We aim to meet each student’s unique developmental, behavioral, and emotional needs as well as help develop his or her cognitive abilities through the development of a firm foundation of skills.
Our Vision is to enable children to become adults who have a positive school experience and healthy relationships. We encourage the children to have good self-esteem and a strong sense of self. We help them become independent thinkers and problem solvers so they are prepared emotionally, socially, behaviorally, academically, and vocationally to live successful and happy lives.
The teachers and therapists work as an integrated team. Therapists work within the classrooms and conduct small group sessions of therapy for all the children, every day. There are 4 speech and language therapists and 4 occupational therapists assessing and team-planning for every student. Many of the students have weekly one-to-one therapy as well. In our planning and teaching, we take a developmental approach, going beyond basic academic skills and looking at the fundamental abilities on which are built thinking skills and problem-solving.
Once each week all staff and therapists who make up the Pastoral Teams, meet to discuss every student, these discussions are documented in 5 key focus areas specific difficulties, behavioral, health and home, academic, and communication. Each of these areas is rag rated through input by all staff and needed actions are determined. All documents for each child, currently enrolled in Chelsea Group, are stored securely online which enables teaching staff to refer to information on individual children from the beginning of their enrolment at CGC. These documents are only accessible from school computers. These documents include Pupil Profiles, Risk Assessments, Progress Profiles, Behaviour Profiles, Sensory Profiles, IEPs, Provision Maps, Annual Reports, Therapy Assessment Reports, Weekly Homelink Highlights, the CGC Planning and Progress Tool.
Our building and the furnishings are unexpected for a special needs school. We intentionally make the interior as home-like as possible to reassure those children who have failed in other academic settings, which is the case with most of our students. Failure is experienced even in nursery school and the association with the classroom is not positive for those children who feel diminished by their academic, developmental, and/or social challenges in the typical school environment. We feel the strategies for coping with sensory aversions, poor attention, poor interactions with peers, etc., should be developed in a non-clinical environment to enable the child to generalize these skills.
The lesson rotations are well planned, making the best and most effective use of the school day. Children move smoothly through rotations. This is one of the most important things we do to ensure the children have the structure they crave while at the same time, develop the flexibility to transition from one activity to another environment to another. Transition times are opportunities for the real-life skills of changing from one activity to another, independent skills of toileting, dressing and undressing in coats, shoes, boots, and physically experiencing movements within schedules and routines.
Challenging behaviors are often the remnants of the trauma of a child’s failure in a mainstream setting. Many children have learned disruptive behavior will trigger removal from the classroom and this becomes their goal. Therefore we keep a child in the classroom, supported by staff who follow that student’s Positive Behaviour Plan and his Therapy Provision Map, as long as the other children’s learning is not impaired. This requires a balance between inclusion and exclusion for the benefit of all. Our staff is highly trained and experienced in managing challenging behaviors. We create an atmosphere in which a student can experience success.
Our Therapy staff consists of 3 full-time Occupational Therapists and 4 full-time Speech and Language Therapists who work in the classrooms to view the child’s abilities in the setting in which he or she may be experiencing the most pronounced difficulties.
The speech and language therapists teach weekly and daily small group sessions in Social Communication, Drama, PECs, and Makaton. The Occupational Therapists teach weekly and daily small group sessions that include activities of Daily Living, Cookery, Community Outings, Handwriting, Yoga, and Gross Motor Movement Skills. Both the speech and language therapists and the occupational therapists work in one-to-one therapy sessions with all children. The IEPs are developed jointly by all teaching and therapy staff members.
Communication and language development involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves and to speak and listen in a range of situations.
Physical development involves providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive and to develop their coordination, control, and movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of physical activity and to make healthy choices about food.
Personal, social, and emotional development involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others to form positive relationships and develop respect for others to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings to understand appropriate behavior in groups and to have confidence in their abilities.
Our approach to the academic needs of the child is broad, balanced, and dynamic covering all aspects of the National Curriculum.
We plan each curriculum carefully, choosing generative topics for engagement and cross-curricular opportunities so there is coherence and full coverage of all aspects of our learning goals (goals for understanding), and there are planned evidenced progression in all curriculum areas.
Continual assessment informs and drives the development and flexibility of each curriculum and the individual education plans. Each teacher specializes in his or her domain and, as such, can more easily differentiate activities and resources for the various levels of abilities, which are represented in even small groups of students.
An individual and child-centered approach, building a teaching plan based on the broad profile of the student, best serves the complex child who cannot be taught using one age level curriculum. The staff provides as many experience-based learning opportunities as possible. We feel lessons can be highly motivating if made real by connections to the child’s world outside school.
The developmental levels of abilities, the cognitive functions, and the specific learning and social challenges of each child are thoroughly and continually assessed by the team of teachers and therapists working in the school. Every disability is different even children with identical diagnoses can present a range of different complex needs. Each child is unique in neurological, developmental, and emotional makeup.
An individual and child-centered approach, building a teaching plan based on the broad profile of the student, best serves the complex child who cannot be taught using one age level curricula.
