With a week of highs and lows for both students and staff sometimes we need to sit back and reflect on the week we have had and remember the awesome work that has been achieved.

Firstly for us its about team work. Although we work with students primarily on a 1-2-1 basis, each and every member of staff know they have the backing of some awesome adults.

Want to know who we all are – check out the Team Bio’s on our website: https://www.pushforward.uk/team/

Now lets take that reflective look on the past week and see what our amazing young people have achieved.

We took a trip on a board a boat this week:

And had some fun in a park:

Here our young plumber has been gaining loads of work experience. This week decommissioning kitchen pipes.

By understanding math, children can better understand the world around them. For example, math can help young people understand how long it will take to get somewhere, how much money they need to buy something, or how big or small something is. These are essential life skills that a young person can use in their everyday lives.

Students have been working hard with their maths – calculating the area of square, rectangles, parallelograms, extension activities with compound shapes to really challenge the knowledge. Price value calculations and multiplication grids for multiplying double digits. Using the BSL alphabet to guess some words for hangman.

And maths does not just have to be on a computer or paper – it can be done with skittles, strawberry laces, Connect 4 and target practice scoring!

We also had some computer work. Computers contribute to intellectual development, and bridge the gap between concrete and abstract thinking. As young people explore cause and effect, create patterns, solve problems, and discover solutions, they learn to do on a screen what they have already mastered through hands-on learning.

A trip to Clip N Climb – what does this involve?

1. Safety First! A briefing for our young people on the use of the equipment and keeping safe. We also always do a Dynamic Risk Assessment of each activity to make sure our young people are safe to carry out the activity.
2. The activity itself. Helping our young people step out side their comfort zone, through encouragement and building their self confidence.
3. Praise for doing some an awesome job – whether they achieve just one first step on the climb or manage to go all the way to the top.
4. Exhaustion – don’t worry this young man did not fall, he simply laid down with pure exhaustion from doing some great exercise today – well done!

Now for some practical hands on work:

Over in Lowestoft we have been having a go at some soldering.

And in Newmarket 2 – we have poured the final resin on our Harry Potter bench project and we have been hand carving chess pieces.

Some amazing skills being learned here, helping to ignite some passion in the world of hands-on-work from plumbing to carpentry.

And here it is – our newest project in Newmarket 1. A Banger Car. And our little MX5 project has finally gone for its spray job. Can’t wait to see the end result.

Lets do some outside work now. Building a log pile house, sitting in a tree house looking for conkers to hatch from the shells, sleeping princess imaginary play, cycling at High Lodge and why not just hang around in a tree and be a sloth!

Imaginary play is so important in early years as it allows young people to learn critical thinking skills, how to follow simple directions, build expressive and receptive language, increase social skills and learn how manage their emotions.

Making Pizza, making ourselves some toast for lunch and cupcakes – and look at the smile on that face, think they are going to enjoy eating those cupcakes!

We know that developing healthy eating habits and an interest in food early on, can help promote lifelong positive attitudes and enjoyment of good food and cooking. Cooking is fun and an engaging way for children to learn about and try new foods

We went foraging for blackberries and turned them in to beautiful blackberry jam – not just cooking skills, but maths and English and moving into adulthood with food tech being covered in this session.

Then we went on to make fresh noodles for our Chicken Pad Thai Noodle – again this food is just amazing our young people are making.

Then we went shopping, we read ingredients (English), we learned how to use the checkouts at local supermarket (social and life skills), we prepared the food (hygiene, food tech, reading, maths) and the result – wow restaurant standard Teriyaki Chicken and sticky rice!

Home cooked food is so much healthier than fast food or takeout. So it is really important that our young people learn how to cook from fresh ingredients and they have shown this week how they can achieve these amazing results.

Through history, you can lead children to understand why people act as they do, and to appreciate and respect those who lived through different times to their own.

Here we take a trip to Duxford Air Museum.

The Imperial War Museum Duxford allows us to see Spitfires take to the skies from the airfield where they first flew, get up close to gigantic aircraft and walk in the footsteps of the men and women who served here.

And we don’t only learn about history when we go out and about. One of the greatest health benefits is in a young persons ability to learn how to engage with others while having fun. Helping them to develop healthy ways of forming friendships, responding to physical interaction, and using their imaginations to entertain each other and being in an environment where they have to show respect to the location and other people around them.

A different look at history – creating our own asteroid hitting earth and killing off dinosaurs

Another great social skill is about looking after others. Here the primary students are learning how to look after Ender Elliot our new pet bearded dragon.

Learning to care for animals and treat them with kindness is an experience that children can easily transfer to their relationships with other humans too – it helps to build empathy, understanding and respect for both their peers and adults.

Learning game development can help kids become the innovators, problem solvers, and creative thinkers of the future. Here we have our own creation of a marble run legs game.

A bit of science now exploring circuits.

Making magic, reading about castles, how the body works and some story time together.

Reading is a wonderful way to introduce a young person to a world of creativity and imagination. Reading with young children can help them develop a skill that they will use for the rest of their life while fostering a love of an activity that also enhances brain development.

Looking at Zones of Regulation and making a comic sketch of expected and unexpected behaviour.

Then we are doing some research into Pokémon to create our own character. Excellent work.

A sneak peak of Guy Fawkes – can you guess what we are doing with this outfit?!

Here we are looking at negative language, the effect it has on people and how a gender difference plays it’s part on emotions and dis-regulation. The idea was to get our young people communicating about their own experiences of bullying and hurtful behaviours, how it made them feel and what effect it had on their overall mood and wellbeing. We used art therapy, as part of a wider project that will unfold over the next few weeks.

And we finish this awesome week off with some arts & crafts.

Art therapy encourages young people to better understand thoughts, feelings and behaviors. By creating images and objects, young people can begin to see the thoughts and feelings they have inside and then be supported by the art therapist to better understand themselves and find solutions.

Most of our work is done 1-2-1, but sometimes we get together as a group and arts & crafts are a great way to do this. Here we have a group personalising bags ready to give to the homeless for Christmas.

We have painting spooky pictures over old photos – and it is great to see arts & crafts can be done outside too.

And some amazing results with abstract art work. Good to see our staff having fun in the background too 🙂

“Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It’s what you do for others” – Danny Thomas

Our Ethos

No one can begin to affect the world around them until they are CONFIDENT , COMFORTABLE, happy in their own skin and have found their SPARK! We take the time to understand and develop programmes from where the learner is in the world not where we think they should be.