HLC Visits Strathmore

Each year for two weeks in March, The Holly Lodge Centre hosts the Junior Citizen program. Organized by the local council, Junior Citizen runs training across our site, providing emergency preparedness training to local students and offering opportunities to practice essential skills, such as learning how to call for an ambulance.

With regular programming on pause during Junior Citizen, HLC staff took the opportunity to visit one of our specialist schools, Strathmore, to visit with students and staff on their home court. Many of our volunteers will be familiar with Strathmore, with several classes participating in our holiday sessions and visiting the Centre for nature programs this Spring. As part of our visit, we were interested to see how their classes were set up and learn from teachers and staff on how we could better meet student needs.

Some observations and learnings from our visit:

-Teaching is at the Early Years level at the Russell site, with classrooms set up with zones of play and themes and quiet room and soft playroom available to all students
-Use of visual colourful schedules, learning objectives and key words and phrases – printed up in large text on walls
-Physical play outside, such as climbing and balancing
-Tuft trays with sand and foam to write letters
-Key actions learnt and reinforced through child led play, for example, scooping and pouring
-Use of music and song – action songs, counting songs and songs with key Makaton signs

It was a wonderful and informative visit, graciously hosted by Sarah Terry from Strathmore School. We met many familiar faces on our tour of the school and classrooms and left buzzing with ideas on how we can enhance our programs and Nature Trail going forward.