualify for a Community Service Volunteer
Certificate (CSV). |
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Pupils are highly motivated
especially after visiting children with disabilities
to research specific design requirements,
and they stay on task well throughout the
nine sessions of 160 minutes. Design teams
know that the benefits to the child with the
disability will be directly attributable to
the success of their project. Underachieving
boys seem to latch on to the notion that it
is “cool” to succeed because the
need is so real. They enjoy working in teams
using the strengths of each member to achieve
the quality needed for a successful design.
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Children with special needs
benefit, not only by receiving a special aid
or toy for the next stage in their development,
but also by meeting other children in the
community. Some of our young designers continue
their association with the handicapped children
with music performances for them or design
projects when they move to upper school. |
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Examples of projects: |
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A device with a musical
reward to encourage simultaneous control
of both hands in a hemiplegic boy. |
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A slow eye tracking device for a child
with poor eye control. |
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A device to hold paper
so that a hemiplegic child can use scissors.
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A jack-in-the-box
to be operated and reset with one hand
for children with co-ordination difficulties. |
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A device to encourage
recognition of parts of the body for
children with learning difficulties. |
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Community Links |
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St James pupils design for: |
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Riverwalk Special School
– Bury St Edmunds |
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Thomas Wolsey Special School –
Ipswich |
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Stowmarket Opportunity
Group – Stowmarket |
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Child Development
Centre – Bury St Edmunds |
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Minden House –
Bury St Edmunds |
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Beneficiaries – Children
with special needs that attend the above centres. |
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Records of young people’s
learning |
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Each pupil keeps a record of
planning, research, design drawings and an
evaluation of the project. Each design team
makes an action plan which includes a reflection
on the learning. |
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How the Project fits into
the wider curriculum |
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KS3 Technology |
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PSE Citizenship awareness |
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The Hidden Curriculum
– The project fits into the ethos
of a caring and sharing Church of England
School. It also has hidden benefits
– Pupils meet children with special
needs in the community whist being on
a project to help them. They gain a
special social awareness and satisfaction
in being able to help them. |
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What pupils gain from the community
project |
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Motivation for pupils to succeed
is always strong when designing for disabled
children and in their evaluation of their
design work, pupils sometimes express their
feelings – from a girl who had designed
an animal-recognition toy for a Downs Syndrome
boy: |
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“I feel that I have learnt a lot
from doing this project with special needs
children, especially when I went to visit
the children at Stowmarket Opportunity
Group. I thought it was really good the
way that the handicapped children get
on with their lives as normally as possible,
and that they don’t let their disabilities
get in the way of anything. It was lovely
to watch them all playing around. It really
made me think hard about the smallest
things in life that I, and a lot of other
people take completely for granted. It
wasn’t until I did this project
that I realise how lucky I am.”
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From a low achieving boy who
had designed for children with mental and
physical disabilities, a tactile Garfield
face which when pressed played tunes: |
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“The children reacted well to my
toy and two of them, Karl and Tim played
with it a lot. I got a lot of enjoyment
and satisfaction from the project.”
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From a girl who watched her
project being successfully tested with a small
group of disabled nursery age children: |
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“I actually feel quite proud of
myself doing something for kids that are
not as able as us, and I’m definitely
going to take up this kind of thing up
later on in life”
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Sustained Motivation
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Many children have televisions,
videos, game-consoles and computers in their
bedrooms, which sometimes result in lethargy,
inability to concentrate or lacking motivation
in lessons. In making aids for children with
disabilities in the community, the projects
are relevant to real life. The clients are
real, not imaginary. Therefore, once the pupils
have visited the special needs children and
researched their needs, an urgency to succeed
is initiated. This enthusiasm sustains motivation
within the team throughout the project. Some
underachieving boys have a very caring attitude
to children with special needs, which motivates
extra efforts to succeed. |
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Evidence for this is found
in the pupil’s evaluation comments that
sometimes contain personal feelings of satisfaction
in producing a worthwhile product for a needy
child. An example of this was seen when two
pupils made a mobility device for a 4-year-old
quadriplegic boy who had never walked or crawled
independently and could not use conventional
aids from the Physiotherapist. The boy’s
mother had brought him to the workshop several
times to aid the pupils in constructing exactly
the right body support, size and adjustment
of the device. When he was strapped into the
completed device, the class urged him on when
suddenly an uncontrolled movement of his feet
propelled him across the workshop floor accompanied
by a huge grin on his face. His mother turned
away and wept because it was the first time
in his life he had moved independently –
an emotional moment for everyone, especially
for the designers. |
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With a real client to design
for, the pupils sense an urgency (motivation)
to succeed, which carries them through the
project. |
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Conclusion |
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The opportunities for obtaining
a rich and varied source of design challenges
within the community for people with special
needs are endless. The interaction between
able-bodied pupils and people with special
needs is a valuable educational and social
experience in itself. To consider the problems
of people with disabilities, whilst designing
an aid to help overcome them, gives a more
focussed appreciation of the difficulties
they face in the community. |
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Ricky Wilkinson M.B.E. is Technology
Co-ordinator at St James Middle School, Bury
St Edmunds, Suffolk. Professional experience
includes teaching pupils and adults at Soham
Village College, Cambridgeshire; Technology
Advisory work and dissemination of good practice
in Suffolk. Awards for Design work in the
curriculum from BP, RSA, 2 Suffolk Community
Awards, 8 Design Prizes in Industry Sponsored
Competitions. National Curriculum Technology
work included in DFE publication – “Characteristics
of Good Practice”. Programmes of curriculum
work in Technology made by BBC TV and Channel
4 TV. Engineer for REMAP taking referrals
from Occupational Therapists with design problems
to help children with special needs in the
community. - Gatsby Teacher Fellow 1999 (Design
and Technology). - MBE awarded for Services
to Education. |
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DATA award for Outstanding
Contribution to Design and Technology Education
(2000) Barclays New Futures Sponsorship Award
of £3000 (2001) |
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A selection of photographs taken
during the project: |
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[Roll your mouse over the images for a description] |
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