Several classes in team Mātai have been increasing communication and engagement using strategies from Project Core.

Many of our students need augmentative and/ or alternative communication strategies to be able to communicate their needs and thoughts to the people around them.  With the guidance of our dedicated speech and language therapy team, some of our teachers and teacher assistants have engaged in Professional Development around the benefit of using the Project Core model. 

The Universal Core vocabulary is a set of highly useful single words that can be used alone, or in combination, to take advantage of numerous opportunities to teach and communicate during lessons and across the daily routines of the school day. Staff have produced an A5 template of  universal core words which they can wear on a lanyard for daily interactions with students. Coreboards (like in the picture above) and key vocabulary visuals are placed around the classroom for easy access too.

We have been so excited to see our students increasing in communication, participation and engagement as a result of implementing these strategies. We have also seen a great flow on effect of increased use of the high tech communication systems that some students have on communication ipads. With the increased amount of modelling from our teaching teams,  students are getting more and more confident to use visual systems to communicate. We are very proud of our clever communicators!

For more information about Project Core check out http://www.project-core.com/.