Primary Deaf Hub

Nova Primary Academy is commissioned by Peterborough City Council to host a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Hub with a specialism in deafness. We work to raise the quality of support for all children and young people with SEND in the Peterborough area and to promote the “SEND is everybody’s Business” approach.

We do this by:

• Modelling high quality inclusion, and whole school approaches particularly in their SEND focus area.
• Offering training to support children and young people in Peterborough settings.
• Offering general advice and bespoke “peer to peer” support to other Peterborough settings.
• Sign posting to and/or lending resources.
• Working in partnership with Peterborough Local Authority to promote inclusion strategies.

We also offer a small number of Hub places for children with Education and Health Care Plans placed by Peterborough City Council.

Further information on the Peterborough SEND hub network and details of each of the SEND Hubs in Peterborough can be found here https://fis.peterborough.gov.uk/kb5/peterborough/directory/site.page?id=zaWjffd_yUo

There are many hubs in different schools across Peterborough. In our school we have the Peterborough Primary Hub for Deaf pupils.

Our hub has two roles:

1. To support other schools through outreach work, training, advice, resource lending and drop-ins.
2. To offer Hub places to support a small number of pupils who may find that they need communication support, due to deafness, to access the learning opportunities in a mainstream school.

The Sensory Support service webpage details are below:

https://fis.peterborough.gov.uk/kb5/peterborough/directory/results.page?familychannel=8-4-9

For pupils:

We work with specialist services, to provide pupils with appropriate and individualised support, so that all pupils feel they belong and are fully involved in school life.

• • Hub staff support the pupils to access all areas of learning and many extracurricular activities.
  • Hub staff deliver specialist intervention programs, such as SMILE, which focuses on developing the children’s social and emotional wellbeing as well as skills for social interaction.
  • We are a deaf aware school and the hub staff have a supportive role in maintaining deaf awareness with the school environment and provision.
  • Hub staff work with the Teachers of the Deaf to develop up to date knowledge and expertise in HI equipment and can support children and staff with equipment issues.
  • Hub staff have BSL qualifications and knowledge to support language development and communication across the school.

For other schools and professionals:

We offer training for teachers, teaching assistants and others on:

• Supporting literacy, numeracy and cross-curriculum access for HI learners.
• Accessing mainstream peer learning groups using deaf aware practises and resources.
• Developing a Lending Resources Library to provide resources to aide and support HI learners in other schools.  
• Settings can complete our resources request form if they require support with resources for deaf pupils https://forms.office.com/e/1e0fMzaDc9?origin=lprLink   
• Specialist support programs for HI learners including Visual Phonics and Shape Coding.
• BSL training courses hosted at Nova Primary Academy.

Professionals can arrange to observe our teachers and Hub support staff delivering deaf friendly lessons.

Additionally, our Hub staff can meet with you to offer advice about deaf aware best practises and suggest support programs or resources that can be used.

We also run drop-in sessions for professionals to observe inclusive practice for pupils with hearing impairment and also offer support to differentiate and resource planning.

We deliver this training in partnership with professionals from sensory support services to extend knowledge of working with pupils with sensory impairments.

Or contact Mrs Wells (vwells@npa.pkat.co.uk) 01733 262696

Placements are via the SEND Panel. Pupils wishing to be considered for a place in the Hub must have an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP) identifying hearing impairment as the primary need and an significant language delay due to their hearing impairment. Further information can be found in the guidance published on the Peterborough Local Offer (Education page - https://fis.peterborough.gov.uk/kb5/peterborough/directory/localoffer.page?familychannel=8-6&loboolean=1). For any queries about admission to the hub please contact the Local Authority Statutory and Monitoring Service 01733 863733 / senteam@peterborough.gov.uk.

The links below are to a set of Youtube videos that may be useful for parents and teachers of a hearing impaired child.

Understanding Deafness and Hearing Impairment - https://youtu.be/I-cQWkTR4l8

Hearing technology – benefits and limitations - https://youtu.be/Qa68sc47tnA

Supporting Communication for Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Learners – https://youtu.be/YEpZhFH3HYY

Deafness and emotional wellbeing - https://youtu.be/ze36Pw2juWo

Adapting Teaching and Learning - https://youtu.be/yy1F7jfdJ-w

How teaching assistants can help deaf learners-https://youtu.be/dh4elStJ5DA

Online e-books to read with signing options - https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/have-some-fun/storybooks-and-games/

Signed stories presented by different teachers - https://www.fbarnes.camden.sch.uk/home

A series of online tuition videos teaching families British Sign Language - from the National Deaf Children's Society (NCDS). - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L7-P7dpmdM&list=PLibdbQXeyr21BhpGLcDPzTWdSc195Gowr

Local Authority Training sessions videos https://fis.peterborough.gov.uk/kb5/peterborough/directory/site.page?id=FCIJ06Wts68