Donate your old phones to students

BACK: Emma Jackson (learning mentor), Marley Servio, Lauren Tomlinson (learning mentor). Front, Harry Gibbins and Matthew Persse

BRIGHT Futures School has put a call out for unwanted smart phones to help their pupils make some special memories of success.

The Grasscroft school - a small independent establishment for children and young people with autism - will use the phones to help students capture pictures of meaningful events during the day to help them grow in confidence

The idea is that each student and staff member - they need 24 in total - will be given one of the old donated phones to compile a stack of successful memories to reassure them and encourage them to try new experiences.

The school's Christine Stocks explained: "We use a special social communication approach at our school to help our pupils work on the difficulties at the heart of autism, including thinking about what other people are thinking about, being able to manage emotions, using emotion-related information productively, and building special memories of competence and success.

"These special memories are what help us try new things and have another go when something is difficult, but research has shown laying down these special memories is more difficult for people on the autism spectrum.

"In order to help our pupils do this, we want to be able to enable them to take pictures of things that are meaningful for them throughout their school day."

Christine says it doesn't matter if the phones have cracked screens as long as they can still take photos and connect to PCs so they can upload the pictures. If it still has a charger they would be grateful for that too.

If you have a phone to donate you can drop off at the school or post to: Bright Futures School, 164 Oldham Rd, Grasscroft, Oldham, OL4 4DW.