At Castlebar, high quality teaching and learning is supported by a range of psychological and therapeutic services. Castlebar aims to provide the best education possible to children with complex learning needs, including Autism and challenging behaviour.
Parents, carers and pupils are extremely happy with the provision at Castlebar. Their feedback tells us that pupils progress well, thrive, and are happy to come to school. Our pupil data interrogation and analysis also confirms that all pupils make good progress.
Staff, pupils and parents/carers also have access to therapists and psychologists. At Castlebar this provision is built on a facilitative model i.e. sharing of ideas/strategies to reach the greatest amount of stakeholders. This is built on the understanding that therapists/psychologists work mainly to support/advise staff and parents/carers in developing strategies to support their children. Working in this model enables staff and parents to confidently deliver programmes independently.
At present, the school commissions:
- Occupational Therapy
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Educational Psychology
- Motivational Behaviour Therapy
- Social Worker
Speech and Language Therapy
The Ealing Speech and Language Therapy Service offers a whole school, class and individual model of working in the Special Schools. This is based on the understanding that for students to reach their potential it is essential that the environment and all staff within the student’s environment have an understanding of communication impairment and how best to facilitate communication so that the student can access learning.
The Speech and Language Therapist can help when the child has difficulties with:
- Understanding what is said to them
- Developing language e.g. learning new words, speaking in sentences
- Speaking clearly
- Having conversations
- Social skills e.g. asking for help, making eye contact
Ealing Speech and Language Therapy Service aims to work collaboratively with school staff to help students meet their communication potential. This is key as communication is central to students following the school curriculum.
Occupational Therapy
The Occupational Therapy service aims to work closely with school management to develop other means of measuring service effectiveness. It aims to provide whole school advice in relation to developing independence in functional tasks and daily living skills, and promoting motor skill development.