Welcome To The Lower School
Miss Sara Head is the Assistant Headteacher with responsibility for Lower School. She is responsible for the organisation and monitoring of teaching and learning within the Lower School curriculum.
Heathlands Lower School curriculum intent is to:
- Deliver a child centred curriculum which is adaptive to small groups and mixed age cohorts.
- Deliver language and communication rich learning especially tailored for the needs of deaf pupils who sign.
- Ensure access to the pupils’ National Curriculum entitlement: developing pupils’ skills to be life long learners.
- Be aspirational for every child.
- Develop from individual starting points, developing the individual’s knowledge and understanding of their world and the ability to communicate their learning.
To do this, Lower School pupils follow a curriculum based on the National Curriculum adapted appropriately for deaf pupils. This is delivered through a Total Communication approach to ensure pupils are fully engaged in all aspects of learning.
The curriculum has is a strong emphasis on the development of language, communication, and vocabulary. The use of sign language, spoken English and visual lesson presentation ensure there is high quality communication between staff, pupils and peers within the classroom. History, Geography, Art, and DT are taught within a topic cycle which supports pupils to ‘join up’ their learning. This topic approach enables children to build on their general knowledge and enquiry skills as well as facilitating the development of their communication, literacy and numeracy skills in a range of cross curricula contexts. Computing, Science, PSHCE, PE, RE and Maths are taught discretely allowing for skills development.
The English curriculum is based on contextualising learning in real books, developing language, vocabulary and comprehension skills . This supports the development of pupils both as readers and writers. Teachers and staff recognise English is a second (or third) language for our pupils. Staff are adept at using a range of tools and approaches flexibly in order to meet the needs of individuals. https://heathlands.herts.sch.uk/reading-lower-school/
The department is staffed by committed and qualified teachers of the deaf who, as well as being trained primary school teachers, are skilled in developing communication, language and literacy for deaf pupils. Lower School also has specialist Learning Support Assistants, and all classroom staff work closely with the Speech and Language Therapy team to ensure the needs of all pupils are met. Lower school has a child-centred approach with high expectations for all pupils, whatever their starting points, stage and ability.
To find out more about the curriculum on offer, or you have any specific questions relating to your child, please contact Sara Head, Assistant Headteacher, via email (admin@heathlands.herts.sch.uk).
