Inside The Autism Classroom Target Setting & Teaching Approaches Amanda McGuinness Elaine Fitzgerald Episode 4

So I suppose my question for today to start off with, Elaine, is if I'm a new autism class teacher and I'm thinking about maybe target setting or teaching approaches, is there a place where you should begin or I suppose, what do you recommend?

So for me, you know, people, and I said this, I think at the first episode, but I'd say, where do we start in the class? And everyone say, just spend time with them, build relations and relax.

And I said, yeah, I get that.

But, you know, I also have to have something ready for them as well for September.

So I, in any class I have ever taught, mainstream or autism class doesn't matter.

I always have a theme, have to have a theme.

It's just how I operate, how my brain operates.

And I think it's just the best way to go.

And for my autism class, I would always have picked like high interest themes.

So I knew that my gang liked, you know, they liked a bit of outdoors, they liked animals, they liked being out in the garden.

So I decided to do all about in the garden and growing for my first theme.

And that meant in the first week we were there, I brought in soil, I brought in seeds and little pots and And we, you know, I introduced language, and I mean very gently introduced language of, you know, of seeds and growing and leaves and all the rest of it and digging and all that.

And I brought in some very safe tools that I had to use.

And we potted a few seeds and things like that.

And we watched them grow.

And some, most of it got fired out into the lawn, which makes no difference, you know.

um what but we did it and it was lovely and we had a little garden checklist we were going around looking for different things in the garden and in the you know the beautiful woodland walk around our school so that was used an awful lot that that first month and I didn't know I didn't know what I was meant to be doing but I suppose that's my start is always a theme and then what I have is I've actually shared my plans um I know you'll be sharing those resources and some people some teachers are very very funny about sharing plans but I don't care and I'm not precious And I'm not saying they're correct, but I am saying that that's what worked for me.

So initially I started using the planning from the whole school and I know it is best practice to have this whole school planning, but it didn't work for my gang at all because they kind of need individualized, excuse me, individualized planning.

So I have this kind of glance card at the front and it's my theme and it says that we're doing, this is going to be, the theme is garden.

This is going to be what we do in literacy.

This is going to do in numeracy.

just gave me a rough idea of where to go and then I have more detailed planning in the the ones after that my tip for planning as well is always use powerpoint or google slides don't ever use microsoft word because if you move one box it goes off into the abyss and you'll never find it again whereas powerpoint is far easier to manipulate that's my top tip for any teacher ever so um pick a theme pick high interest themes if you can you know you're you're trying to hook people in you're trying to you're going to draw attention um away from I suppose, away from the fear of learning as well.