Social Skills Club : Week 1 & 2
Welcome to the Academy Union Club
We had fun meeting the members of our social skills club. After introductions, we kicked off our session by asking members to brainstorm a name for the club (let’s face it social skills group is so not cool). All of them came up with really good ideas and at the end, they voted for ”THE ACADEMY UNION CLUB”, which is now the official name of the club.
Our next activity was for the group to talk about their strengths and weaknesses; by the way, not a single member of the group had a weakness… not one member and not one weakness! To ensure that their communication difficulties were not a barrier to them expressing themselves, we asked them to draw a picture of what they were good at or what they wanted to improve. They were able to relax and talk whilst drawing about their strengths.
To ensure all members have an input into how the group would run, they were asked to think of some “group rules”. Their list was never ending! We compromised at 5, which coincidentally made for some great targets.
Dramatherapy:
The last part of the session was based on the dramatherapy, where activities/games were based on giving them opportunities to practise basic social skills speaking, listening, turn-taking, sharing and their imagination. My personal favourite section was the “it’s not a cloth it’s a….” A key aim of the group is to promote the pupil’s imaginative development.
This week Rachael, drama therapist
used fabric as it’s so versatile and can be used to represent many different things to support this. Our members loved the variety of colours and textures! A popular game with the fabric is one where the members take turns to imagine what else it could be, for example; ‘this is not a piece of fabric, it’s a snake/the ocean/a magic carpet!’ We loved hearing the brilliant ideas the members came up with.
Homework:
Homework for this week is for the parents to focus on the strengths of our members, identify and talk about these strengths when they see it and most of all encourage the members to praise themselves. We want to develop self-confidence.
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Skills tickets (taken from our Skillstreaming curriculum) were handed out to be given to the members when they self-praised. Members are motivated to earn their skill ticket so that they can exchange it next week for ‘surprise,’ We are committed to reinforcing and generalising these skills. Below are some of the key phrases from Saturday.
“I always try my best.”
“I struggle to listen to others.”
“I am good at gaming.”
“I like cycling.”
“I like hula-hooping.”
Week 1: The Bean Club
The Bean Club
We kicked off week 1 of our social skills club for children with social, communication and emotional difficulties by supporting the members to introduce themselves to the group. As we know that children with language difficulties can find it easier to express themselves through pictures, we encouraged members to draw a picture of what they were good at or what they wanted to improve. They enjoyed sitting around the table drawing and talking about themselves and each other.
A key aim is for the children to own this group, so we supported them to work together to rename the group. The majority of our members voted for the “The Bean Club” because they love Mr. Bean. One member of the group is slightly unsure of this name so he has suggested that he “needs time to think and will come up with a different name next week”. The suspense is killing us!
The members were encouraged to come up with 5 rules for the group. We are pleased to say the rules were never-ending… now for the job of getting them to comply with all these rules!
Snack Time
During snack break they were given opportunity to share and dip into each other’s snacks; this ridiculous idea was rejected by most members! Well, at least we were on the right track to choose sharing as a target! Perhaps we need to get to know each other better before we are ready to share rice cakes! It was great to eavesdrop on their spontaneous chats between the group during snack.
Homework
Homework for this week is for the parents to focus on the strengths of our members, identify and talk about these strengths when they see it and most of all, encourage the members to praise themselves. We want to develop self-confidence.
Skills tickets (http://www.skillstreaming.com) were given to parents to be given to the members when they self-praised during the week. Members are motivated to earn their skill ticket so that they can exchange it next week for a ‘surprise,’ We are committed to reinforcing and generalising these skills.
Finally some of the key phrases our members expressed
“I am good at Ancient Greece.”
“I am good at swimming.”
“I am not good at staying focused.”
“I am good at everything.”
“I speak Italian.”
Week 2: Group Academy Union Club
What’s going on at The Academy Union Club
We were really pleased to welcome our members back for our 2nd week at the Social Skills group.
The members were really pleased to see the rules they had developed been transformed into posters and stuck on the door on arrival. All actually stuck to the rules without any prompting. The power of visual support! Plus rules are much easier to stick to when you make them up yourself! Don’t worry we will get them to the part where they have to comply with rules they didn’t make up!
Active Listening
We ventured on our Active Listening theme which we’ll be continuing for the next 2 weeks (yes… it’s going to take much longer than two weeks to get them listening 🙂 We encouraged our members to think about what it means to listen with not only our ears but also our eyes, hearts, hands and feet. Members made some very good contributions about what it meant for them to listen and also what it meant for them to feel heard. Members who were unable to come up with their own ideas were able to repeat others’ ideas… now that’s active listening.
Dramatherapy
After all of that active listening our drama-therapy session started by having the group stretch out to get their energy flowing and then we revisited a game from the previous week, as requested by one of our members. The game ‘Anybody Who…’ involves each member of the group taking in turns to suggest something they like or dislike to the group and seeing who also has that thing in common. For example, ‘anybody who likes ice cream’. All members who agree with the statement have to swap chairs and whoever is left without a chair stands in the centre and has a turn. This game promotes both speaking and listening skills and it also helps the group members to see who they have things in common with.
The main activity in the drama-therapy group was ….. The Academy Union Club’s X Factor! Rachael was the host with her trusty banana microphone! She started by interviewing one member of the group about their interests, talents and hobbies and then opened up the questions to the audience, who were using their best speaking and listening skills to think of questions to ask the ‘contestant’. This week 3 members of the group had a turn, with the rest watching and asking questions. We had some great questions such as ‘have you ever been to Helsinki?’ with the reply of “No, but I’ve been to Westfield.” Other questions included ‘Do you like Tai kwondo?’ and ‘what games do you like playing with your friends?’ and we learnt lots of new things about our members. We’re looking forward to interviewing the next ‘contestants’ next week!
During the break, the members of the group talked about which music they like to listen to and they agreed on a couple of pop songs that they all like. Rachael played these two songs for the group and some of them danced and sang along, whilst others enjoyed their snacks or chatted to each other about their interests. See - we really do social stuff!
Homework
Parents received a skills ticket. Parents were asked to pick one instruction that they’d like their child to respond to more often than they do now and provide them with a skills ticket for doing so. We look forward to receiving as many skills tickets as they can manage to give out.
