News

Cheadle housing association Equity Housing has donated a £5,000 multi-media smart table to help Seashell Trust's profoundly disabled students learn and play.

It will be an invaluable touchscreen tool for our assistive technologist Sarah Keddy to use with the young people who attend our Royal Manchester School.

Many have complex conditions including significant learning difficulties compounded by additional disabilities such as deafness, blindness, deafblindness, autism, physical disability and a number of rare syndromes.

Visually impaired students will be able read in large format while those who struggle to cope with stimuli will be encouraged to use their sense of touch to access games.

It will also give rare but prized opportunities to make decisions for themselves.

Sarah said: “We will use the SMART table to promote independence for our Post 16 students so they can choose their own music. 

“I also plan to create bespoke activities that will grab their attention by using resources and materials that our students are motivated and interested in to continue to challenge them with their Individual Education Plans. 

“This resource will create many fun learning opportunities and we are really looking forward to getting it up and running.”

Dan Curtis, operational director - technology, innovation and BI at Equity, said: “We are so incredibly pleased to be able to make this donation. The multi-media table is something that we had not been able to utilise ourselves to its full potential so being able to donate it to the Seashell Trust where we know it will be utilised, is incredible.

“The added bonus for us was that they already had an exact replica of the table being used and ours would add to the already established learning the children are involved in. The Seashell Trust is on our doorstep and Equity is more than happy to support such a charity.”