Study Support in Special Schools

Food in Schools Healthier Cookery Club Project,  Sandgate Special School,  Kendal.

Background

Sandgate School is based in Kendal, Cumbria. The school educates students from 3 - 18 who have severe, complex & profound learning difficulties. The catchment area draws students from a wide geographical area serving villages where public transport is not available. The potential for after school clubs has been discussed at staff meetings but had until now not been fully realised.

What were/are the problems?

The main challenges that require addressing are with regard to equality of opportunity.  

Early staff discussion suggested a desire to run a cross-country club, however this clearly discriminated against those chair users who may want to be involved. These students would only be able to access this activity with the aid of 1 or 2 dedicated co-workers to push & manoeuvre the student & chair. The potential cost in staff support to actually carry out this activity, along with health & safety/ moving & handling implications of this are still under discussion!

After school aspect: medical need.   

A number of students may need access to a nurse during any after school activity in order to enable both staff, student & parents to happily & safely engage in any out of school hours activity. This clearly has cost implications if safe access to all is to be enabled.

Snack/feeding

A significant number of students require 1 -1 feeding partner if eating / feeding is to occur within the activity time. This has staffing implications with the need for safety reasons for a (trained) person to be dedicated to this activity.

Rurality/School transport

Taxi/Mini bus transport is required for those students whose parents or carers are unable to transport them. Students travel from outlaying towns / villages of some 45+ minutes. This clearly has cost implications if all students are to be given the opportunity to be included in an activity.

Escorts

An escort is likely to be required for students travelling in a taxi/bus. This again has cost implication.

Moving & handling issues.

Whilst an extended school day is seen as a potentially valuable experience. It would be necessary to ensure that those students who require postural management during the school day continued to have this aspect of their care addressed during any 'club' setting. Most toileting & postural moves require the aid of 2 co-workers, ideally with a sound knowledge of the student. This has significant cost implications.

Approach

We have 2 strands to our project.

Strand one primarily focuses on students with profound learning difficulties & multiple difficulties whose primary feeding is via tube feeding. An intention is to provide a multi sensory food based experience appropriate to the student. This will run during the lunch (playtime) period.

Strand two. A club named 'The After School Supper Club'. This runs after school on Tuesday evenings 3.30 - 5.30. As well as a healthy eating focus, a major spin-off for our students who due to a range of reasons do not tend to have social time with peers after school, is to access social time, along side drawing in students from the local secondary school to work alongside & socialise.

During December 2003 all parents & students from Key stage 1 through to post 16 were sent questionnaires to establish interest in an after school club. The response was rapid & wholly positive with 90% return rate. In order to ensure we could (at least in the initial phase of setting up the club) get the club up & running rapidly due to the pressing time constraints set, we selected a key stage 3 cohort as our initial group. As a special school working with students from both a wide ability group & geographical location, support in way of co-feeders, 1-1 access, nursing presence & transport, taxi & escorts will be needed to ensure accessibility & equality of opportunity for all students within the school. The first cohort group whilst 'comprehensive & inclusive' did not present major complexities requiring organisation of any of the above. With future cohorts these issues will need addressing managing & funding.

Healthier Eating

In order to address issues of healthier eating, each week one student plays the primary role in selecting the main ingredients, meal & favourite music / cd to be shared with peers at the supper club. All staff & students sit to share the meal together. This meal choice is made by the student with the parents and as appropriate / necessary with the parents at home through correspondence & parental knowledge of favoured foods. Use of photographs & ingredients are used to show & discuss how the meal can be made good / better or worse. (More sugar, use yoghurt instead of cream / custard etc) We intend as a school to explore the possibility of working towards the healthy schools award.

Key stakeholders

To date whilst all parents have been approached & are in principle keen to be involved other commitments take priority! Within the present club cohort all (bar one) parent / carers are transporting their child home, which is positive for us. All parents have helped & communicated with us re foods & meal choices as well as responding positively to the questionnaire. At present one / two teachers & one classroom assistant are delivering the club along side 2 / 3 students from the local secondary school working towards Duke Of Edinburgh awards. (The students are keen to continue beyond the minimum commitment time) Letters & further approaches will be made during March to possible stakeholders.

Funding / Expenditure

Funding has been provided through the Department of Health Food in Schools project with support from the Cumbria Out of School Learning coordinator in bringing together schools to discuss our projects. Our initial plans suggested that the vast majority of this money would go towards staffing, however school staff at present are working voluntarily with the stated preference that any available money should go towards upgrading our equipment base. It must also be noted at this point that the cohort (key stage 3 students) was selected on the grounds of ease of execution for the initial stage of our club. Our initial rapidly produced plan did not take account of the need to purchase equipment. Therefore equipment will take a proportion of our budget. This is seen as an important way to ensure sustainability of healthy eating habits, as items such a juicer, smoothy maker & a switching system for students with access difficulties will be made available. Sensory items will also be required by group one of the strand.

What are the benefits?

• Out of school access & social opportunities for both our & local comprehensive D of E students.
• Links with other Rural schools with a 'guest appearance' of a cookery teacher from a secondary school. (Widening her experience base, offering a completely new context for her & expertise to us)
• An invitation to visit & join another Cookery Club in Cartmel secondary school, widening horizons in many ways for our students who will visit another school after school & meet & socialise with 'new' people.
• An interest by other staff & students to be involved.
• Bringing parents into the school & getting involved (hopefully) in making healthy food choices.
• This financial 'kick start' has been very positive, and will hopefully lead onto a greater diversity of opportunity for our students. However, it is inevitable that given the need for equality of opportunity for all of our students in an activity, any out of school activity will be expensive in terms of staffing.

Elaine Wilkinson

12.04.04