Camberwell Park Specialist Support School

Camberwell Park School caters for children with a wide range of special educational needs and disabilities. All of the children at the school have difficulties with cognition and learning with the majority having severe learning difficulties. Some of our children have profound and multiple difficulties, social communication difficulties including Autistic Spectrum Disorders and/or have multi-sensory impairments.

The children are at the heart of Camberwell Park School and learning and teaching strategies are matched to their individual needs. This includes:

• Ensuring an appropriate classroom learning environment matched to the needs of the pupils
• Small class groups with high staffing ratios to enable a high percentage of individual and small group support for learning
• Highly trained and skilled staff who are experienced in working with children with a wide range of learning difficulties and disabilities
• The provision of highly specialist teaching and learning strategies and breadth of resources to match the individual needs of all learners.
• A differentiated curriculum which is matched to the needs of all of our learners
• Consistent implementation of total communication strategies, that is, use of signing, symbols and communication technology in addition to the spoken word.
• Regular advice and support from a wide range of therapists including speech and language, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.
• All children having ‘My Learning Targets’ (MLTs) These are a set of targets directly linked to EHCP outcomes  and which they practice each day.

Our classes – meeting the needs of our learners

There are 22 classes spread across two sites currently (10 classes at our Oak site and 10 classes at our Sycamore site) and as far as possible the children are grouped according to their age. Some of our children need more specialised learning environments in the school. The classrooms therefore vary slightly as they are matched to the age and needs of the children. This includes classes where pupils have quite varied learning needs and more specialist classes for children with social communication difficulties or profound and multiple learning difficulties.

Each year we review our class groups in the context of the children that have left our school and our new intake ensuring that the class groups meet the needs of our current school population.

Supporting the children with social and emotional aspects of learning ( SEAL)

Supporting the children with their social and emotional wellbeing is an embedded part of our school ethos. This includes encouraging the children to tell us how they are feeling and reasons why each day in school. SEAL activities are also included in the school curriculum for Personal, Social and Health Education and SEAL themes are used in assemblies.

The school employs a part time school councillor who works two days a week with children who need additional targeted support around their social and emotional wellbeing including their individual mental health.

The school takes safeguarding including anti-bullying very seriously. Please see our Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy under the 'Statutory Information' tab in 'About our school'.

Mainstream links

A number of our children have benefitted  from links with our local mainstream schools to support their social development and to extend the challenge to their learning in different areas of the curriculum. Camberwell Park has strong partnerships with a number of local mainstream schools to which individual and small groups of children attend for half day sessions.

Children are identified as benefitting from mainstream links through discussion with classroom staff and parents / carers are always consulted before mainstream links are established.  The children really enjoy the visits and the opportunity to further develop their education and social skills.

‘ It was great….. We have done number lines…I like it!’

Pupil quote Jan 2020 after first link visit to their local mainstream school

Other school facilities

We are lucky to have a range of good facilities in the school which our pupils can access including:

A hydrotherapy pool

A library

 

Extensive outdoor play areas and an undercover play area 

Forest Schools area

 

 

A music room including steel drums

 

 

A wheelchair accessible children’s kitchen

 

 

Interactive room

 

 

Dining room

 

Our staff – knowledge and expertise

We are PROUD to have such a hard working and highly skilled staff team. 

Ensuring our staff have the knowledge and expertise to meet the needs of our learners is a priority for us and as such we have a comprehensive programme of induction for new staff and whole school training. We also provide individual training for individual staff and small groups of staff where appropriate. Our induction and training programme includes safeguarding, health and safety, moving and handling and Team Teach positive behaviour management. Our training programme ensures staff are kept up to date on curriculum matters linked to the School Improvement Plan and also on meeting the additional needs of learners e.g. training on alternative communication strategies such as signing / use of symbols.

Working with other agencies

We work closely with other agencies to ensure the holistic needs of all of our children are met. There are very many, however the main agencies we work with are:

The school nurse: We have a full time school nurse who is based at our school who assists with all health related issues and dispenses medication to children who need it.

The paediatrician: The paediatrician visits the school each month for medical screening of children across school on an annual rolling programme appointment basis

Physiotherapy: We have physiotherapy support for our school one day a week .

The physiotherapists work with the class teams to advise and support on positioning and equipment for the children who need it.

Speech and language therapy: We have speech and language therapy support one day each week. The speech and language therapist provides advice and support to classes and targeted children across the school.

Occupational therapy: We have occupational therapy support one day each week. The occupational therapist provides advice and support to classes and targeted children across the school.

Teachers from the service for visual and hearing impairment:

We receive advice and support from teachers and teaching assistants from the HI and VI service for a range of children across the school who have particularly significant difficulties with hearing and vision