My Buddy Gibbs

Today was the first day that I ventured outside for a real bit of outdoor education in the school grounds. This is complicated when you have children with severe learning disabilities and some on the autistic spectrum who are used to going outside for other reasons - bike riding, walking and playing. We had a carefully orchestrated plan which involved visual schedule details of exactly what we were going to do and my camera which one of my children loves to see photos on.

Our real learning intention was to listen to different bird sounds and see if we could see any birds or signs of them. The sub-plot was just to have a successful outdoor experience with one child in particular. We wandered through the Scots pine wood and heard lots of different bird song. We gathered some feathers (and pine cones) and looked at different wild flowers. When things got tricky I took photos and played them back to bring them back on task. We made it to the carved wooden mushroom sitting circle and everybody even shut their eyes and sat quietly listening and appreciating all the sounds around them. When we opened out eyes the Bird's of prey man (see yesterday's post) rounded the corner and Gibbs the Harris hawk swooped over our heads and landed in a nearby pine! All the crows were disturbed and started their raucous squawking - but best of all, the children all sat in wonder gazing at this beautiful bird. Gibbs then did some return flights to his trainer before rounding another corner of the building out of sight.

It is not often in my job that we manage to achieve our educational objectives in such spectacular fashion! Every child had managed to stay on task and experience something wonderful! The blip is a close up of Gibbs sitting on the roof of the building. Round his feet there is a bell, a radio tracking device (in case he flies off) and the leathers strings that his trainer secures him by.