A MUM who raised £7,000 for Uplands School saw the results of her efforts at the unveiling of a new sensory swing on Tuesday.

Emma Jenkins, whose son Jamie, 16, has been at the school for the last six years, has been fundraising for charities and schools in Swindon for more than a decade.

In 2010 she raised more than £3,000 for the National Autistic society by completing a 24-mile walk. She has also been running the annual Jamie-Emma Jenkins charity golf day at Cumberwell Park in Bradford-on-Avon.

“From all the people who have looked after Jamie since he was two I’ve helped them out to say thank you,” she told the Advertiser.

The money, which was raised over two years, will also be used to provide music equipment, a karaoke machine, new balance bicycles and sensory equipment for pupils at the school to develop their interests and meet their needs.

Head teacher at Uplands, Fiona Clark, said: “Emma’s made a massive difference to all the special needs providers in Swindon. We couldn’t be more grateful to her because it’s the little additional bits that we can provide that can make the difference for a lot of our young people.

“It’s fabulous to have this swing because so many of our children have sensory diet needs. The swing gets used as a reward, for fun, but is also great for communication skills, teamwork, and sometimes it can be used for de-escalation. If a student is getting a bit agitated that motion can really help to calm somebody down.

"Then you can pop and use the swing for five minutes and then get young people back to learning and that makes a massive difference to their day.

"It might seem quite a small thing in other environments but here it’s a really big asset.

“For self-regulation it is really useful. Teaching students their own skills for to understand that so they can learn to self-regulate independently that’s really important. It’s one of the most important things we do.”

“We want our students to do things on their own but we also want them to do things together. We want to prepare them for their adult life. Our objective for them is always for them to have a meaningful and purposeful place to play within the adult community when they leave school.”

Emma is now hoping to build a music room for Jamie who is a talented drummer and recently performed the AC/DC rock anthem Highway to Hell at the school’s summer concert last year.

“He’s got an incredible rhythm,” said his head teacher. “None of us had heard him play in a public environment with an audience.

"I was absolutely blown away I just couldn’t believe his rhythm and how he just came alive.”