HIRB

Henbury Court Primary Academy Hearing Impaired Resource Base

The Hearing Impaired Resource Base (HIRB) has been part of the school for over forty years. It is a fully resourced specialist provision for Hearing Impaired (HI) pupils with a range of hearing loss from moderate to profound. Using a variety of Hearing Aids (HA), Cochlear Implants (CI) and Bone Anchored HA (BAHA).

All our Hearing Impaired pupils have access to a Teacher of the Deaf (ToD) and Learning Support Assistants (LSA). All HI children, are monitored and assessed by a specialist Speech and Language Therapist (Sp&LT) for the Deaf. Programmes are specific to the individual child and delivered under the guidance of the Sp&LT by the ToD and or a trained LSA.

As well as academic support we support pupils with their audiological needs. We aim for our pupils to develop increasing responsibility and ownership for their equipment. All HI children at Henbury Court have access to a Phonak Roger digital radio system. The ToD monitors all HI children ensuring equipment is working, supporting and training staff in deaf awareness, and liaising with outside agencies i.e. audiology, Cochlear Implant Team, and Speech and Language Therapy. Daily audiological checks to HAs, CI BAHAs ensuring that on entering the classroom they fully benefit from this technology. The Resource Base is an acoustically treated room. Our classrooms are also acoustically designed and benefit from low ceilings, curtains, fitted carpets, and sound absorbent furnishings.

Inclusion

We actively promote inclusion and all our HI children are part of mainstream classes for most or all of the school day, where they are supported as needed. This gives HI children the opportunity to work and socialise with their hearing peers. As with all children in the school progress is carefully monitored.

To further promote inclusion we support pupils through the following:

In-class support and 1:1 opportunities
Language enrichment activities
Reinforcement of concepts
Pre-teaching
Post –teaching
School clubs
Speech and Language Therapy
Audiology
Support with emotional and social development
Support from experienced staff within the school (SENCo)

Parents

Working closely with parents is important to us. Many of our HI children live some distance from the school. Therefore we make every effort to reduce this physical distance by being in regular communication with families though phone calls, letters, parent meetings, and home-school contact books. Parents are invited for parents’ evenings, annual reviews and pastoral support meetings. Of course, all parents are warmly invited to join in with all school events, including assemblies, coffee mornings, fairs and class celebration events.

For further information please contact us through the front office.