Something Special

The award-winning BBC TV series Something Special uses Makaton symbols and signs, as well as rhymes and songs, to help encourage communication and develop language in a fun and exciting way.

The series, which has been awarded two Royal Television Society Educational TV Awards, covers the six areas of learning for the Foundation Stage curriculum for 3-11 year olds.

These superbly presented programmes are aimed at early years and pre-school children to help them to understand others and to make themselves understood using signing and symbols.

The simple, interactive, and repetitive format encourages children to join in with a variety of activities, songs, dance, role play and games, and the colourful and wacky Mr Tumble provides an engaging and fun dimension.

TV showings SERIES 3

The third series of Something Special is now being repeated on CBeebies. It features Justin out and about and Mr Tumble at home! For broadcast times, go to the Something Special website.

Something Special website (this link will open in a new window)

The episode titles are shown below:

Ep 1	Airport	Ep 9	Playdate
Ep 2	City Centre	Ep 10	Animal Rescue
Ep 3	Garden Centre	Ep 11	Bike Ride
Ep 4	By the Sea	Ep 12	Creative Walk
Ep 5	Hospital	Ep 13	Supermarket
Ep 6	Houseboat	Ep 14	Butterfly
Ep 7	Leisure Centre	Ep 15	Drive
Ep 8	Animal Park

Resources

A wide range of Something Special DVDs, videos, and pocket books are available.

Online shop: Something Special

Cairo International Film Festival for Children

Something Special won the Special International Jury's Prize (for Animation or TV) at the 2008 Cairo International Film Festival for Children, "for its unique, successful approach to a program that stimulates the development of disabled children in a child friendly way".

Festival website (link opens in new window)

Royal Television Society

Something Special won the Royal Television Society award for Best Early Years programme two years in a row (2003 & 2004). It is the only time that a programme has won it twice.

The most recent award was for the episode The Garden. The previous award was for "The Farm".

“The winning programme was warm and engaging. It fulfilled its educational goals and was superbly presented. The jury wished to commend it for portraying children with learning and communication difficulties as heroes.”
Royal Television Society (this link will open in a new window)