Connecting with RE
During the last academic year, I was given a wonderful opportunity, courtesy
of the National Society’s Special Needs Fellowship Award. It enabled me to spend
time on a project very close to my heart. As a result, I have put together a
book, which I hope will go some way towards alleviating the frustrations
experienced by those of us who search in vain for accessible, doable and
meaningful R.E. lessons for the very special children we teach.
Target group
My fundamental aim was to reproduce in a user-friendly way, tried and tested
material, initially developed to meet the needs of children and young people
with Autism and/or severe and complex learning disabilities.
Indeed, those children who have difficulty in relating, understanding and
communicating;
Those children whose interests and preoccupations are led by their need to
make sense of a world which can seem to them a strange, chaotic and bewildering
place; who have difficulty accessing or participating in any teaching/learning
process and who may present with challenging behaviour.
Something for everyone
Very few materials exist in this area for R.E. and my hope is that the book
will provide a valuable and useful resource for teachers in Special schools and
for all those who have responsibility for teaching, co-ordinating or advising on
R.E. for children with such distinctive needs.
Whilst the materials and approaches were developed to cater particularly for
these children, the book is packed with ideas, activities and songs, which have
been used successfully with children across the range of special needs and also
with children in Mainstream schools.
The challenge
In the day and residential special school where I was working, I often
considered it fortunate that most of my teaching time was spent engaging the
children in musical experiences. It seemed to me that I had a head start in that
music both as a therapeutic and educational medium enhanced the motivation and
feel-good factor for almost all the children, enabling them to communicate and
respond more readily and fluently.
When I began to co-ordinate and teach R.E. and lead others in the process of
developing the curriculum, I felt challenged to come up with approaches, which
would make R.E. as appealing and motivating as the Music sessions.
Mary Poppins!
I knew I needed to maximise the level of engagement from the outset. I wanted
to mediate the message, ‘ It’s good to be here together doing this,’ so that the
children would remember and anticipate their pleasurable experiences and become
increasingly willing and happy to bring themselves to the table for each weekly
session.
When children are driven by the need to engage in self-stimulatory
behaviours, are prone to frenetic, hyperactivity or have significant
difficulties with interpersonal contact, getting them to the table and engaging
and sustaining their attention for long enough to achieve anything can be an
achievement in itself!
I began to evolve a series of Units by bringing together motivating resources
with the potential for connecting with R.E. themes and addressing R.E. aims.
Each week out of a Mary Poppins type bag or box, I would produce a variety of
carefully chosen multi-sensory items, which took account of some of the
individual and collective interests and pre-occupations within the group. For
instance:
Tommy would come to the table if he saw that there was something to eat!
Claire would relinquish the bit of plastic she flaps if she saw some dangly
or flappable items coming out of the box!
Ambrose enjoyed items that provided strong visual stimulation and was soothed
by the fibre-optic flower or holographic shiny paper.
Features of the Units
‘ Connecting with R.E.’ introduces six units from an overall series of
twelve. The unit titles are as follows:
- Awareness and Appreciation of Colours in our World
- Awareness and Appreciation of the Seaside in our world
- Awareness and Appreciation of Signs of Summer in our World
- Awareness and Appreciation of Animals in our world
- Awareness and Appreciation of Myself and My body
- Awareness of and Familiarisation with The Christmas Story
The units have been designed to incorporate the following features:
- Motivating, enjoyable activities and experiences, which address the
suggested aims of Local Agreed Syllabi.
- Opportunities compatible with current Curriculum Guidance, Equals and ‘P’
levels.
- Weekly lesson plans grouped into half-termly units.
- A repertoire of activities including group work and shared experiences
designed to give focus to differentiated learning outcomes.
- Opportunities to incorporate global and wider curricular aims.
- Thematic focus to enable delivery as part of a cross-curricular topic or
alternatively as a discrete unit of study.
- Sign language and symbols for key words
- Opportunities for assessment and external accreditation for all ability
levels.
- Suggestions of different ways to animate biblical texts
- Guidance on how to create an effective mediated learning experience.
Responding to Spiritual and Pastoral Needs
The book includes a chapter on responding to the spiritual and pastoral needs
of children and young people with learning disabilities. This is an area that I
have become increasingly more concerned with and involved in over the years and
the Fellowship time enabled me to research into organizations, communities,
resources, literature and people, pro-actively engaged in discovering and
promoting sensitive, appropriate responses to these issues.
Closed doors and open doors
As families find themselves making adjustments to their lives and
expectations to accommodate the needs of a child with severe learning
disabilities, it must seem that whilst some new and unexpected doors may open,
many others begin to close. Taking on board changed expectations and coming to
terms with this can be seen in some ways to mirror the bereavement process.
Inclusive?
For families in Faith Communities where belonging and participation is
integral to the culture, history and day to day ethos of their family life, it
is evident that there have been and still are many occasions when their child
with learning disabilities has not been able to experience a sense of real
belonging to that community and the family must feel that yet another door has
closed; how sad and how wrong, if we let this door close so unnecessarily and
what a loss to the rest of the community.
In contrast, there are many examples of carefully crafted, sensitive and
meaningful approaches to the Faith Development of people with learning
disabilities and where this is happening, both in this country and abroad, the
discovery is always the same; the spiritual lives of those who set out to teach
or facilitate are enriched by the presence and contribution of their friends
with disabilities. As Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities said, ‘ I
saw their incredible openness to Gospel values. I could talk about the
Beatitudes but people with disabilities were actually living them at a much
deeper level. The unexpected insight turned everything upside down.’
Ways forward
Conscious that we were a 52 week residential special school, we began to
consult our parents via a sensitively worded questionnaire to try and discover
if they had particular wishes and hopes in relation to their child’s Faith
Development. As a result of this we helped to prepare a Jewish boy for his
Barmitzvah and set up a Special Religious Education group through which
Christian children of different denominations were able to celebrate their Faith
together and prepare for First Holy Communion and Confirmation in liaison with
local churches.
‘ I didn’t think it would be possible.’
‘ I didn’t ever think it would happen.’
These were some of the comments from parents on their family’s special day.
Approaches and contacts
In ‘Connecting with R.E.’ I have presented in some detail approaches to Faith
Development and included useful contacts for resources and support. There is
also a chapter on Worship and of course some songs and song/activities, which
have been well-used and well-loved over the years!
Enjoy!
My hope is that the book will find its way into all the places where it may
be of benefit; Special and Mainstream schools, Units, Residential settings,
parishes and homes and that the material provided will offer guidance and
practical resources to meet the presenting needs and serve the different
purposes of individuals and groups within this range of settings.
Liz O’Brien
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