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 was not a barrier to them expressing themselves, we asked them to draw a pictures 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 inout 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 pupils 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 off 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.”
We can’t wait to see you this Saturday!
From All Behaviour Consultancy
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