I am the assistant head at Talbot Specialist School, which is a secondary specialist school for cognition and learning difficulties, and I’m also head of the teaching school. We had some prior knowledge of Clicker, having owned a previous version in the past, but decided to look into the latest version.
We arranged a staff meeting where we had a consultant from Crick Software come along to do some training with us and demonstrate the latest features. Afterwards I said, “right, let’s buy it,” because it’s obviously so much easier and quicker to create grids, there are so many more online resources – and now all the staff members use it within their classroom practice.
We use Clicker a lot for our students who need support with speech and language difficulties. I’ve worked with the Speech and Language Therapists to create resources for students for their morning work and communication targets for their IEP work (Individual Educational Plan).
We’ve also used Clicker with children who are non-verbal, giving them a voice, like a communication tool. These are children who are non-verbal not because they can’t speak, but because they’re choosing not to speak. We give them Clicker and tell them that when you put a period after a sentence it will talk for you, and because of that we’ve had lots of lovely reactions, like lots of smiling, lots of hugging, lots of high-fiving. We’ve had children who are starting to speak and say simple words, gaining confidence by having given them a voice and realizing that they are having that input into the lesson. It’s given them confidence to think, “I’ll have a go now…”.
We use Clicker Books a lot because we can have it on a big smart board where the students can draw their covers on that. Using Clicker Books, our students can create something of their own, which is brilliant. Our students also use the Clicker Board mind-mapping tool, with their central character in the middle, so that they can plan and sketch out their story ideas… It’s just a lot friendlier, I think, and much more accessible for our learners.
There are other literacy tools out there, but what we found was that they’re just not suitable for some of our students. It’s also not as infantile as others can be – it feels age-appropriate for our students, and mainstream children as well. I like the fact you can make it very bespoke to the child that you’re working with. For example, with the Predictor you can tailor it to suit different children’s needs; some of our children can’t choose from a list of six or seven options – they might only need one or two. That can fit better with their individual reading and writing targets.
Although I use it a lot with children who have SEND, the good thing about Clicker is that you can use it with both children who have SEND and those who don’t. A child doesn’t have to have a disability or a need, because it’s useful and engaging for every child. I think that’s the nice thing about it, is that it’s not seen as something that only SEND children can use but all children in any setting, too.
One of the improvements I really appreciate in the latest version of Clicker is the inclusion of realistic children’s voices for the speech feedback. The students have really taken to the ‘Harry’ and ‘Rosie’ voices, and although it’s something so simple, it’s so effective. So not only can you now change the voice to something more suitable or something to suit a particular child’s preferences, but also because we have children with names that text-to-speech software typically finds difficult to say, like Rihanna, you can change the pronunciation to get it to read the child’s actual name. Particularly for children with autism, that’s had a significant effect on them wanting to use Clicker.
I also really appreciate the Document Analysis where you can see how the children have tried to fix a word or sentence. That’s really worked for us, because with the phonics that we do with them, it just makes sure that they’re actually using it, and it fits in really well with our reading programme, Lexia.
In our networking with other schools where our teachers go out with Clicker on a laptop, we’ve found that they’ve got a previous version of Clicker on one computer or laptop, and we always tell them that it’s worth paying for the upgrade, that we will come and sit with them to show how it easy it is, or we’ll invite them into Talbot to show them how easy it is. We tell them that it will make their lives so much easier, and that it will have a significant impact on any child’s literacy and engagement levels, whether they’ve got additional needs or not. Once they’ve seen it in action, they’re convinced!
Dunnottar School and Vocational Centre is a school heavily dependent on charitable donations, situated in Castries, the capital city of St Lucia in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. It caters for 102 students within the ages of 5 to 25 with a range of physical and learning disabilities including cerebral palsy, Down’s Syndrome and autism, and is spread over 15 classrooms.
Currently the school is split over two sites, as the main building at the original site was declared unfit and beyond repair 3 years ago, so is now housed in a rented school across the city. Not an ideal situation, but the staff, students and parents do their best to continue to work as best they can. On St Lucia, there are no speech therapists, nor occupational therapists, and physical therapy is only available up to kindergarten age, so the 25 teachers and six aides have many roles to play.
I am a retired teacher with well over 35 years’ experience in many areas within education: in the mainstream elementary classroom, in the Education Board as an ICT advisor and teacher trainer (where I gained my Clicker experience), and in special education as a class teacher and trainer.
I have been supporting this school for over six years now, volunteering for a month at a time at the school, introducing a multi-sensory curriculum approach to teaching and learning, as well as fundraising in my home area. Over the years I have raised over £10,000 from my village area…not bad for a one shop, one pub village!
The unit I was working with this year (Dunnottar Multi Disabled Centre, DMDC) is a relatively new unit for Dunnottar, and ever since I visited it two years ago, I just knew that Clicker was needed for the students there. The children mostly have cerebral palsy, are non-verbal, but most have good cognitive abilities. The teachers were at a loss with trying to teach them educational subjects as they felt there were very few ways to assess if any learning was taking place.
This is something I excelled in during my own career, teaching similarly disabled children to communicate, read, spell, count, etc. Investing in a 5-device license for Clicker was an ideal way to get things started.
We initially installed Clicker on two classroom laptops. I wanted to work with the children to gain the teachers’ interest and give them something they could use immediately. At the time, the teachers were assessing the children's learning, engaged in an exercise in classification of foods from plants or animals, using pictures and pointing. I set up a Clicker Set with the same exercise very quickly, then using switch access, had a child working independently on a similar exercise after just two minutes, high-fiving me each time he succeeded, and having his self-esteem go through the roof! This immediately sparked the teachers’ curiosity and they were hooked! I primarily wanted to get the students used to using the switches at this point, but also wanted the staff to realize the potential of the software in conjunction with the switches.
Within the same unit, there are children who do have voices, but have never had therapy to correct their speech, so the recording element of Clicker really helped. Setting up an initial sound activity with speech/recording had one child working very hard to pronounce his "a" sounds correctly, wanting to re-record his voice to show his improvement, again using switch access and acting independently. Others just responded so well to the positive reinforcement they received on completing a task.
Talking books were a huge hit with all. The parents and students had created simple story books of their summer vacations, along with photographs. I created a talking book for each student, then using a projector and the switch access, we invited other staff to come along and watch and listen to their students tell their own stories. It was a huge success, and new ideas for using the talking books facility just flowed from the staff.
Word spread throughout the school about this software, and soon, all the other teachers were asking for a demonstration, which resulted in a hectic timetable of training for all!
Within a day of their training, teachers were telling me of activities they had tried with their students and the fantastic success they were having along with the interest being shown by the students. They could see student self-esteem rising with each push of a button. All the staff are extremely keen, and they have set up a timetable for the laptops on which Clicker is installed to ensure that as many children as possible are given an opportunity to access the software.
I have discovered that the use of Clicker is a first for not only St Lucia, but apparently for the whole of the Caribbean….quite a feather in the cap for a lowly charitable trust school. Switch access has never been used either…another first!
Clicker has changed the way these children will learn and the way the teachers will teach. The whole school is very excited at the prospect of using the software more widely in the future. I am receiving messages daily from staff with photographs of the students using Clicker and switch access for those who need it. On behalf of all of them…Thank you, Crick Software!