Special educational needs department
This year we welcomed 2 new classroom assistants to the school, Mrs. Sandra Gibson and Mr. Jeff Moore. Out team of learning support assistants now numbers 8 and they play an important role in supporting the pupils in their care, as well as supporting the teachers and school in all that we do, inside or outside the classroom.
Mrs. W. Floyd and Mr. A. Devers also received support, advice and guidance from Mrs. Alex McCollum (Literacy Training and Support Service) and Mrs. Andrine McWilliams (Inclusion and Diversity Service).
One of our priorities in the department is to keep abreast of all the current trends available to support and develop good practice within the school. To that end, a number of staff undertook training this year and attended various courses. Mrs. Catherine Sinclair and Mr. Jeff Moore enrolled at NRC Ballymoney to complete Teaching Assistant NVQ Level 3, as part of their professional development. Mr. A. Devers attended some training afternoons organized by the ASD support service and Mrs. W. Floyd completed a NASEN study at Stranmillis College led by Professor Gervase Phinn, which proved to be both enlightening and entertaining!
Throughout the year our Learning Support Team have considered a number of issues raised in the classroom: management of pupils with ADHD, ideas to improve levels of concentration, key words and banks of vocabulary for pupils for whom English is not their first language. This information is shared with all our colleagues.
On Prize Day it was great to see so many of our pupils achieve individual success. We make a special mention of Neil McBride, Alan Wylie and Mark Patterson in Year 12, who all did so well in their final year, but congratulations go to all the others who have worked so hard to meet their individual targets and have obtained good school reports. They know who they are!
Congratulations also go to Mrs. Nicola McAfee and her husband James, on the birth of their baby son, Richard. Nicola is one of our team of learning support assistants and there was great excitement when she brought baby Richard in for a visit to the department. We look forward to her return to school next year.
We are also looking forward to welcoming 5 new pupils in September, each of whom has Statements of Special Educational Needs, who have elected to come here to continue their education. Our department continues to promote the school’s core value of “excellence in all”.