SMALL GROUP
Support and Inclusion
Sun Valley Primary School operates on the premise that learners with challenges/disabilities are as fundamentally competent as learners without challenges/disabilities.
Therefore, all learners can be full participants in their classrooms and in the local school community. It is this premise which has earmarked our School as a Full Service School.
What is a full Service School?
“Full-service/inclusive schools are first and foremost mainstream education institutions that provide quality education to all learners by supplying the full range of learning needs in an equitable manner. They should strive to achieve access, equity, quality and social justice in education.”
Guidelines for Full Service Schools, DBE, 2010
The driving principle of a Full Service School is to make all learners feel welcomed, appropriately challenged, and supported in their efforts. This principle is driven by the Support and Inclusion Team at our school as well as their regular education teacher, Learner Support Teacher and all other staff and faculty who are key stakeholders — that also includes parents.
Who makes up the Learning Support Team at SVPS?
- Mrs Caren Skea: Manager – Learning Support and Inclusion Team and SBST Coordinator and Foundation Phase Learning Support Coordinator
- Mrs Adele Jooste: Intersen Phase Learning Support Coordinator
- Mrs Emily Collison: Support Coordinator and School Counsellor
- Mr Denver Skippers: Language Enrichment Classes – Afrikaans Learner Support
- Ms Sibongile Gusha: Language Enrichment Learner Support
- Mr Siyasanga Mkiva: Visual Motor Programme Coordinator
The Learning Support Team in the Full Service School
The essential feature of the Full Service School is the co-ordinated and structured provision of support to accommodate a wide range of learning needs. Together, the School Management Team (SMT) and the Learning Support and Inclusion Team should:
- Establish a School Based Support Team (SBST)
- identify institutional, teacher and learner support needs
- develop strategies to address these needs
- draw in needed resources for support provision
- work collaboratively with educators to assess individual learners’ support needs and the development of support plans for these learners
- co-ordinate involvement of parents in decision making and planning for support for their children
- liaise with the District Based Support Team (DBST) to strengthen the school’s support provision.
- OT and Speech or Language Therapy
When necessary, learners are referred to the Speech/Language Therapists and/or Occupational Therapists who offer support to learners mainly in the Foundation Phase. Speech/Language Therapists offer support for articulation, speech and language developmental problems. They also help learners with verbal and written expressive language problems and those needing vocabulary expansion. Occupational Therapy focusses on the development of visual perceptual skills (important for reading, writing and mathematics), gross motor skills (promotes good posture and stamina) and fine motor skills (improves quality and speed of handwriting).
- Counselling:
Individual and group counselling and assessments, is also made available to learners if necessary. Further support is offered in the form of CARE Circles. - Paired Reading:
Paired Reading is offered to all learners in Grade 4 – 7 who lack reading fluency and confidence. Learners are given the opportunity to read in small groups of 2 – 5. - Peer reading support:
Peer paired reading is a Grade 7 initiated programme which aims to support learners who lack confidence in reading.
Here are some examples of the Intensive Support offered at SVPS
Concessions:
What is the purpose of a concession?
A concession enables a learner with barriers to function optimally within a mainstream system; it does not provide unfair advantage over other learners. The Department advises concessions are applied for at the beginning of each phase. In Primary School that would therefore be in Grade 4 and Grade 7 as per the Department of Education rules.
How do we identifying the need for a learner concession?
A concession applies when a learner has an identified barrier to learning.
This has to be formally diagnosed by an education psychologist or medical practitioner. Alternatively, it must be picked up by a teacher, who will then inform the SBST team who will then contact the parents in order to have the child tested.
Concessions are offered at Sun Valley Primary School in Conjunction with the WCED
- Scribe and Reader Concessions (A person who writes and reads for the learner)
- Scribe Concessions (A person who only writes for the learner – learner tells scribe what to write.)
- Extra Time (learner remains in the class / venue for this concession)
- Learners who only have reader concessions will make use of a CPEN (an electronic reader pen) which is a text-to-voice device. Learners write in the exam venue during the examination sessions and during tests. The use of headphone is compulsory.
- Prompter/planner concessions: The register educator does this during assessments. In the event of learner having this concession alongside a scribe and reader or scribe only, that person will then also be the prompter/planner.
