The pupils have really enjoyed Science Theme Day today!  They have been conducting science experiments, have dressed up as a scientist and have been learning about sinking and floating.  The pupils have made a dinosaur and a skeleton picture.  They have especially enjoyed the Moon and Stars Room!

We hope everyone has a lovely half term!

This week, the pupils have participated in the Nation wide Safer Internet Day.  The theme this year was Online Identity.  Our pupils have made their own Avatar showing how they would like to be represented online.  They have created posters to demonstrate what they have been taught.  At Quest, Online Safety is embedded into all of the pupil’s weekly lessons.

Our Living Wage commitment ensures that every member of staff receives at least, if not more than, an hourly rate of £9.30.
This rate is significantly higher than the government minimum wage for over 25s, which currently stands at £8.21 per hour.

The real Living Wage is the only rate calculated according to the costs of living. It provides a voluntary benchmark for employers who wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on, not just the government minimum. Since 2011 the Living Wage movement has delivered a pay rise to over 160,000 people.

The Quest School is based in the South East, a region where 17% of all jobs pay less than the real Living Wage – around 635,000 jobs.
We have committed to pay the real Living Wage, or above, to show that we value our staff, and the hard work they do every day, for our pupils

It has been a busy start to the new year at Quest.  The pupils have been working hard in all of their lessons both in school and lessons that occur outside .  In their Frozen Planet Topic lessons, they have explored aspects of the Arctic and Antarctic by investigating melting and using laptops to research.

We have registered to take part in Safer Internet Day 2020.  Although online safety is embedded into our curriculum, this is a national day where online safety is discussed and reinforced with pupils across the UK. Quest participate in this every year.

A new link on our website has been added under the parent- E- Safety tab to direct parents to current online safety tips about keeping safe online.  https://questschool.co.uk/info-for-parents/e-safety/

This afternoon has been Christmas Theme Day.  The pupils have had their photo taken in a photo booth, played some games, eaten some Christmas food and made some Christmas crafts.  We hope everyone has a lovely break!

Today was our Christmas Play and Christmas Fayre.  The pupils have been working hard through all of the rehearsals.  They all performed brilliantly today and we are so proud of them!

The stage is set for our Christmas Play!  We are looking forward to seeing everyone later and wish our shining stars good luck!

The ability to communicate is fundamental to everyone’s lives.  Challenging behaviour may result from deficits in effective communication and adaptive life skills; we therefore seek to address such deficits through facilitating the development of functional communication and life skills. These aspects of development are core to each pupil’s individualised learning programme.

The photos demonstrate some of the speech and language techniques that are used at Quest.

• Oral Placement Therapy: As part of speech and language therapy, is the use of an Oral Placement Approach. Aspects of the oral placement approach may involve tools (such as straws, vibration and bite blocks) that are used in the mouth and a direct hands on face tactile cueing.
• Cued articulation: A tactile approach that uses touch cues to a pupil’s articulators (jaw, tongue, lips) to manually guide them through a targeted word, phrase or sentence.
• PECS: Some pupils use PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System), whereby they exchange a symbol or symbols to communicate.
• Proloquo2go: This is a system like PECS but uses a device with speech output.

The final count is in! We raised £161 for Children in Need.  Thank you again to everyone for your generous donations!