Meath School A GSG School

Special Education Needs

I CAN’s Meath School is a residential (weekly) and day school providing a multi-professional, integrated and collaborative approach to the teaching, therapy and care of children aged 4+-11 years, whose primary difficulty is speech, language and communication. Children with additional or associated difficulties including some degree of learning difficulty, attention control, fine and gross motor co ordination problems, mild visual or hearing impairments, and social interaction problems may also benefit from the provision. Ofsted inspectors commented that “The highly skilled and collaborative multidisciplinary team of staff, generates a very strong learning culture in which pupils thrive. It delivers outstanding care, support and guidance, which results in pupils feeling secure and helps them to achieve well. Pupils make very impressive progress in their ability to speak and communicate.” The school offers specialist practice and programmes (eg a signing environment, Cued Articulation, Alternative Augmentative Communication, visual supports) to enable full access to differentiated National Curriculum teaching via termly topic approach. Each class (average 10 children) has an allocated teacher, speech and language therapist and at least one learning support assistant. An occupational therapist and occupational therapy assistant support individual children, class activities and school-wide motor skills groups and sensory integration sessions. All staff are professionally qualified and experienced. Strong partnerships with parents/carers are vital to the success of pupils and families are encouraged to make observation visits to the school and to contribute to their child’s IEP targets. The school has a family liaison worker who can work with parents/carers in the home context. Meath School is housed in 3 fine Victorian buildings and the 7 acre site includes a modern teaching block, small swimming pool, sizeable school field, activity play areas and woodland. It is situated in the village of Ottershaw, near Woking and residential children are supported when attending local community activities. The school has a programme of after school activities for all pupils. Meath School is administered by I CAN, the charity that helps children communicate.