| Services for Schools - Support for children with special needs |
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Services for Schools – Support for Children with Special Needs The policy of The Village International Education Centre is to support children with special needs within their mainstream education placements. Our aim is to help these children stay in their schools, wherever possible. The support that we offer consists of the following elements: - full educational psychological assessments, - training for teachers and teachers’ aids (TA’s), including offering recognised special needs qualifications, - helping schools establish policy and procedures for special needs children, - counselling for parents and children, - training and support for parents with special needs children, - provision of special needs resources, - after-school programmes, - Saturday morning social and life skills programme. Full educational psychological assessments Our Educational Psychologist is able to provide consultancy and support for a broad range of issues which include specific learning difficulties, autism/ Asperger’s Syndrome, attentional issues, low incidence disabilities, behavioural issues and gifted learners. An assessment includes: - an initial consultation at the school with the Educational Psychologist, the teacher/s and the parents, - an observation of the child in the class, done by the Educational Psychologist, - the assessment itself, usually followed by immediate verbal feedback - a full written report of the assessment. Training for teachers and teachers’ aids We provide specialised training for teachers, teachers’ aids and learning support staff. We tailor courses to the needs of each school, and also offer general training programmes. We will be offering a diploma course in specific learning difficulties which will be accredited by the National Open College Network in the UK. Helping schools establish policy and procedures for special needs children We have been involved with helping several schools set-up a special needs policy and procedures for staff to follow, which include advice on: - First steps for the school to take if there is a concern over a child, before calling in a specialist, - How to get the right specialist help, if necessary. Counselling for Parents and Children We have fully qualified counsellors and a family therapist who are highly experienced in offering counselling both to parents and children.
Provision of special needs resources We have a wide range of special needs resources, which include: - tailor-made reading, spelling and handwriting programmes, - Intensive Interaction programme for autistic children, - PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System), - multi-sensory programmes, such as Toe by Toe and Alpha to Omega, for children with specific learning difficulties, - the latest computer programmes and websites offering special needs resources.
After school learning support We run individual classes for children after school. We work closely with each child’s class teacher and school to make sure we are providing the best possible support to their education. Our teachers are trained in special needs and use multi-sensory methods that support specific learning difficulties. Saturday morning social and life skills programme (Saturday Club) On Saturday mornings (9.00 – 12.00) we run a special programme which aims to help promote social and life skills. Our speech therapist runs a speech and language group session, and is available to give individual sessions. We also run a series of activities for the children, which include handling money, using public transport, cooking, laying the table, serving food, eating together, clearing the table and washing up .
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