SCHOOL INTEGRATION

‘Greg’ is a six year old boy who we have been working with since February 2011.He attends a mainstream school part-time and has a part-time home based programme.

At the start of his programme, we worked with his nursery and had his LSAs attend our team meetings to foster the greatest sense of consistency across all teaching environments. We also offered regular supervision sessions,where the nursery based LSA’s were given advice on managing challenging or inappropriate behaviour as well as building friendships and differentiating activities set by the nursery teacher.

At home, we worked on preparing Greg for all the topics taught at nursery – using their planning we taught labels and concepts he would encounter at school in the following weeks. By doing this, he was more able to access the curriculum and gain more from his nursery setting.

When he got a place at mainstream school, we worked closely with his school based team and provided in-house training for his and the other LSAs in school. We also provided on-going supervision and training to his LSAs, through fortnightly sessions as well as including the LSAs in his home based team meetings. We’ve found that this is the best way to provide Greg with a consistent approach across home and school – allowing targets to be worked on

in both settings and giving all the adults working with Greg clear guidelines on expectations to have. At home and school, we have 1:1 time working on the skills Greg needs a little more practice with, as well as his Speech and language (SLT) and Occupational Therapy (OT) targets which are integrated into the activities we do. We also spend time playing and working in small groups on social targets, such as how to ask friends to play and how to play games.

Greg loves school and loves learning. We have been working with all the professionals involved in his care to provide a comprehensive and balanced curriculum which meets all Greg’s needs. It is a tricky balance to find sometimes, but we think working collaboratively with others is the best way to support those who have complex needs.