SHEFFIELD SERVICE FOR DEAF & HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN
Introduction
There is a long tradition of supporting hearing impaired children and their families in Sheffield.
Sheffield’s first school for the deaf opened in 1922 but was destroyed by the Blitz, and reopened in 1953 as a new residential school on Ringinglow Road. Since then, however, the emphasis has moved towards providing support, wherever possible, near to the child’s home and encouraging hearing impaired pupils to mix with hearing children.
This led to the School for the Deaf closing in 1982 to be replaced by new, city wide, integrated resources and a team of peripatetic support staff.
Sheffield offers a wide range of support options for hearing impaired children and their families and is therefore able to respond individually to the various needs of different children.
In the Service for Hearing Impaired Children we have:
• Pre-School Support in Homes and Clinic
• Nursery Provision for the Hearing Impaired Child
• Support in Mainstream Primary Schools
• Primary Integrated Resources
• Secondary Provision
• Support for Children with Additional Needs
• Support for the Multi-sensory Impaired
• Support for Children whose First Language is not English
• Audiological Support
• Room Acoustics Assessment
• Speech and Language Therapy
Pre-School Support in Homes and Clinic
There is a team of qualified teachers of the deaf working with children under five and their families. The teachers are involved with the children from the earliest days of diagnosis and work very closely with staff from the
Centre for Hearing and Speech at the Children’s Hospital.
As soon as your child is diagnosed as having a hearing impairment one of the pre-school support teachers will visit at home. They come in to work on a regular basis to develop the child’s listening and language skills, and to counsel and help parents. They also spend time helping with hearing aid care and use.
Nursery Provision for the Hearing Impaired Child
The pre-school support teachers give information and practical help in finding appropriate nursery provision. If your child goes into the local nursery the teacher will go in and talk to the staff before your child starts and will then visit the nursery regularly to help develop language and listening skills.
For those children who need a little more support, there are two nursery integrated resources attached to mainstream schools. An aural/oral integrated resource, at AngramBankPrimary School in the north of the city, and a signing/assessment integrated resource attached to Lower Meadow Primary School in the south-east of the city.
For more information about integrated resources attached to schools please see page 4
Support in Mainstream Primary Schools
If your child does not need the support of an integrated resource they will attend their local primary school. A support teacher of the hearing impaired will visit on a regular basis, ranging from a weekly teaching commitment to monthly, or termly, monitoring.
The support teacher may work alongside your child in the class or withdraw them for individual work, but will always spend a large proportion of time working with the class teacher to help train them to cope with the educational demands of a hearing impaired child in a busy mainstream classroom. A radio aid may be provided by the Service for use in mainstream classrooms to work in conjunction with your child’s hearing aids.
Primary Integrated Resources
When a hearing impaired child goes to primary school it may be thought that the extra support from an integrated resource is needed. A resource would provide not only the expertise of trained teachers of the deaf, but also mainstream teachers who have a depth of knowledge and experience of hearing impairment which has been built up over the years, and not least, a group of friends that are also deaf.
Integrated resources are attached to a mainstream school and so the hearing impaired child will be a part of an ordinary class, attend many of the mainstream lessons, and have friends amongst both hearing and hearing impaired children, but with the knowledge that there is a teacher of the deaf always on site to give specialised help when needed.
Although a child may be using the integrated resource, they are still a member of the mainstream school and will be encouraged to join in all the school activities – clubs, trips, drama and musical and residential visits.
As far as possible the children in the integrated resource follow the National Curriculum and integrate into the mainstream class. This may be with the support of the integrated resource staff. A radio aid will be made available for use with the child’s hearing aids. Reading is given a very high priority and all children in the integrated resource read regularly to their integrated resource teacher.
The individual needs of the child are looked at in detail to decide on the communication system to be used. In Sheffield there is a signing integrated resource based at Lower Meadow Primary School, and two aural/oral integrated resources one which is based at Angram Bank Primary School in the north of the city, and one at GreystonesPrimary School in the south.
Secondary Provision
The type of support offered at the primary level carries on at the secondary stage both in integrated resources and mainstream schools.
Many children are supported in their local schools and there are three specialist integrated resources attached to mainstream schools – aural/oral integrated resources at High Storrs Secondary School in the south of the city, Ecclesfield Secondary School in the north, and a signing provision based at Silverdale Secondary School.
The children follow the National Curriculum and take G.C.S.E. examinations leading to further, or higher, education. The teachers of the deaf in mainstream and in the integrated resources apply for special examination arrangements. For example: to have extra time, or in the case of foreign language examinations, to have an individual present in the oral examinations to speak the foreign language which the pupil can lip-read rather than have to use an audiotape as hearing children would.
The children are all given the opportunity to take part in two weeks work experience, and specialist careers officers are involved in helping the pupil choose the best path to take for their future employment.
Most of our hearing impaired children go on to SheffieldCollege where they are helped by the Service for Hearing Impaired Students, or to sixth forms where they continue to receive support from our Service.
Children with Additional Needs
The pre-school teachers also work with children with additional needs. They work alongside parents and other professionals involved with the child, and closely liaise with them.
There is also a support teacher who works with the hearing impaired pupils who are placed in special schools because of their additional needs. These schools are visited regularly and the staff are given training to help them deal with the specific needs of hearing impaired children and their hearing aid use.
Support for the Multi-Sensory Impaired
The Service employs a qualified teacher of the deaf-blind who can work peripatetically with any children in the city who have a dual disability.
Support for Children whose First Language is not
English
The support staff for children whose mother tongue is not English work with all ages of hearing impaired children in schools, nurseries and at home with their families. They also help parents liaise with school and the Centre for Hearing and Speech at the Children’s Hospital.
Audiological Support
The Service has two trained Educational Audiologists who work closely with the Centre for Hearing and Speech at the Children’s Hospital. They help to ensure that the hearing aids given are the most suitable for the educational and home environment of each child, and they visit schools to ensure that full use is made of the aids by giving advice to both children and teachers.
Staff from the Centre for Hearing and Speech at the Children’s Hospital also visit all the integrated resources attached to mainstream schools to check ear moulds, hearing aids and the general health of the children’s ears.
Room Acoustics Assessment
The Service has a qualified acoustician who is able to carry out assessments of classrooms and learning environments to see if they comply with the Buildings Bulletin 93 specifications for the acoustic design of schools.
Speech and Language Therapy
A speech and language therapist linked to the Service visits hearing impaired children regularly both for assessment work, providing advice to teachers and also for blocks of intensive therapeutic work with individuals or groups of children.
Links with other professionals
The Service liaises regularly with the following professionals
• Staff from the Centre for Hearing and Speech at the
Sheffield Children’s Hospital
• Speech and Language Therapist
• The Social Worker for the Deaf from the Children with
Disabilities Team
• Two Educational Psychologists who have a particular
expertise in hearing impairment from the Children,
Young People & Families Psychological Service
• Staff from SheffieldCollege’s Service for Hearing
Impaired Students
• The Specialist Careers Officer from the Connexions Service
• Tutors from the Family Communication Service
• Staff in the other teams in the Specialist Support Services
Family Communication Service
The Family Communication Service tutors are organised by the Centre for Hearing and Speech at the Children’s Hospital to work with families of deaf children who use signing. The tutors come to the home for one hour a week for a block of teaching and help the whole family learn to sign.
Where are we based?
Head of Service for Hearing Impaired Children:
Tina Wakefield
Service for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children
Children’s Commissioning Services
575 Queen Mary Road
Sheffield
S2 1EE
Telephone/Fax (0114) 239 8336
Teachers of the deaf who provide support for pre-school children and hearing impaired children in mainstream schools across the city.
Service for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children
Children’s Commissioning Services
575 Queen Mary Road
Sheffield
S2 1EE
Telephone/Fax: (0114) 239 8336
Integrated Resources in the South of the City
Aural/oral Integrated Resources
Greystones Integrated Resource, GreystonesPrimary School,
Tullibardine Road, SheffieldS11 7GL Tel (0114) 2670271
High Storrs Integrated Resource, HighStorrsSecondary School
High Storrs Road, SheffieldS11 7LH Tel (0114) 2670000
Signing Integrated Resources
Lower Meadow Integrated Resource, Lower Meadow Nursery and Primary School,
Batemoor Road, SheffieldS8 8EE Tel (0114) 2372700
Silverdale Integrated Resource, SilverdaleSecondary School
Bents Crescent, SheffieldS11 9RT Tel (0114) 2369991
Integrated Resources in the North of the City
Aural/oral Integrated Resources
Angram Bank Integrated Resource, Angram Bank Nursery and
Primary School, Kinsey Road, High Green, Sheffield S35 4HN Tel (0114) 2848853
Ecclesfield Integrated Resource, EcclesfieldSecondary School
Chapeltown Road, Ecclesfield, Sheffield S35 9WD
Tel (0114) 2461156
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