Facilities & Approaches

Facilities

The Sherwood Hill Campus is a purpose built school to cater for the specialised learning needs of autistic children and young people. The school has been designed to be a low arousal environment with calming acoustics. There the school has a library,  life skills room and large hall equipped with a climbing wall and rebound trampoline. Outdoor areas include early years play grounds, inset trampolines, birds nest swings, a climbing area, sensory trails and communal play areas. 

The 13 classes have access to quiet rooms for learning and regulation.  These are equipped with a range of facilities including quiet tables for reading and learning and/or sensory equipment (interactive lights, acoustic mats, bubble walls, music and climbing areas) to support regulation.

There is a purpose built sensory room with interactive learning and leisure activities; a soft play room equipped with climbing and swinging equipment; a sensory gym fully equipped with suspended equipment and crash pit; and a regulation room with access to suspended equipment. 

There is an extension planned for 2025 which will include improved catering facilities so meals can be cooked on site, individual learning rooms to support pupils who require periods of learning away from a class group, a music room, a gym and a small hydropool. 

Children can access the facilities on our other Campuses which include the Swimming Pool on our Sherwood Park Campus and our Forest School and horticulture area on our Sherwood Manor Campus  

There is a focus on equipment and resources that are supportive for Autistic children and young people, including regulation equipment (specialist swings, trampettes, gym balls, weighted & deep pressure equipment, chewys, sensory toys & quickshift music etc), transactional supports (visuals, now-next-then boards etc) and highly specialist communication systems (low tech & high tech). 

Approaches

Learners are provided with regular, planned opportunities to use and apply their skills across all curriculum areas and across settings. They have regular access to community environments and support is given to parents and carers so that they can generalise their skills and learning. 

In addition to our whole school approaches and interventions, for our autistic cohort on this campus we prioritise the development of co & self regulation, engagement, communication, self-occupancy and life skills. We work to ensure that we use autism friendliness (Autisme Centraal) and a low arousal environment and approaches. The approaches and interventions used include: 

• Social Communication, Emotional Regulation and Transactional Supports (SCERTS) framework 
• Regulation profiles using the process of Self Reg and informed by Autism Level Up 
• Well-being & regulation focused behaviour support, including low arousal approaches and Studio 111 
• Sensory interventions including Therapeutic Listening and principles of Ayres Sensory Integration theory & practice, sensory circuits, Sensory Stories 
• Play based approaches such as intensive interaction and DIR-Floortime
• The Curiosity Approach and Attention Autism 
• Robust augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems (e.g core vocabulary boards, Proloquo-2-Go, LAMP words for life), Makaton, objects of reference 
• High level of transactional support including; visual time-tables, ‘now, next & then’, visual schedules 
• TEACCH, Social Stories, Comic Strip Conversations, Talking Mats 
• Environmental and task adaptations & video modelling 
• Assistive technology

Our Accessibility Plan provides full information on the accessibility of the Hill Campus and future plans.