Newfield School in Blackburn supports pupils with complex needs to communicate, explore, and enjoy learning. With HelpKidzLearn, staff create accessible activities that help every learner take part, make choices, and show their personality.
Newfield School is a vibrant, nurturing environment where individuality is celebrated and every child is supported to achieve their best. The school works with learners aged 4 to 19 with a wide range of needs including autism, sensory impairments, complex medical needs, and profound and multiple learning disabilities. HelpKidzLearn plays a key role by making learning activities accessible, engaging, and flexible for pupils with different communication and access needs.
Gemma Sanders has been a class teacher at Newfield for 11 years. She works with pupils with profound and multiple learning disabilities and uses HelpKidzLearn throughout the day for learning, communication, and choice-making. Her class includes seven pupils with very different profiles. Some use switches, while others rely on eye-gaze, gesture, vocalisations, facial expressions, or body movements. Gemma also supports expressive arts across the school and plays a key role in switch technology, including setting up a switch library so pupils can be assessed and matched with the right equipment.
In Gemma’s classroom, HelpKidzLearn is not just “something to do”, it is a communication tool that helps pupils express preferences and take an active role in interaction. Gemma loves seeing what pupils enjoy, and what they choose to move away from. “It’s nice to see what they prefer and what they don’t prefer.” She has supported some children for many years and values the progress, even when it comes in tiny steps. “Seeing that progress, very slow progress, but seeing it, is lovely. Every tiny little step is really important.”
Gemma described one pupil she has known since the age of five: “She knows my voice, she knows my touch, she understands how I work with her. So, if she needs that little bit of extra help and prompting, she knows that I’ll guide her, and she knows how that I’ll also back away and let her do it. I know her facial expressions, I know her vocalisations.” During our visit, this relationship supported real independence. While using Changing Shapes in Games & Activities and exploring Optical Lights in Sensory Space, the pupil began to request more through vocalisations. Gemma used hand-under-hand modelling for the switch press, then gradually reduced support. “I slipped my hand away and then she was doing it by herself, but she was doing it with her arms, her elbows, her hands, which again is lovely to see because when I first met her, she wasn’t doing any of that.”
Even with years of experience, Gemma continues to find fresh ideas within HelpKidzLearn. “I’ve definitely learned some things as well that even though I’ve worked with HelpKidzLearn for a long time, there’s definitely things on there that I hadn’t seen. Sensory Space is quite a refreshing new thing. Seeing how long they worked on some of the activities today, they’ve obviously really enjoyed themselves, which is lovely.” A real highlight was seeing a pupil access Sensory Space through eye-gaze, opening up independent exploration and sustained engagement.
For PMLD learners, progress may be gradual, but it is always meaningful. Gemma is excited about how HelpKidzLearn can support staff to notice, celebrate, and record those small steps through Student Analytics. “Where progress is very little, every single little step is very, very important. It can track that progress and I’m very interested in starting to use that in the future.” This kind of tracking supports evidence-informed teaching, helps teams reflect on what is working, and gives families clearer insight into personal progress over time.
Gemma has noticed clear patterns in what works best for pupils with visual or sensory needs, especially activities with strong contrast, movement, and a clear link between action and response. “The young man that we were working with is sometimes startled by loud noise, but he does need the contrasting colours. Once he realises what’s going on and he understands it, you can introduce him to a game that has lots of music and he enjoys it by laughing and smiling.” This pupil connected with Gadgets & Toys, mimicking the drums when they appeared on screen. Another pupil showed strong understanding of cause and effect, watching closely, pausing, then activating a switch again to continue the next animation. As Gemma explained, “The colours and the high contrast and the things that are moving on the screen, she needs that to give her that prompt. The smallest movement that presses the switch, will then change the colour and the shapes on the screens for her.”
Gemma also highlights something that can be easy to forget in a busy classroom: time matters. “The process time is really important to my children and what’s been drummed into me over the years is it’s not the end product, it’s the process.” Throughout the visit, Gemma continually adapted to her pupils, modelling a switch press, pausing, offering gentle prompts, then stepping back to let learners make the connection between their action and what happened on screen. This is where HelpKidzLearn fits so well, because it supports repetition, predictable cause and effect, and flexible access methods that match each child.
With a wide variety of activities and access options, HelpKidzLearn helps Newfield School create inclusive learning experiences where pupils can communicate, make choices, and develop independence in ways that feel joyful and achievable.
