About us

Nestled in the heart of our highly inclusive school, the Resourced Provision has places for twelve children from Nursery to Year 6. It combines the advantage of a mainstream education with highly specialised support and intervention for deaf children. Our approach to communication and supporting children is child centred. Communication preferences for each child are discussed and reviewed with parents and staff. We are able to provide a broad range of communication support. This is appropriate for children who are oral/aural, those who use British Sign Language and for children who use a combination of both. In line with this, every child in the Deaf Provision has a Communication Profile detailing their current communication methods and best practice for working with the child.

Places

Places are available for children with a moderate to profound hearing loss and a Statement of Special Educational Need and delayed language development. We recognise the importance of combining inclusive education and specialist support. Children are based in mainstream classes according to age. They are supported in class and withdrawn with support as appropriate. We aim to enable pupils to acquire language and communication skills so they can fully access the curriculum.

The Team

The Summerside team includes Teachers of the Deaf, Communicators, a Deaf Tutor and support from NHS Speech and Language Therapists in partnership with parents or carers. All school staff are encouraged to learn British Sign language to level 1.

Provision

We provide daily audiology checks and liaise directly with local audiology clinics. The rooms in the Deaf Provision are acoustically treated to provide very good listening conditions for the children. All mainstream classrooms and halls have sound-field systems to provide improved amplification of the teacher’s voice. Some classrooms and the halls have additional acoustic panelling to further improve the quality of sound for the children. Where appropriate, we provide FM radio aids for the children to use in class and during withdrawn sessions.

Children have an Individual Education Plan to meet the objectives on their Statement which is tailored to their current specific needs. IEPS are written and evaluated by the team around the child including Teachers of the Deaf, the class teacher, parents or carers, the Deaf Tutor and the Speech and Language Therapists. Targets are set and reviewed every term. “Monday Mix”, an afterschool club, is run specifically for deaf children from year1. It does a variety of craft, games and cooking activities with a language focus.

Pupils in the provision are withdrawn for daily literacy sessions in a small group setting. In addition, pupils have weekly language enrichment groups, which are planned and taught by the Speech and Language Therapists and Teachers of the Deaf in collaboration. We value speaking and listening as crucial to the development of language and communication leading on to reading and literacy. Sessions are visual and practical to develop the children’s understanding of language in context.

Working with families

We value home/school links and use individual home/school books as a means of communication. We record what the children have done in school using text and pictures and we encourage children and parents or carers to do the same at home. We are very happy to discuss the children’s progress with parents or carers by phone, email or in person informally. We have termly coffee afternoons for parents and staff to meet informally.