No, not a job change for our Cran, Principal of the Kensington Secondary Special Needs school, but an important milestone for his plans to provide real world opportunities for many of his 65 or so Special Needs students.
We flagged the opening recently of the classroom Woolies “store in a school”, one of many that the supermarket colossus is supporting across Australia. It has a dedicated room setting, with a range of various types of stock for “sale”, full scanning technology, cash registers, appropriate shop assistants attire and promo material, and all that goes with a fully functioning retail outlet.
It’s Purpose:
To give the kids at the school real world training and shopping experiences, better equipping them for both job opportunities (for some) and confidence to go about shopping for their daily needs in a post school world. To be honest, it is quite an eye opener, attractively set out with lots of regular Woolies colour and promos, but a good range of stock appropriate to the learning experience. It looks truly commercial!
Cran is truly chuffed with the support that he has been able to muster for his kids, many of whom are severely limited in their capability to receive a “normal” school schooling.
Well done, Cran! Well done, Woolies!
AxR’s support for helping to equip the Special Needs Sensory Room is also progressing well, with the arrival of the Magic Carpet at the very end of last school term. It is a $20k plus educational sensory experience for kids, allowing them to touch and identify with the multitude of images displayed on the carpet via video beam. Brett and I saw the carpet in action on a visit to a promo some months back, and it is amazing in how it creates the changing educational and learning images. Great for kids who need that sort of stimulation to get their personal learning experiences underway.
AxR is continuing to support Cran with his Special Needs sensory experience needs and aims to help fully equip the Sensory class room for those kids in our world with indeed SPECIAL NEEDS.
Future Sundowner.
How about we aim for a Sundowner at the school in the next month or so and we can all check out what a wonderful project this is, aimed at kids who tend to be neglected by the main stream educational opportunity.
Kenn.
Editors footnote: And where is Cran now?
On a well-earned 3-month LONG SERVICE leave. And where is he spending it? With MAMA RESPOND helping them out at the newly completed Special Needs Unit, Kenya. This project was recently completed in partnership with ROTARY.