Update on our Cheshire East Autism Education Trust Training Hub

9 July 2021

Cheshire East became an Autism Education Trust (AET) training hub in January this year. Our aim is to deliver a suite of high quality national autism training across all education phases from early years through to post-16 colleges, ensuring that our children and young people with autism are taught and supported throughout their education by staff who understand their needs.

We wanted to share with you our progress to date. Education settings have responded positively and together we have achieved the following:

• 19 training sessions have been delivered
• a total of 276 delegates from primary, high schools and early years
• 46 settings have now received training in at least one AET module

Feedback from schools and early years providers has been very positive:

“I feel I have a greater understanding of how everyday scenarios may affect a child with autism and the extent to which they may struggle with communicating.”

“It was a good reminder of how to think in the mind of a child with autism.”

“It was good to hear the voices of the autistic young people”

“Definitely all very applicable to a child in my class and it resonated a lot with me”

“It was presented so well and was pitched right for all of our teaching staff”

The autumn term is looking busy with 11 more sessions already booked in. Discussions have been held with our post-16 colleges who are keen to sign up from September. Plans are also in place to train lead practitioners who can follow up on training and embed good practice and strategies to support children and young people within their settings.

Our Cheshire East Autism Team will be happy to help if you would like any more information.