We’ve had such a busy 2 weeks we didn’t even have time to do a blog last week, so this week covers two weeks for awesome work for our young people.

Pets provide the kind of unconditional relationship that can help someone build social skills and confidence. They can provide a sense of calm and reassurance. Dogs bring a routine to the days. If your child lacks structure in their day then a dog can bring that. Routine can give a child a sense of calm, they know what to expect and this can really help an anxious young person or a young person who is feeling depressed.

And why not take that love of animals to create Art. Like animals can help a young person with their emotions. Art is a powerful way to express yourself. Art therapy for young people allows them to show their ideas and thoughts freely without the use of words. It can help to boost confidence and make us feel more engaged and resilient. Besides these benefits, art engagement can also alleviate anxiety, depression and stress.

And we carry on with our art therapy and learning with; painting model making, Christmas decorations, designs and decorating our Christmas bags for the homeless (helping the community and others is a great way to help you feel good about yourself), making stencils, work experience with younger children making handprint reindeers, sketch book drawings, making clay sculptures, designing front of own sketch book and pottery painting.

And art can take different forms, Nail Art and Makeup is a form of art that can be expressed on yourself or others. Makeup can be an important tool for enhancing your appearance, boosting your confidence, and expressing your creativity. However, it’s also important to teach young people that makeup should be used as a complement to your natural beauty, and not as a way to hide or cover up who you are.

The high discipline that is required by any chef in a commercial industry, is something that can only be learned through rigorous training and practice which is a major reason why cooking is considered an art form. And if a young person has an interest in cooking as a future career we will help them to enhance that passion, however cooking is ultimately a life skill that is important to learn. Everything from buying the ingredients, to cooking to ultimately enjoying the end result. Learning to cook on a budget, learning to cook for fun, having the confidence to be creative all skills that our lessons help young people with.

So this week’s delights were: Meatballs & pasta, Sushi, pizza Calzones, chocolate chip cookies, Oreo cheesecake, Begber (burger with hole cut out for egg fried in the middle), Beef Wellington, Butter biscuits from Denmark, Gyozas, cookies, Victoria Sponge cake, pizza, cake, cheeseburgers, Cinnamon rolls, stir fry, Vietnamese Spring rolls, Biscoff cheesecake, soft shell tacos, AND chocolate cake!

Food can be very sociable so why not enjoy the food you have made with friends. Whether its a full meal, an ice-cream or hot chocolate and marshmallows.

We also like to encourage different types of sporting activities from bowling, gym work, pool, to crazy golf, climbing, gym fitness, VR fitness, football to walking in the woods. Its all about getting up and moving about indoors or outdoors. Lots of sports also help with hand eye co-ordination, critical thinking as well as getting your heart rate up.

Going into an occupation such as construction or plumbing can also be very physical. Here we have some great work experience on plumbing, tiling, some kitchen cabinet making, a gaming bench, tool holder and some more brilliant plumbing work.

And being a car mechanic takes both mental and physical strength. Whether you are researching your next car, sitting in the car of your dreams, carrying our mechanic duties on the MX5 project or purchasing the next Pushforward project.

Whether a hobby, a career or just for fun. Working with your hands and being able to see the real-time progress and fruits of your labour provides a real sense of achievement and the skills learned can go towards future careers. Here we are using the blow torch on some resin figures made, using the lathe to make a rolling pin, the continue of our guitar project and making a bench.

A different type of workshop, when you work with metal. Here we have a young person is measuring some sheet steel and using hand guillotine to cut out, cleaning some steel for his bench base project and using an angle grinder for the first time, working with the instructor, practicing, being safe and learning a great skill for a future career in welding.

During the early years of learning, children are naturally intrigued as they experience everything for the first time; they are constantly absorbing new information and are quickly able to learn by example. And working/playing with others helps to build those social skills, improves cognitive, physical, social and emotional well-being of young people. Through play, children learn about the world around them. They learn skills to study, work and relationships, such as confidence.

And here because our learning is fun the young people are learning without realising – whether its maths, English, science, geography, history – done in such a way that it becomes enjoyable will ensure that the young minds are kept engaged.

We have chess, creating stories, learning about Vikings trying to crack the runes code, learning about Geography, looking at Zones of Regulation, writing and reading secret messages, imaginary game of Pokemon using reference book to choose characters and figure out their stats, practicing code, playdough, practicing coding, practicing phonics by stabbing sounds, writing numbers, shape recognition, multiplication snakes and ladders, reading eggs, writing stories, Lego building and science experiment’s, multiplication and maps/atlas.

And when we get older nervousness is a natural reaction to exams. The key is to put these nerves to positive use. If anxiety is getting in the way rather than helping, we encourage young people to practice the activities they’ll be doing on the day of the exam. This will help it feel less scary.

Here we have examples of young people working on, language and Onomatopoeia poster, Maths, GCSE Maths Papers, consolidation work – mixed numbers and improper fractions – white board work on metaphors and similes, speed distance time, inverse operations to change the subject of a formula in rainbow colours, Algebra, more GCSE preparation finishing with some percentages and place values.

Lets look at some of our offsite educational visits this last couple weeks:

Exploring local architecture in Lowestoft, CLAAS, visit to Duxford Air Museum, the park to feed pigeons, Arsenal Stadium, Olympic Stadium including the aquatics diving center, Banham Zoo, Watching Tempest 2 taking off at Duxford, Owl sanctuary and Orwell bridge. We then take our offsite visits like Duxford to help with science experiments creating a model wind turbine.

Independent life skills includes ordering / buying food – speaking to people, navigating technology, learning how to budget the pennies – these young people have done a awesome job this week visiting supermarkets and local shops.

Here is some work on a motorbike project and fixing the rear sprocket.

You could be employed, or you could decide to run your own business. This young person has decided to start a healthy smoothie business and is working on a 3d design elephant model.

We also went hunting for fungi and believe this to be an amethyst deceiver!

And yes its only November but we are starting to get into the Christmas spirit with decorations, making wooden Christmas trees, designing our bags for the homeless and gift boxes.

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.