© Woodlands School.  

Plymouth.

 (01752) 300101

WOODLANDS SCHOOL OUTREACH SERVICE

 

Woodlands School Outreach Service consists of a small team of specialist teachers and support staff based at Woodlands School for pupils with physical difficulties. The team currently comprises:

 

• Sue Carlyon, service co-ordinator, referrals, assessment and monitoring, manual handling, ICT
• Christine Howard, ICT
• Sharon Phillips, manual handling, Woodlands pupil inclusion
• Oli Bell, Manual handling

 

Our team supports pupils in mainstream school who have a statement of special educational need due to their physical disability. We work closely with other services such as Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy on such areas as postural management, access and adaptations to buildings and speech therapy for those pupils for whom communication is difficult.

We aim to support mainstream colleagues to develop the appropriate knowledge and practical skills to support pupils with specific physical needs in their schools.

 

Most pupils are referred to our service through their mainstream school and there follows an assessment of need, a written report with observations and recommendations. Following assessments we are able to loan or provide some small pieces of adapted equipment to improve access to the curriculum and or ICT such as adapted scissors, rulers, writing equipment, computer mice and appropriate software. Regular visits are then made to monitor progress and reports or verbal recommendations are made.

 

Specific training for individual schools or school clusters can be arranged to support understanding of the needs of pupils with physical disabilities and the ways in which these needs can be met.

 

All staff working directly with pupils who have physical difficulties in Plymouth schools and nurseries maintained by the local authority is trained by our specialist manual handling team how to move and handle their pupils and how to write a handling plan for pupils. Individual visits to schools can be made to address individual needs such as hoisting and mainstream staff attend annual refresher courses in order to keep their training up to date.

 

 

 

We are developing a support network for parents and carers of pupils in mainstream school to meet for social events in order to share their experiences and ‘network’.

 

Contact details:

 

Woodlands School

Wood View Drive

Tamerton Foliot Road

Whitleigh

Plymouth PL6 5ES

 

Tel: 01752 300108

Fax: 01752 300 102

Email: rluscombe@woodlands.plymouth.sch.uk