Bringing current events to life in the classroom with Symbol-Friendly^® Picture News

When Picture News first began, we were writing resources for primary schools and listening to the needs of teachers and pupils. We then started supporting Early Years, and it quickly grew from there! We were keen to make our resources as inclusive as possible and offer the same experiences to children in special schools; with this in mind, we soon symbolised our first resource with Widgit. We really wanted to make Picture News accessible to children with a whole range of abilities, including those who may have never used Widgit before. For this reason, we broke down the stories further in a format they could understand. As an ex-teacher, I’m already familiar with Widgit, but we also received support from others on how best to distil this information and create these resources. This skill has since been shared with the wider team, with other members of Picture News now also writing stories with Widgit.

While we originally wrote these stories for pupils in special schools, there has also been a huge demand for our symbolised resources within mainstream settings. Particularly in response to the recent white paper, we have seen teachers seeking even better ways to support pupils with SEND across their settings in making such learning opportunities just as valuable. We have also had interest from teachers in secondary schools, and even within schools from as far as the Middle East. It’s been great to see how our symbolised versions have opened Picture News up to an even wider range of age groups and backgrounds. Ultimately, Picture News strives to help children learn from the world around them regardless of their needs, so introducing Widgit has been a big step in helping us achieve this.

As you can imagine, the news is often quite complicated, and with many layers! It can therefore prove quite a challenge to write stories in a way that’s both accessible and avoids brushing over the key themes and topic. In a nutshell, we aim to condense the news into 2-3 sentences for our symbolised resources. We do this at a top level with the upmost transparency, while also including supporting questions to aid comprehension and understanding. While this may be delivered in a succinct way, the idea is to spark curiosity beyond that story, encouraging knowledge seeking within a child’s own surroundings in a way that is familiar to them. For children with greater sensory needs, our guide for teachers offers ideas on how to access these resources in a way that works for them.

The feedback has been amazing on all fronts, both from teachers and parents and carers. To encourage further conversation outside of school, our stories also come with an activity to do at home. It’s a lovely way to give parents an insight into the discussions happening at school, helping them to feel part of that conversation. As a result, this also gives the children an opportunity to hear how their parent(s) / carer(s) may feel from a different perspective outside of the classroom, which can prove just as valuable as learning at school.

Accessibility has always been a priority for us, and introducing Widgit Symbols felt like the right fit from the very beginning. Becoming a Symbol-Friendly^® Organisation truly aligns with our mission to make learning inclusive for everyone and celebrates what we’ve endeavoured to achieve from day one. It demonstrates our commitment to taking things one step further and builds awareness around how Picture News can be used to reach children of all ages and abilities. These are values we know are passionately shared and championed by Widgit!

Becoming a Symbol-Friendly^® Organisation has really felt like a natural part of our journey with Widgit. It’s been a truly collaborative process and has further enhanced the special partnership we already have. We’ve also been having more conversations on how we can support each other as organisations dedicated to inclusive learning experiences, both within the classroom and out in the wider world.

As we are often writing about public figures, we always love to guess if they have their own Widgit Symbol yet, from politicians to Ed Sheeran! We are looking forward to celebrating David Attenborough’s 100th birthday this year, and as he’s such a national treasure, we’d have to say he’s our favourite!