A typical session at the Peter Pan Centre

9.30am / 1.30pm – Arrival at the centre!

Children are greeted by their key person and parents share vital updates with us about their child’s well-being, like how much sleep they have had, how much to eat and so on, to enable us to provide personalised care and education.

Children are encouraged to settle into their session with their favourite play activities before moving on to welcome time.

9.45am / 1pm – Welcome Time

All children are encouraged to join in the welcome time routine, where individual seating is arranged in a circle with a photograph of each child to encourage self-awareness and self-confidence. A sequence of action songs and a “hello” song are sung with the children to encourage confidence, self-esteem, independence and self-awareness.

Activity Time

After welcome time, children are encouraged to develop independence by choosing which activity they would like to do next. Choices are tailored to children’s needs; some children may choose  with complete independence, some children may be offered a choice from a small selection of activities to help develop this skill.

All children have a personalised learning plan which we deliver in a playful manner to ensure a positive experience. Targets could include specific play activities like posting or matching items or tracking items of a certain size and shape. We work intensively with the children, extending their development at every opportunity using language, modelling, play activities and more. Many children require adult direction and support to engage with activities and this can result in a highly structured session. We encourage children to choose their own activity before they complete an adult chosen activity, which also helps to develop turn-taking skills and concentration. Children may also choose to play outdoors.

Snack Time

During the session we sit together for a snack time, to encourage independence. Snack time is rich with opportunities to encourage children to ask for their preferred snacks and develop their communication skills, either verbally, through gestures, Makaton or pictures. We encourage independence by teaching spoon feeding, buttering of toast and using a fork.

Toileting

Nappies are changed throughout the session as necessary and of course the toilet is always accessible, however for children who have not yet visited the toilet or had their nappy changed, this is carried out after snack time.

Group Time

During the session we encourage group time. We use “in the moment” planning for group activities as children often have different interests each week and, depending on their needs, their physical skills can also change weekly according to their medical condition.  Group activities are designed to encourage interaction with peers whilst promoting all areas of learning. Sometimes we may plan ahead to facilitate an activity. For example, during the recent school holidays a child visited the cinema, so the following week we held a short cinema session, borrowing a television and turning down the lights, with some healthy cinema snacks such as banana popcorn and fruit available. The children chose a Mr Tumble DVD to watch and following the activity we learnt some new Makaton signs from the DVD!

“My son has been coming to Peter Pan since he was a baby. He loves it! He claps his hands when we arrive in the car. The staff have been great and helped us along our journey, including helping us to get his Education, Care and Health Plan finalised. They helped him get used to wearing his glasses and using his walking frame and were particularly supportive throughout the pandemic. We will miss them all very much when he starts school in September.”