The PECS Summer School is not just an average learning experience, but a fun two week long, opportunity to develop skills based upon our four key values; communication, community, inclusion and socially significant skills. The goal of the Summer School is to work alongside the attending families to reach outcomes that are based on their children’s own preferences, as well as those of their parents/carers. So, how can the values of the PECS Summer School benefit your family?

Communication GOAL:  reduce the occurrence of communication breakdown by increasing learner skills and confidence

The Summer School offers each child’s parents/carers two free places on the 2-day PECS Level 1 training workshop. This enables the families to learn the theoretical underpinnings and practice the functional elements of PECS. This is followed up during the Summer School with several parent sessions on site to help support families in implement PECS with their own child, in their day-to-day activities. Furthermore, by focusing on learner led opportunities for teaching communication learners develop skills which are important to them. This practice is incorporated into each activity both onsite and out in the community.

Community  GOAL: teach the children skills that are going to increase their access to community based events

We take the children to places that we know they will enjoy, such as a trampoline park. Discussions with families help to inform our planning for each PECS Summer School. We also take learner to venues they find challenging, such as the shops. We want to increase the children’s skills within commonly accessed community venues whilst also increasing their coping strategies in places they find difficult. We also throw in a mystery visit. At the last Summer School this was ten pin bowling, for some children it led to a discovery of a brand-new preferred activity!

Inclusion GOAL: teach others that all learners are able and can be included in everything when we create an effective learning environment

 The Summer School volunteers are provided with compulsory PECS Level 1 training prior to their volunteer period. They are DBS checked and must sit a safeguarding workshop too. All volunteers are supervised and have daily sessions focused on how they can refine their PECS implementation skills and improve practice with the learner to help them to succeed. Siblings are very welcome to attend the family sessions. If this is the case the session can focus on how siblings can support each other to learn and be involved in fun family activities. When out in the community we promote understanding and compassion in the way we work alongside the children, whilst also demonstrating that they are highly capable individuals who can be happy and involved in their community.

 Socially significant skills GOAL:  teaching the children skills that have meaning and purpose to them and their families

 We acknowledge that the best people to determine which skills are crucial for each individual child are the key people around them and indeed the child themselves. We do not make curriculum-based discussions without the guidance of these individuals.

Last year lots of the families wanted to concentrate on everyday skills such as putting shoes on, washing hands, walking for longer distances, and eating in different environments. We focused on these targets and used effective teaching strategies such as backward chaining, dense reinforcement schedules and generalisation to support learning. These lessons would be meaningless without data that supports that they are effective. Data is taken each day not only on each child’s progression in their targets but also the volunteer’s accuracy in implementation. We only have our learners for a short period of time at Summer School, so it is imperative to make data informed decisions to gain maximum possible outcomes each day.

If you are interested in our Summer School, please look at PECS Summer School page on our website. If you have any questions about your child attending or volunteering opportunities, you can email summerschooluk@pecs.com

By Grace Payne

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