Education Business

The Sensory Company’s Sensory TheatreTM  system utilises DST Technology and the environments they create have been praised by OFSTED on many occasions.

A teaching system that is designed for the future and available today. This totally versatile environment will change the way you teach as you can create fully interactive lessons for your pupils and include pupils with special educational needs who may have specific targets to achieve.

Whether you use topic work or the national curriculum to teach your pupils, these Fully Interactive Learning Environments provide not only a valuable teaching aid, but also a fantastic resource for your school and local community.

Imagine a History lesson, for example, about The Blitz and watching the bombers fly over on a large video wall, feeling the wind gushing as the aeroplanes fly overhead and hearing the people on the ground shouting and running for cover. Imagine being able to feel the explosions as they happen and seeing the smoke (fog) enter the room, seeing the fires burning through the smoke and being able to smell it. Now that on its own is impressive, but if you then imagine that in a matter of seconds (press one button) you can reconfigure this room to teach a scenario for an English lesson, a Shakespeare production perhaps or watching the effects of an earthquake for a Geography lesson. This system has not only arrived, it is also a proven system originally developed in 1997 and you, the teacher, are also in total control of what the room does and the possibilities for this system are endless.

More importantly, as the system has been especially developed for SEN it is so versatile that at the press of a button, you can be catering for children of any age and ability, creating a space tailor made for them, without purchasing additional equipment. This makes the Sensory Company’s Fully Interactive Learning Environments more important to mainstream schools than ever before, especially as the government are closing down many SEN schools throughout the UK, forcing mainstream schools into catering for pupils with Special Educational Needs.

However, I now believe that many of the pupils who are at special needs schools may cope perfectly well in a mainstream school, given the additional support and versatility made available through this Fully Interactive Learning Environment. When you then combine The Sensory Company’s system with a teacher or carer with a little experience, then you really could question whether these pupils need to be learning in a special needs school at all.

For instance a child who may have Autism or Dyslexia or for those children with behavioural issues, this system will act as a mood room as well as an invaluable resource for teaching them. A child with specific needs who may only be able to use a head switch for example can learn through interaction by simply activating their switch and watching a series of events happen all around them. You can even link this system to an interactive Smartboard and turn the Smartboard into one big switch for the pupil to activate a series of events. With this system in place, every pupil who is at a special needs school will eventually be able to learn in a mainstream school.

As one award winning Deputy Headteacher who uses this system said:

“DST - You don’t need to know what it stands for you just need to know that it works!

Imagine being able to operate a whole host of multi-sensory teaching and learning devices from any where within a 30m radius, imagine being able to press a switch from any position, imagine not having connecting wires all around the room.

The technology, which is called DST, is very simple, it means cause and effect. When a switch is pressed something will happen. This could be as simple as a light or fan being switched on or an elaborate scenario of sound, light, scent, video and vibration.”

When I saw the Sensory TheatreTM system demonstrated to me at the Education Show, I immediately believed that this was the most exciting development in education since chalk was first used.

You may not even need to allocate an existing classroom as The Sensory Company have a facility to provide a specialist log cabin for this resource taking away the burden of allocating a classroom or space for this fantastic resource, however, as I commented to The Sensory Company at the Education Show, I truly believe that this equipment should be in every classroom, not just in a specific area of the school. This system really is all encompassing and the future of education – One School for All, what a fantastic concept!

For more information
The Sensory Company
PO Box 44, Douglas, IM99 3NJ
Tel: 0845 838 22 33 Fax: 0845 838 22 34
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Web: www.thesensorycompany.co.uk