We started 2021 amidst a sea of packing crates and bubble wrap as we prepared to move our office to a new location in east Brighton. We had a mass clear out as part of the move and were able to donate several boxes of pre-used PECS communication books, visual schedules, laminated symbols and toys to various SEN nurseries and our local SENDIASS – Amaze.

New Products

We introduced some new products to our range this year, adding in some new sensory toys such as the Octopus Popper and the Mini Galaxy Ball Fibre-Optic Torch –both of which would make great stocking fillers this Christmas. The compact travelling schedule board is now available in blue, orange and red, these have proved to be very popular so far. The products department has been very busy, they have sent out over 5,300 product orders so far in 2021, including over 9,000 PECS books. That is quite a few orders for a small team of three, they work incredibly hard to quickly pick and pack the products in order to get them out to you as soon as possible.

Face to Face Training

We had hoped to recommence face-to-face training in January and our consultants were keen to get back on the road, but a further lockdown put paid to that idea. We were delighted to finally get back to it in September when we trained 15 delegates at a workshop in London. In October we ran a PECS L1 workshop in Manchester and in November we visited Newcastle and London, training 60 delegates in total. We plan on running monthly PECS L1 workshops in major cities across the UK in 2022, first up are Birmingham, Glasgow and London. Hopefully as the pandemic eases we will expand our list of locations.  As well as the 60 delegates we trained at face-to-face workshops, we also trained 1,620 delegates across our ever-popular online workshops. We ran workshops during the day, evenings and at weekends, which we hope gave everyone a chance to attend at a time to suit them. As well as the delegates who sat training with us, 446 people attended a free PECS overview. We have run these online, one hour, free sessions, regularly throughout the year. Some people attend because they have no knowledge of PECS and are interested in finding out a little more. Others attend as a taster before booking the full 2-day PECS L1 workshop. We also introduced some new 2-3 hour short talks to our offering such as Data: Everything, Something or Nothing? which was written by Pyramid Consultant Grace. Grace loves data and can show you how to take it, what to do with it once you have it and how to act on it! Expand your skill set by attending our next data talk in March, priced at £39 it includes interactive training, a handout and certificate.

Social Media

We have been very busy on our socials. We recorded a series of helpful Instagram reels for those implementing PECS. These proved to be incredibly popular, to date they have been watched an incredible 29,786 times! If you’ve not seen them yet pop over to Instagram or Facebook and take a look.

Back in September we ran the A – Z of PECS which we really enjoyed putting together for you, even if finding words for X, Y & Z made our brains hurt. Coming up in January we have the A – Z of the Pyramid Approach to Education, which we hope will help demystify this highly effective framework for establishing and supporting effective learning environments.

This year in the buildup to Christmas we have been running a PECS advent calendar. This is a daily post of promotional codes and giveaways. It’s not too late to join in, check out our Facebook and Instagram pages for more details. So far we have given away 5 sets of PECS 151, a Poppy and Sam Christmas Activity Set, 10 bubble pens, 20% off the Schedule Board Kit, a free Christmas themed PECS symbol download and a hot chocolate making lesson plan and symbol set. There is more to come including a place on PECS L1 training for one lucky winner.

Back to Exhibiting

We were thrilled to exhibit at the TES Sen Show people at an exhibitionin October, it was great to speak to people face to face and have some beneficial and interesting conversations with parents and professionals. We asked visitors to our stand to show us their PECS skills by commenting on The Very Hungary Caterpillar book. For their efforts they were rewarded with a (now famous) bubble pen!

In 2022 we have a couple of new short talks up our sleeves, PECS In the Mainstream and PECS at Your Place. More information on those will be available soon!

We hope that you have a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas break. We look forward to welcoming you onto one of our workshops in 2022, and supporting you to give your learners communication skills for life.

By Louise Hotchkiss

© Pyramid Educational Consultants 2021