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Forum » School and college issues
Starting secondary school
Enquiry: My eleven year old implanted son is just about to start at his local secondary school. He got all level 4s for his KS2 SATs so he is doing well. I’m just wondering what sort of input I can expect from my local support service for the deaf? At primary school he only had one visit a fortnight but he had a very good teaching assistant. Both the teacher of the deaf and the teaching assistant this September are new so I really don’t know what I should e...
Posted on September 2, 2010 14:35
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Too much support
Enquiry: I have one TA who has been working at our school for a long time, who does the work for the students and doesn't let them think for themselves. Any ideas of courses she could attend to improve this. She does the work and the students just copy it. Some of them like her as they get to be really lazy and not have to work at all... Reply: Of course, this is a well known problem. Even the best tea...
Posted on July 27, 2010 13:11
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Disabled Students' Allowance
Enquiry: My son is hoping to go to college in 18 months time and we have heard that we will need to organise DSA (disabled student’s allowance). We are unsure whether it is up to us to do it all ourselves and when should we start? Answer: The DSA money will ensure that your child has all the equipment and support that he needs in college (eg radio aids, note taker) . A useful website to look at is
Posted on July 14, 2010 16:39
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Mainstream pre-school or a unit?
Enquiry:My 2 ½ year old daughter , wears two cochlear implants and I am trying to decide where to send her to when she turns 3. I am trying to weigh up the options between my local nursery or a pre-school which has a resource unit for deaf children where sign language is sometimes used. How do I recognise what will be best for her? We are really hoping she will join her older sister at her local mainstream school when she is ready for school.
Posted on July 14, 2010 16:27
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How much teacher of the deaf input?
Enquiry: My profoundly deaf implanted daughter is in year 8 in a mainstream secondary school. She has 25 hours support from a learning support assistant each week and is doing pretty well, getting level 5s for most subjects. A recent speech and language report put her language scores as being roughly equivalent to a 10 year old. Her teacher of the deaf visits her every half term for an hour. I personally don’t feel that this is adequate. What does anybody...
Posted on May 27, 2010 17:24
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Over assessment at a young age
Enquiry: I have a 3 1/2 year daughter who is profoundly deaf and uses a CI. I am concerned that she is being over-assessed. We moved into a different education authority last year and she went through lots of initial assessments by speech and language therapists, teachers of the deaf and paediatricians. Then she went through a very lengthy statement , so lots more assessments then started a new nursery with lots more assessments and now they're trying to do...
Posted on May 21, 2010 12:24
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Training course for LSAs
Enquiry: I am trying to arrange a short series of training sessions for a group of STA's and wondered if anyone has a previous format. there will be six short sessions. All the STA';s work with implanted children. Reply: Here are the main areas which would need to be tackled: Understanding the benefits of cochlear implantation and potential limitations. Knowing how to check and tr...
Posted on January 5, 2010 16:37
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A'level French
Enquiry: My daughter, aged 15, is profoundly deaf and needs lipreading. She is hoping to move to a 6th form next academic year. One of the subjects she wants to take is French. For the listening part of her French GCSE somebody reads and shelipreads. However, when we visited the new school, the teacher there wasn't sure wether this would OK. What are the regulations about this? Reply: If you look at the JCQ boo...
Posted on December 18, 2009 17:10