The 2011 Turney School Leaver’s Assembly once again proved to be highly ejoyable, not to mention a little emotional. This is the time in the school calendar when the whole community comes together to celebrate and remember all the many fine memories that we have of the departing Class 11 and Class 12 pupils.

After a warm welcome from Mrs Adams to all the very kind family and friends that had joined us in our celebration, the Turney School Choir then entertained with their first song. This was a fantastic opportunity for or young musicians to showcase their talents, as well as encurage participation with plenty of signing.

Our Leaver’s Assembly then progressed with each pupil being praised for their individual achievements, and remembered for their unique contribution to the Turney School community.

One by one, our departing young adults were invited to stand in front of the assembly. A member of gave an address, reflecting on the personal development of each pupil, as well as sharing some very entertaining stories. The assembly became rather emotional for some – and with good reason too!

Further songs followed, as well as an outstanding solo from Chloe, a Class 11 pupil who is sadly leaving us. We saved the best for last with an amazing dance display from the Class 12 pupils. This covered many different styles, as well as the discovery of an exceptionally talented young man and his dancing skills come the close!

Many thanks for all the family and friends of Turney School that were able to come along and share in our Leaver’s celebration. We wish all of our departing pupils tremendous success in whatever direction their future learning takes.

We hope that your time at Turney School has provided you well for the next stage in your development. Please come back and visit us, and thanks again for some very entertaining Turney School memories!

Class 12 have started their work on preparing for the Turney School Leaver’s assembly, taking place this year on 13th July. This annual event is always one of the more emotional times in the Turney School calendar. Class 12 are determined to change this and leave behind memories for their friends of a happy and talented group of young adults! We have decided to put on a special performance during the assembly. We don’t want to give too much away at this early stage, but rehearsals have included plenty of singing, music and dancing! You can find out a little more in the podcast below.

Meanwhile our science work in Class 12 has continued with a very practical element. As part of the community element to our syllabus, the pupils have been regularly attending the local allotments and helping out with the planting and growing. We were very kindly given a selection of caterpillars to look after. Class 12 have been feeding these, and then observing their amazing transformation to become beautiful butterflies. These are almost ready to be released into the wild back at the allotments.

Our young adults in Class 12 are all incredibly excited about our trip to Chessington World of Adventure. We are extremely grateful to our friends from the Lady Taverners, who have very generously offered us the chance to go to Chessington as a charity donation. We are using this as an opportunity to reward and thank Year 12 for what has been a very successful academic and social year.

We are planning to document the trip using photos and videos. We will then use this information to tell all of our friends about our big day out during a Class 12 assembly. We have also been planning on what rides we would like to experience, and what we are expecting to find at Chessington. You can find out more about the Class 12 trip in the podcast below.

Our young adults in Class 12 have been perfecting their sense of balance during recent P.E. sessions. We have looked at how we can shift weight from one part of our body to another, and how this can help us to be able to balance and feel safe.

Using the school seesaw apparatus, we set up a short obstacle course for Class 12. We encouraged the pupils to experiment with adding their weight in certain places, and seeing how the rest of their body reacted. We also asked pupils to try and hold a pose on the equipment, once they felt confident.

We learnt from this exercise how using your arms could be a great help when trying to balance in different positions. You can watch a short video of our P.E. session above.

Our young adults in Class 12 have been preparing for the transition towards leaving Turney School by attending weekly sessions at the Clapham campus of Lambeth College. Our main practical focus during these sessions is food tech and cooking. Far greater life skills and benefits are achieved however during our weekly visits. The college encourages Year 12 to become more independent as young adults. It is also a great taster for next year, with many of our young adults considering enrolment at Lambeth College.

Our sessions usually start with an informal chat with Caroline, our class tutor at the college. Individual targets are set with each pupil. These are worked out on what we want to achieve as pupils, and what Caroline thinks will help to improve our teamwork. You can listen to some of these targets being read out by our Class 12 pupils in the podcast below.

The main focus for the food tech session is then set out. This is broken down into planning, cooking, washing up and then concluding with a review of our targets.

A tasty green Thai curry was on the menu for this particular visit. We started off by brainstorming as a group some of the ingredients that we thought we might need. Working as a team, our pupils came up with onions, coconut milk, garlic, ginger, lime, lemon grass, coriander and chicken.

We then planned what kitchen equipment would be needed – a saucepan, a bowl, a knife, a chopping board and a mixing bowl. Caroline outlined the cooking process. It is important for our pupils to be able to listen to the instructions, and then carry out the task independently, and in sequence. With all of our young chefs now feeling confident, the time had arrived to start cooking!

First of all we chopped up the vegetables, and then fried the chicken with some sauce. The vegetables were then added into the mix, as well as the coconut milk. Each pupil had thought carefully first about their own unique taste preferences. We varied the levels of ingredients accordingly.

With the curry left to stew for a short while, our multi-tasking pupils remained focused and started on the washing up. The food tech kitchen at Lambeth College now had a delightful Thai curry smell starting to circulate. Expectation was high!

With the curry ready to eat, we carried out a small food tasting session. Each pupil evaluated the exercise, assessing whether their individual targets had been met, and more importantly, did the curry taste nice! We had no complaints on the cooking front. Caroline kindly agreed that the class targets had also been obtained. A couple of our class members talk more about the Lambeth College experience in the podcast below.

Many thanks to Lambeth College, and especially Caroline for all of her tutorial guidance. Some of our pupils are already planning attend the college next year, to continue their transition towards independence. We are proud to present a short photo gallery of the afternoon below.

Our weekly guided reading session in Class 12 is always eagerly looked forward to as we start off by asking our young adults to recount an event or activity from their weekend. This encourages the pupils to speak confidentially within a small group, as well as to recount an event from their own life in sequence. It is also a great opportunity to share our hobbies and interests with one another!

Our guided group reading for this term is focusing upon reading different fairytales. We have started off reading a number of giant stories, using different resources that match the skills and ambitions of each pupil. Some of the class members are aided with Communication in Print recourses; others are confident to read directly from the book. You can listen to a couple of our confident young readers in the podcast below.

As part of our guided reading sessions, Class 12 have been working on different interpretations of the classic Robin Hood story. We have a number of resources in within Turney School to help the different levels of reading within the group. Some of our young adults have been working off a more traditional text, whereas others have enjoyed following the story using a Communication in Print copy of the book. Together we have been able to explore the characters and plot, and to try and see what message we can find within the classic Robin Hood story. You can hear a couple of the Class 12 members talking about the book in the podcast below.

We are making a huge effort to help our young adults in Class 12 with their guided reading. This is a part of the curriculum that is crucial across all age ranges in the school in enabling our pupils to improve their reading skills. We greatly value the one on one time that pupils are able to spend with adults whilst reading. Only ten minutes each day at home can genuinely help to improve the confidence and raise the reading level skills. Class 12 have been reading various pieces of Indian fiction during their guided reading sessions. You can listen to one young pupil taking part in this type of exercise in the podcast below.

We are thrilled to welcome back into Turney School some returning young adults this year into Year 12. This is a very important transition year in their lives where we aim to prepare them for an independent life in the local community. Plus Class 12 is always great fun with many trips planned into our local community! Our pupils have started their academic work with a study of how religion is portrayed in the media. We have been observing different religious TV programmes, to see how different religions are presented. We will also repeat this exercise with print media, as well as looking at the representation of religion on the internet. There will be opportunities throughout the year for our young adults to visit some local places of worship within our community.

Class 12 are putting the finishing touches to the fine products that we will be selling at the Turney School Summer Fair. We have decided that we want to decorate some cloth shopping bags with some beautiful designs. We started off by working from a basic tie-dye design, and then manipulated this using the school computers. We took a photograph of the original image, and then edited it using GIMP software in the ICT suite. Colours were added and changed, and we tried to give the image our own personal touch. These will then be printed off, and placed upon the bags that are for sale at the Summer Fair. You can watch a short video of the process being explained in the video above.

We are incredibly proud of our winning Boccia team here at Turney School! Having qualified for the national final of the competition, we proudly sent off a team representing the school to the prestigious event being staged at the Westway in West London. Qualification for the final itself was a huge achievement – imagine how proud the whole school is after having actually won the competition!

This is a sport that we play to a highly competitive level at Turney School. It is ideal for our pupils as competitors with different needs are able to compete at an equal level. Not only did we manage to win the competition, but also one of our young adults returned back to Turney School with the title of Player of the Tournament! You can find out more about our stunning sporting success in the podcast below.

We celebrated this week the achievements, friendships and many fond memories from our departing Class 11 and Class 12 pupils at Turney School in the annual Leaver’s Assembly. This is an incredibly sad occasion, but also an exciting opportunity as the whole school community comes together to look forward to the next stage in the adult life of our young people.

The Turney School Choir welcomed family, friends and staff to the Leaver’s Assembly with a wonderful rendition of You Are My Sunshine. Under the expert musical guidance of Louie, the Choir has been rehearsing for this occasion for many weeks now. You can listen to a recording of our work in the podcast below.

Some of our Class 11 pupils will be taking up places at various local colleges, and some of the young adults will be returning to Turney School in September to join our sixth form. We first welcomed these pupils into Class 12 with some certificates being awarded to recognise their transition. Much of the work that we undertake in the sixth form is all about confidence and independence in our local community. We look forward to our returning pupils making great progress in September!

For the Class 11 and Class 12 pupils that have completed their time at Turney, now was the tearful part of the Leaver’s Assembly – not only for the pupils, but also the staff! We invited each pupil to the front of the assembly, and a selection of staff recalled the many happy, proud and occasionally funny memories that our pupils have provided us with.

Our pupils have made so many personal achievements, as well as contributing towards the life of the Turney School community. Speeches were made, addressing how our young adults have developed their own characters and personalities, as well as celebrating academic and sporting success.

We would like to thank the many parents who were able to attend the Turney School Leaver’s Assembly. It is always emotional to be saying goodbye to our pupils, but we believe that all of the leavers are now ready for their next stage of advancement in adult life.

Goodbye, good luck – and don’t forget about us!

All of the Turney School community is incredibly proud of Class 12 as they prepare to represent us at the National finals of the boccia championships later in the week. This is an incredibly popular sport that we play throughout the year groups at Turney School. It resembles a form of bowls, and is perfect for pupils with special education needs to take part in. The rules require all competitors to remain seated, and so all players can compete equally.

Class 12 have showed tremendous skill and courage during the regional stages of the competition. Our reward is a place in the grand final, taking place at the Westway in West London. This is a tournament that has generated great interest – Sky Sports will be covering the event and featuring our skilful Class 12 boccia players!

Boccia is becoming something of a boom sport, and we are proud to be able to offer it to our pupils during PE sessions. Turney School is also the venue for competitive games, where we invite adults with special education needs to come along to help coach and play against our pupils. Some of the basic rules are explained in the video above, as well as a brief demonstration from our Class 12 stars.

Class 12 have been producing some beautiful project work as part of their look at flowers during their Leisure lessons. We visited a local flower shop, and came back with many splendid photographs of as many flowers that we could see. We asked the staff at the shop more about each flower, and what is the best way to look after them. Back in class and each pupil was asked to choose a favourite flower that we saw on our trip. We then researched this further, and created a topic book detailing all the findings from our research. The pupils have also created a series of flower collages using some of the photos that we took on our trip. You can hear more about the Class 12 flower topic in the podcast below.