The Pirate Ship – Specialist Resource Provision
The Pirate Ship is the name that we give to our specialist resource provision for pupils who are D/deaf. In total, we have provision for ten primary school-aged pupils, with 4 spaces currently filled. We use a Total Communication approach, which entails the use of British Sign Language (BSL), Sign Supported English (SSE), and voice, which is then reinforced through visual resources, body language and facial expression. This helps to secure each pupil’s understanding and learning. Our aim is to ensure that every child has the opportunity to develop to their full potential academically, socially and emotionally, in a safe and nurturing environment.
Our D/deaf pupils receive a broad and balanced curriculum, which is rich in vocabulary and adapted to meet the needs of every child. If some of our pupils are unable to access the mainstream classroom for their core learning, they will be taught by our Teacher of the Deaf within a small focus group. These children follow the same assessment rota as the rest of the school, but are assessed against their own unique starting point, using a variety of specialised assessments.
In the Pirate Ship, we use ‘Visual Phonics by Hand’ hand cues and strategies to ensure that phonics teaching is made accessible to all D/deaf children. Developing an understanding of phonics will support your child’s reading and writing skills along with developing their lip reading and spoken language skills. In ‘Visual Phonics by Hand’, as the sound is said, a particular hand shape or movement accompanies the sound. The combination of hearing the sound and seeing the hand shape, the hand position and lip shape, clarifies the sound being taught and also in some cases, the link between the sound and its letter (grapheme). All 44 sounds (phonemes) of English can be clarified or reinforced in this way. This technique enables children to ‘see the sound’ and so are helped to discriminate between sounds.
Where children are able to access their lesson in the mainstream classroom, they are supported by BSL qualified Communication Support Workers (CSW) who take on a range of roles, such as signing instructions for the child, scribing and translating sign for the class teacher, and adapting resources to ensure all lessons are accessible for our pupils. All of our children are encouraged to join their mainstream classroom for the afternoon, where they are able to mix confidently with their hearing peers. We also provide pupils the opportunity to work with their CSW’s to address their personal targets that have been set on their Educational Health Care Plans (EHCP).
We recognise the importance of our D/deaf children having the opportunity to come together as a cohort, so they participate in weekly Deaf Healthy Mind sessions, where they learn life skills, talk about shared experiences and discuss what their deafness means for them. These sessions explore good emotional health and wellbeing, and encourage our children to build a repertoire of social skills and problem-solving skills that they will need to be fully functional adults in today’s world. These sessions also include children from the mainstream school who have a mild/moderate hearing loss.
We are also very proud to have our KS1 & KS2 Signing Chior, which is a club run by our CSW’s. It is a very popular after-school club and pupils who attend, have the opportunity to perform at school events and within the local community. We also run a weekly assembly in KS1 and KS2 where children are taught a sign of the week and have the opportunity to learn songs performed by the signing choir.
If you have a D/deaf child and would like to talk or SENDCO (Michaela Wright) or talk to our Teacher of the Deaf (Alisha Webb) and view our Pirate Ship provision, please contact the school office to make an appointment.