Work stations in classrooms.

[Karen A]

I was reading another post this morning on open plan classrooms and wonder if any of you can give me some information on work stations.Ben used a work station last year.He has lots of sensory issues and tends to opt out or shut down if topics do not include his interests.There may be a possibility of including Ben much more in group activities during lessons next year to work on social skills.The question is where others have used work stations are they used on an ongoing basis or are they used short term before attempts to reintegrate a child into groups ?Perhaps one of you could direct me to what guidance/good practice is.Any information regarding written guidance would be helpful.I need to think about whether to push for work station to stay in place/push for full inclusion at first IEP planning meating in Sep.Thanks Karen

[something vague]

Hi Karen,

 

Sorry, I've just written you a long reply but then lost it when editing dont think i can retrieve it.

 

Basically I find workstations to be brilliant but i work with pupils who have autism and Sever learning difficulties. I worked in a school that used workstations in the TEACCH style ie enclosed work area, child facing the wall, symbols on the wall to help the child understand the routine, start and finish of task. These were great distractionfree areas and helped child work independantly. However they wer only used for short periods of say 15 mins maybe twice a day. During the rest of the day the child would be involved in group teaching, play and one to one plsy/speech therpy type work with an adult.

 

In the school that I work now the 'workstations' are basically tables, not enclosed but each positioned separately in quiet areas of the room - luckily we have a large, partitioned room and only a few children so really there are few distractions (well usually). For every lesson our pupils star with some group teaching and then those who need it go to complete the individual, table top work related to that subject at their work stations so they tend to use their WS maybe for 15 minutes 4 times a day at the maximum unless they choose to play there with their choice activity (reward after formal work).

 

I guess your boy is in mainstream, unfortunately I dont have experience there. The school should be working towards encouraging him to have some group time and I personally think that WS should only be used for the times when your boy needs to do individual work and needs to concentrate. Maybe they need to think how to inclde him in groups, making sure he has plenty of personal space and is seated on the outer edges of the group or even observing from a distance to begin with. Maybe they could introduce a classmate to work with your boy at his workstation for some tasks.

 

Hope that helps, I'm not going to preview or edit incase I loose this so I hope it makes sense.

 

SV

[smiley]

Hi Karen,

 

I don't have any supporting material to hand (though i can have a look for you in the bottomless pit that is the bookcase! ) but i can tell you how it has helped my son.

 

M has/had (he's moving to Juniors in Sept) a workstation. It has helped him tremendously. It was a normal classroom table and the janitor made two walls - one to his left and one in front of him (his 1-2-1 sits to his right). On it they put his visual timetable, his emotion bar so he can let them know how he's feeling, other visual cards i.e; 'Listen' which his 1-2-1 uses. He also made a 'M's Table' sign and put it on the wall - other than that, it's plain. It faces away from the other children and next to the book corner (- he loves books, and will go to read if he's anxious). The other children knew it was M's space and either stayed away from that area or at least asked him if they could approach. This helped reduces some of his anxiety, because he knew that no-one would approach him unexpectedly. If needed, he could turn in his chair and face the teacher - so he wasn't totally excluded from the classroom. M doesn't see himself as one of his peers and rarely interacts with his classmates - so intergration is slow. But, by the end of the term he would allow one child to come and sit at his table with him - little steps .

 

It can be used however it's needed, long-term, short-term, as a tool to intergrate - Ben could use it for part of the day and then have part of the day to be with his peers. It's inexpensive - and has been a huge help for us. Well worth asking for one for your son.

 

Hope that helps - happy to give more info if needed.

[Karen A]

Thanks for the information it is really helpful.I think I will ask to start with a work station for Ben to have access to if needed in Sep as this is what he used some of the time last year.It will then provide some continuity.If he does well with social skills then we could gradually increase his time in groups.I realised today that Ben does use strategies to cope with sensory issues Eg when we needed to wait for luggage at busy airport on Tuesday he sat on floor with personal CD player headphones playing his music and read his book intently-he coped fine-I guess if having a work station would help in a similar way when the classroom is busy and it gets too much it would be a good idea.Karen

[caren]

when K goes back in september there having a work station for him and he's going to be taught using TEACCH don't know much about it but they talked about it in his review.

[summertime]

I've used workstations in main stream classrooms for a lot of children with different levels of need, but generally we use them for what we would class as independent work, so the child would take part in all the general input from the teacher with the rest of the class but then go and sit at their workstation to do their written work, which is the time when they could be easily distracted by sensory issues such as noise or movement from the other children

 

we use a table with partitions around the back and sides, sometimes the child will be sitting with his back to the class but on occasions we have had to position the station so that the childs back is to the back of the room, this is because the thought of someone coming up behind them can be quite stressful for them.

 

mainstream classrooms are very visual and most teachers like to change their displays regularly and this can be very distracting for the child so the plain walls of the workstation can be a real break from this visual bombardment.

 

one of our main aims with a child with asd should be to help teach appropriate social skills so the workstation should be used where appropriate to help with work alongside a programme of work to help intergrate in social situations, the workstation shouldn't be used as a simple way of segregating the pupil but a way of helping cut down stimulation when needed

[bid]

Don't know if it's any help, but at my son's special school for AS the classrooms were organised with work tops round the outside walls, divided into individual work stations, which were personalised, etc. Then in the middle of the room were tables pushed together for group work.

 

Bid

[mbrown]

When in primary school my son had his own 'space' I guess that would be his workstation. He was free to come and go from it when he chose, rather than being sent there for particular work. He could decorate it as he liked and this arrangement worked very well for all concerned. Giving him the freedom of choice worked better than being told when he should be at his own work station. Latterly he spent more time working in the group evenwhen he had his own space.

 

I found that often when a child had his or her own space it was used when the teacher needed a break not the other way about.

 

Karen, I woul dcertainly bring it up at the IEP meeting. Better to discuss it even if it doesn't go ahead than trying to do so into the year.

 

Everyone is different but properly managed individual workstations can acheive very positive results.

 

Good Luck

Mike

[Karen A]

Thanks for all the help it is very useful Karen