This space area provides a learning space and seating for a medium sized group of up to 7 students with Severe Intellectual Disability and/or significant Physical Disability and/or significant health impairment plus teachers and support staff.  Consideration has been given to the learning, social and mobility needs of students with disabilities. The design of the main learning area provides an adaptable and relatively agile learning environment that supports a full range of teaching strategies from direct explicit instruction to facilitation of inquiry and authentic project and problem based learning.  It is configured to support a variety of seating plans from individual to a medium sized group. There is scope to modify settings during a session to support learning and social planning. The space is suitable for small to whole class activities that include discussion, reading and storytelling, explicit teaching and demonstrations.  Students can work in small groups on research and reflective activities with support. This General Learning Space provides areas in which student work can be displayed and where students can rehearse and perform in small groups.  

 

There is potential for an indicative operable wall to an adjacent General Learning Space.  Retraction of this operable wall would enable a collaborative learning and teaching model for two teachers and their classes.  Connecting General Learning Space and/or access to an outside learning area would enable greater diversity of learning settings for small assemblies, performances, investigative and fabrication activities, and structured play and tabloid learning activities thus reducing the need for constant reconfiguration of furniture.  

 

Depending on the students’ learning, social and health requirements and the potential need for specialist equipment, consideration will need to be given to acoustic and spatial implications depending on the number and size of groups, the support needed and the types of learning activities planned.  In particular consideration will need to be given to the types of performance activities e.g. singing, poetry, drama and the number of groups included in the learning space, and the size and types of resources used in explore, investigate, create, fabricate and construct activities for a large group. Consideration should also be given to student mobility access from these learning spaces to accessible toilets.