Specialist Provision

 Glebe is the only primary school in the London Borough of Hillingdon with a Specialist Resourced Provision  (SRP) for deaf children.  The SRP accommodates up to 11 deaf children, who benefit from an oral/aural education in a mainstream school, which has specialist staff and equipment to support their needs.                                                                                                                                                                            

We work hard in the SRP, sometimes with support and sometimes independently. Some of the time we work in our classrooms, but some of the time we come to The Hub for our lessons - whatever is best for us in that lesson.  We all have access to our own personal radio aid to help us hear more clearly in the classroom/Hub, they help us to communicate with our teachers and friends. (SRP Pupils) 

 

I felt shy when I started in Year 2 because the other children saw my speech processors and asked me, “What do you use those for?”I explained to them and they listened. Then I met some other deaf children and it made me feel like I had lots of friends the same as me. (Michael, Yr 6)

 

Being part of the SRP makes me feel...

"I feel happy working in The Hub. " (Siththarth, Yr 3)

"I like learning with my friend Siththarth." (Zahra, Yr 4)

“I feel excited in The Hub because we learn lots of fun things!” (Abida, Yr 6)

"I feel happy because I can help younger deaf children." (Michael, Yr 6)

  Our pupils benefit from experienced mainstream classroom teachers. Our pupils also benefit from classrooms treated with Soundfield systems, enabling the teacher's voice to be heard equally well from wherever they sit in the room.

In addition the SRP staff consists of:

• A qualified Teacher of the Deaf
• Experienced Nursery Nurses and Learning Support Assistants
• Visiting Speech and Language Therapist
• Visiting Educational Psychologist
• Liaison and support from Cochlear Implant Teams of leading children's hospitals
• Visiting technician from the Ewing Foundation

SRP Resources:

• All classrooms are acoustically designed to support our children
• In addition to this, we have two rooms within the SRP for our children to learn in which are used for: interventions, group work and speech and language therapy, amongst other activities
• All of our children have radio aids, to support them with their speaking and listening
• The provision of a wide range of technical aids.

Speech and Language Therapy:

• Our Speech and Language Therapist, Kirsty Chapman (Bucks and Berks Speech and Language Therapy) visits once a week. This ensures that all of our children get at least the required number of termly speech and language contacts, as stated in their Education, Health and Care Plan.  Parents have the opportunity to come and meet with Kirsty on a regular basis, to discuss their child's progress and how they can support this at home.

​​​​​​​Personal Understanding of Deafness (PUD):

• All SRP pupils undertake Personal Understanding of Deafness sessions, with a Qualified Teacher of the Deaf. This is, 'A specialised curriculum for hearing impaired children aged 3–16, to promote independence and self-confidence.' By following this curriculum, we enable the children to develop an understanding of their individual hearing needs and the confidence to communicate those needs to their peers and staff. The PUD sessions are a valuable resource in preparing the children for secondary school and beyond. 

Staff Training:

All teaching staff have an annual Deaf Awareness inset, ensuring that the whole school has a deaf aware approach. All SRP staff have a weekly meeting, which allows us to continue to deliver the best possible provision for our children.

General Information:

The SRP for deaf pupils was opened in September 1980. We have 2 large classrooms, that are divided into areas for small group teaching, interventions and 1-1 speech and language therapy sessions. Teachers of the Deaf, Nursery Nurses and Learning Support Assistants are on hand to support our pupils.

We are an aural / oral provision and we aim to provide specialist teaching, support and resources for deaf pupils from Nursery to Year 6, additional to what is available in the mainstream school. Our objective is to enable our pupils to access the curriculum, to communicate effectively and to realise their potential and achieve maximum independence. 

                           

We aim to support the children to be independent learners, who are ready for the next stage in their education, by the time they leave us. We encourage the children to take ownership of their learning. This includes teaching the children how to: manage their equipment; to develop their personal understanding of their deafness; use the resources available to them and to feed off of their curiosity, instilling within each child a love of learning that they will carry with them once they leave Glebe.                        

                              

 

We tailor the curriculum to make it as creative as possible. We use practical activities to bring topics to life, so that we can best support the children in acquiring new vocabulary and language skills. Many of the SRP children, who are unable to access mainstream English lessons, have their English sessions planned by the Qualified Teacher of the Deaf so the work is tailored to their specific needs; the sessions are either delivered by the Qualified Teacher of the Deaf or one of the Learning Support Assistants, closely overseen by the Qualified Teacher of the Deaf.

All the children are on the roll of their mainstream class and are in there with support, if necessary, alongside their typically hearing peers a minimum of 50% of the school day – for the majority of children this is much nearer to 85% of the time. The time the children spend in the SRP, either working individually or as part of a small group, will often be focussed on speech and language sessions (delivered by our visiting SALT, the QTOD or an LSA) or one of a wide range of other language-based interventions (such as: Box Clever, Attention Hillingdon, Lego Therapy) that we deliver within the SRP. All SRP staff working closely alongside the mainstream teachers.

Entry Criteria:

As per our Service Level Agreement, all children who are allocated a place within the SRP must have an Education, Health and Care Plan that states deafness as the primary need. To ensure that we are able to give an informed response to any consultation, of a child with primary need deafness, the QTOD will go and observe the child in their current setting before a response to the consultation is given.