The workshop will highlight the huge importance of eSafety in safeguarding learners online, setting out the dangers to which young people are exposing themselves too, identifying signs of concern and aiming to provide some useful tools for parents/carers to    use in the home. The workshop will also highlight the findings of Thornbeck Colleges’ Ofsted Reports.

The workshop is part of our commitment to providing a safe environment in which to learn, and to educate learners to staying safe online whilst enjoying the benefits of using technology. It will illustrate the approaches that North East Autism Society is using and the involvement of learners to shape their own curriculum and education.

The workshop is open to all parents/carers of current learners and the parents/carers of prospective learners.

If you would like more information or would like to see a specific topic covered please contact Thornbeck College on 0191 386 4802 or email chris.surtees@ne-as.org.uk.

Our Walk for Autism at the Stadium of Light, Sunderland on Monday 2nd April to mark World Autism Awareness Day was a great success. Even through the weather wasn’t on our side we had a brilliant turn out with in excess of 400 people taking part in the event.

It was fantastic to see staff, service users, families and other autism providers from the region join together to celebrate World Autism Awareness Day. Our patron Niall Quinn also joined us in the celebrations and met our service users, click the link to see the article in the  Northern Echo.

Ailsa Riddell with our Patron Niall Quinn

Supporters at the Stadium

The theme was Equality and Diversity and entries covered all protected characteristics  e.g., age, gender, race, disability, etc.  Our Chief Executive, John Phillipson had great difficulty deciding on the winners as all the  eggs were fantastic.

Eventually 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd prizes were awarded for both service users and staff entries.  Service users and staff are looking forward to our annual Egg Rolling event on Good Friday and our Sports Day on Easter Monday.

This event is open to everyone, why not join us and SAFC players in a 1 mile walk at the stadium and help us raise awareness of autism.

Entry is only £1 per walker and everyone will receive a goodie bag and an invite to the ‘Finale of Niall’s Mile Fun Day’ which is to be held on Saturday 5th May 2012 at the Stadium. We are hoping that people can raise sponsorship for the walk, all money raised will go towards our new capital appeal to ‘Building a North East Centre for Autism’ in Newton Aycliffe, Co. Durham.

We are also very keen to involve as many other autism service providers as possible to make this a vibrant and exciting event.

If you would like to join us and Sunderland AFC players in the walk please contact our fundraising team on 0191 410 9974 or email fundraising@ne-as.org.uk

NEAS Walk for Autism Poster

Outstanding e-Learning Achievement Awards

These awards are for individuals or teams that have made a significant difference through the effective application of e-learning.  Learners are appropriately challenged, motivated, enthused and their learning is interactive and enjoyable.

The six awards in this category are for each of the following sectors:

1.     Adult and Community Learning Providers

2.     Further Education Colleges

3.     HE in FE

4.     Sixth Form Colleges

5.     Specialist Colleges

6.     Work Based Learning Providers

These awards are for individuals or teams that have made a significant difference through the effective application of e-learning.  Learners are appropriately challenged, motivated, enthused and their learning is interactive and enjoyable.

Chris Surtees and staff at the awards ceremony

We are delighted and proud to announce that  Chris Surtees won the the above award for Specialist Colleges in the region at the RSC Northern awards ceremony at Durham Castle.

The Ofsted focused monitoring visits investigates five key areas taken from the previous inspection report and details from the college’s self-assessment reports (SAR). Unlike the full inspection process the key areas are graded based on the progress of these areas. The following progress judgements are used within focussed monitoring visit.

- Significant progress

- Reasonable progress

- Insufficient progress

Thornbeck Colleges key focused areas were detailed as follows (with judgements)

Ofsted praised the way in which the college has simplified its quality assurance procedures to make them more effective and to focus on key performance objectives which allows all staff to contribute to the quality improvement plans and seek ways to further improve the quality of the provision for learners. Ofsted highlighted the ‘impressive culture in the college of staff’ who feel greater ownership of the development plans.

The culture in the college allows staff to effectively share good practice through its rigorous teaching and learning processes and observations which assists to provide effective practice to further support and develop learner’s skills.

The skills developed by learners in relation to their long-term goals continues to be a strong feature within the college and has allowed all learners to progress into supported employment and, in one case, to non-supported employment. This has been achievable through the development of work-related and personal skills which learners have acquired through working in meaningful working environments both with the society and through effective partnership work. Within this, Ofsted highlighted the importance of the partnership work with East Durham College and the relocation of Thornbeck College one of the FE College’s sites.

One of the specific focussed areas was the communication strategies which staff used with learners. Building on the results of the previous full inspection, Ofsted recognised that extensive work had taken place within the college to ensure that staff employ an effective range of communication strategies. Effective methods are used within the college to help students with very limited communication to give their views and feedback which is used exceptionally well within the college. The college’s communication champion, Emily Croft, liaises closely with the speech and language therapists who assess learners’ needs and identifies strategies which are ‘piloted’ to determine effectiveness before been disseminated to all staff. Staff have received further ‘Makaton’ training and are skilful at ensuring its use is planned carefully which as a result learners’ confidence to express themselves is greatly enhanced.

Since the last full inspection the college has recognised the importance of e-safety in the safeguarding of learners and has successfully implemented an e-safety policy and training as been provided to ensure that staff provided appropriate support with individual learners to help them understand potential safety issues as their IT skills increase, including the risks associated with social networking sites. Training for students is delivered using methods to help them understand the issues regarding e-safety using simulated issues. A workshop for parents and carers is planned to take place in the New Year.

Christine Dempster, Principal of Thornbeck College and Adult Services said “This is another result which is testimony to the effort and commitment shown by everyone at the College.  Gaining ‘outstanding at our last full inspection, and now receiving significant progress in 4 out of 5 areas demonstrates that all our hard work continues to demonstrate that we continuously’ strive, to maintain and further improve, the learner experience at Thornbeck College.  We are all delighted.”

Download the full report from the Ofsted website here.

You can subscribe to this blog via RSS to receive information regarding the planned e-safety workshop and the relocation of Thornbeck College here.

Working in partnership with Houghall enables us to demonstrate our commitment to the North East Regional visions for Further Education; it also enables providers to further develop the choice of high quality learning opportunities for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities.

The overall aim of the partnership is to strengthen the capacity and capability of providers in the North East region to meet the needs of learners with autism, learning difficulties and, or disabilities. It has enabled both providers to improve choice of quality learning opportunities and further develop innovative and collaborative learning routes for individuals.

The partnership  supports the most vulnerable people in our communities to achieve their aspirations and achieve better outcomes, providing the resources, including specialist staff, to meet the growth in demand for education and training through collaborative working.

The Houghall site offers our learners better external learning environments which enables the College to increase our choice of vocational pathways. Thornbeck will keep its own identity and the building will be named North East Autism Society –Thornbeck College at Houghall Campus.

For more information on the new developments at Thornbeck College please call them on 0191 386 4802.

The new address is Thornbeck College (Houghall Campus), Farm Road, Houghall, Durham, DH1 3SF

Another exciting development within NEAS has been the relocation of our Head Office which was based at Angel House in Sunderland. We’ve now moved to 15/16 Lumley Court, Drum Industrial Estate, Chester Le Street, DH2 1AN. The move offers enhanced facilities for visitors, staff and better suits our developing business needs.

Please update your records with our new address above, the main reception number is  0191 410 9974.

The lucky winners are below:

If you would like to contact me about the raffle please call me on 0191 5154656.

Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for the New Year x x