A TEAM of High Needs and Special Educational Needs students from Reading College and University Centre are celebrating after winning an agricultural competition.
Students from the college on Kings Road were chosen as the winners of the Agricultural Challenge in early May after acing two categories.
Newbury & District Agricultural Society’s (NADAS) annual award recognises special educational needs schools and colleges in Berkshire in nine different categories.
The team from Reading College and University Centre’s SEND and High Needs provision entered four categories ahead of the judging, which took place on Saturday, May 10.
The college team received winner’s certificates for both categories, as well as an engraved trophy, £100 prize money and £100 for participation.
The students scored first prize with their rainbow, nature and weather-inspired sensory board, made from recycled and waste materials.
The students used a giant Connect Four board that was going to be discarded, which was cut up, stuck to the board and filled with different tactile surfaces such as cork or fake fur.
They also used an old confectionary box to create a flower and filled it with tissue paper and pompoms.
The students also added a zip, a xylophone, buttons, beads, gloves, spice jar tops and other materials to create their finished sensory board.
A t-shirts bundle dyed with onion skins scored the students their second first prize in the clothing dyed with fruit or vegetable category.
For their third category entry, the students created a natural weaving piece inspired by a picture of a Lavender field, using wool, fabric scraps, plants and natural fibres, woven through a handmade loom.
For the Something to Encourage Wildlife into the Garden category, the students created a hedgehog house and a butterfly tree.
For the hedgehog house, the students covered a cardboard box with leaves and lined it with hanging basket lining and woodchips.
For the butterfly tree, the students attached coloured spice jar lids to a tree.
Bobby was one of the students who worked on the sensory board. He is studying a Skills for Living 1 programme at Reading College and University Centre.
He said: “I chose the rainbow theme for the board–I had the idea of the sun.
“I enjoyed putting it together–I filled the middle bit of the flower with pompoms and filled some of the Connect Four holes with different things. I felt happy and excited that we won.”
Fiona Moore, LLD/D Lecturer at Activate Learning, said: “I’m overwhelmed with how much the students got into this.
“It’s excellent that we won; I’m very proud of them–their hard work paid off.
“The students are over the moon–they’re already looking forward to next year.”
More information about UTC’s SEND provisions is available via: reading.activatelearning.ac.uk
