What do we do?

 

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 Units

            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

 

You can download the Parents Information Booklet at the bottom of this page.

 

 

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 the 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.

 

 

 

The pre-school support teachers give information and practical help in finding appropriate nursery provision. If the child goes into the local nursery the teacher will go in and talk to the staff before the 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 units attached to mainstream schools. An aural/oral unit, at Angram Bank Primary School in the north of the city, and a signing/assessment unit attached to Lower Meadow Primary School in the south-east of the city.

 

For more information about units attached to mainstream school please see Primary Units.

 

 

 

If the child does not need the support of a unit 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 the 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 the child’s hearing aids.

 

 

 

When the hearing impaired child goes to primary school it may be thought that they need the extra support from a unit. This provides the expertise of trained teachers of the deaf, 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.

 

These units 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 member of the unit the child is also 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 unit children follow the National Curriculum and integrate into the mainstream class. This may be with the support of the unit 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 unit children read regularly to their unit 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 unit based at Lower Meadow Primary School, and two aural/oral units, one which is based at Angram Bank Primary School in the north of the city, and one at Greystones Primary School in the south.

 

 

 

The type of support offered at the primary level carries on at the secondary stage both in units and mainstream schools.

 

Many children are supported in their local schools and there are three specialist units 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 units 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 Sheffield College where they are helped by the Service for Hearing Impaired Students, or to sixth forms where they continue to receive support from our Service.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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 units attached to mainstream schools to check ear moulds, hearing aids and the general health of the children’s ears.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.