Despite the on-going challenges of Covid during the past school year, we have made progress with several of the specialist schools involved in our Pioneer's Programme. Earlier this year we also formalised an agreement with the educational software developer, Busy Things (see their announcement), to join our programme and help us to develop a curriculum of activities for SEND pupils.
Several of the schools are now connected to share ideas regarding which Busy Things activities they are using with pupils and how they use them on a day to day basis in their classrooms. This is one of the main aims of the Pioneer Programme and one we intend to widen in the 22/23 school year.
Plans for the coming school year
Our intention is to accelerate our activities in the coming year, including face to face school workshops, to help forge closer working relationships between participating school staff. We also plan to partner with further educational software developers and launch academic research projects in the UK with Tomas Ortiz. To help in this growth, we may hire our first support staff.
In order to achieve this acceleration of activities we will also now focus on raising further funding from donations as well as from industry partnerships and ESG funds.
"Your project is so worthwhile" *
In the past 2 years, particularly with lock downs, the need for finding effective ways to deploy touchscreen devices and educational apps within the SEND education community, both at school and at home, has increased. Our commitment to helping to develop a curriculum of activities, incorporating a neuro-scientific approach to their deployment remains undiminished.
* from a Pioneer Programme school staff member in July 2022