Sensory Support Team
Who are we?
The Sensory Support Team is a team of specialist teachers in sensory impairment, a specialist rehabilitation/mobility worker and a technician who provide support for children and families from diagnosis (potentially from birth), until the end of their secondary education. We offer support to children with varying degrees of sensory loss and abilities, including those in special schools.
How to access the Sensory Support Team
- We operate an open referral policy
- Medical personnel, parents/carers, social care, schools, nurseries or WEST teachers allocated to a school should contact the Team Leader.
The service aims to:
- Provide from birth, specialist educational support for children with severe sensory impairments.
- Assess children’s needs individually, in conjunction with school and other key professionals, including audio-metric testing/functional vision testing.
- Liaise closely and regularly with parents, consultants in ophthalmology and audiology; orthoptists; audiologists; social care; speech/occupational/physiotherapists; consultant paediatricians; specialist health visitors etc., to update our assessment and advice to meet each child’s changing functioning and needs.
- Offer some individual support and teaching , delivering identified programmes to children experiencing difficulties at specific times.
- Offer access to supplementary curriculum of specialist skills and training in orientation and mobility, rehabilitation, Braille, British Sign Language and Sign Supported English.
- Support and advise school staff working with individual children, taking into account relevant medical advice and advice from other services.
- Support schools to tailor individual targets to individual pupil need.
- Provide written evidence to support applications for special considerations for SATs and GCSEs.
- Provide equipment and resources to access learning, in response to changing needs/functional levels.
- Monitor hearing aid wearers regularly, so that they can use their residual hearing to have optimum access to speech in the classroom.
- Provide environmental audits for schools to allow increased independent access and mobility for children with a visual impairment
- Provide advice and training to whole school, departments, or individual teachers/support staff, about the nature and effects of hearing and visual impairment, based on clinical diagnosis and potential prognosis.
Related pages:
Leaflets and publications:
External websites:
- National Deaf Children’s Society
- Ear Foundation
- Deafness Support Network
- Early Support
- Royal National Institute for the Blind
- National Blind Children’s Society (NBCS)
- National Library for the Blind
Contact us:
Leah Hawkins (Admin Assistant)
Sensory Support Team
Telephone: 01925 442923
Fax: 01925 443133
