Availability
Age Ranges
0-19
Referral required
Yes
Referral Details
Your child can receive support from the Sensory Service if they have a confirmed diagnosis of:-
- semi-permanent or permanent Deafness, or
- a Vision Impairment that cannot be corrected by glasses
and are either
- resident at a Greenwich address when of pre-statutory school age or
- they attend (whether or not a Greenwich resident):-
- a Greenwich early years/nursery setting
- a Greenwich mainstream primary or secondary school without an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP)
Education Health and Care Plans
If children of statutory school age in a Greenwich school have an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP), they are the responsibility of the Local Authority (LA) who funds the EHCP. The funding LA will be based on your residential address.
- If Greenwich LA funds the EHCP then Greenwich Sensory Service will support your child.
- If a different LA funds the EHCP then the Sensory Service from that LA should support your child.
Children of statutory school age in an independent education setting are entitled to one assessment visit only from Sensory Service unless they have an Education Health and Care Plan that specifies and requirement for continued and ongoing support from the Sensory Service team.
Preliminary Assessment of Support Needed
The Sensory Service uses the Eligibility Framework developed by the National Sensory Impairment Partnership (NATSIP) to determine the level of involvement with your child. NATSIP is a Department for Education funded organization that develops provision and strategy to support all providers (including Local Authorities) who support children with sensory disabilities. Depending on assessed need, involvement can range from visits to home or schools twice a week to one annual visit or monitoring progress via audiology or ophthalmology reports only.
Children attending specialist sensory provision such as a special school or a designated special provision (DSP) will already be supported by specialist teachers/staff in that school so they will not need Sensory Service support.
If your family live in Greenwich but your child attends an independent school. non LA funded school or a school outside of the borough you cannot access the regular Service for your child in school. The exceptions to this are:-
- The Sensory Service will carry out one assessment visit for a child in an independent school or non LA funded and provide advice on how the sensory needs can be met by the school
- If your child is in an independent or non LA school and has an EHCP for sensory disability, continued support may be made to your child for the specialist provision that the school cannot offer.
There are Sensory Services available in the other local authorities and information on how to access this support can be provided by the Royal Greenwich SEN or Sensory Services.
Referral
The most common method of referral is via a tertiary audiology or ophthalmology clinic.
Confirmed diagnosis of deafness or vision impairment from a Health Service audiology/ENT clinic or ophthalmology department which is supported by a report with full details of the sensory needs.
Confirmed diagnosis of deafness and referral may happen soon after birth due to the Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening process. Families are offered a hearing test in the hospital soon after birth.
Children are not universally screened for vision impairment at birth or in later infancy. Diagnosis can take longer to achieve and usually is a result of targeted concern expressed by families or paediatric health professionals.
It is now possible for schools or related professionals eg health visitors, paediatricians to make a referral using the SEN Outreach Services referral form. However, such referrals will still only be accepted if there is supplementary evidence of a clinical diagnosis of hearing loss or vision impairment.
Related links
National Deaf Children's Society
Universal Support
The Sensory Service can provide online training via a dedicated provider Online Training International covering hearing impairment and vision impairment modules, as well as those for other areas of SEND.
Training in British Sign Language (BSL). The courses accredited by ‘Signature’. Courses are offered at levels 1 and 2 within the national qualifications framework.
Targeted Support
Learning and Curriculum Support
The Sensory Service can
- Provide direct support and training for early years and school based staff to plan the classroom and the social environment in education settings in order to be sure the needs of child are planned for all activities and the children enjoy good access throughout their day.
- Support school staff in developing adapted and individualised learning targets to ensure that opportunities are suitably matched to your child’s needs.
- Provide direct teaching to children who are seen frequently – this can be offered by a specialist advisory teacher, a Deaf Instructor or a specialist outreach worker
- Training from a Habilitation Specialist for those with a Vision Impairment to support the development of mobility and independence skills in the home, school and community
- Organise support for key transitions particularly from early years to primary school and from primary school to secondary and post 16 settings. We would aim to ensure that information and strategies designed to support your child are shared between the settings your child is leaving and moving to.
- For students based at Shooters Hill College and who have an EHCP on account of their deafness. Full in class communication support may be offered eg BSL interpretation and/or note taking. An onsite teacher of the deaf and support staff, including a speech and language therapist and Deaf instructor will develop a structure of support to meet each individual student’s needs
- Where relevant, we also offer support for young people moving to post 18 settings including further study and employment or
All support provided will be based on and around each individual child or young person's specific needs and circumstances, and adapted to suit his/her situation
Access and Inclusion Resources
Provision of specialist practical resources. These can include:-
Vision Impairment
- Low vision aids
- Pre Braille and Braille materials
- CCTV
- Adapted tactile educational materials
- Pre cane and cane training via Habilitation sessions
- iPads and other adaptive and accessible technology systems
Deafness
- Personal Assistive Listening Devices (ALD). This include systems such as the Roger Transmitter System attached to the individual hearing aids or cochlear implants
- Soundfield systems: where a speaker system is provided in your child’s class
- Support in maintaining hearing aids and cochlear implants and ALDs. This can include providing limited spares and carrying out electronic tests of function.
- For most hearing aid spares, the hospital audiology department will need to be contacted as hearing aids are issued by health and not education. he Sensory Service will provide ALD spares.
Targeted Training in Deafness and Vision Impairment
- Provide whole school training to raise awareness of sensory disability within your child’s school and to ensure that all staff have an understanding of strategies appropriate for students with a sensory disability
- Provide training for those staff directly supporting your child
- This can involve either a twilight or training day INSET presentation or can involve a longer course such as the vision impairment teaching assistant course, which lasts for three days and has practical and theoretical input.
Support for Families
- Children aged 0-3 referred to the Sensory Service, visits by specialist staff will be offered to families in the home. These visits can alternate with visits to any pre-school setting that your child attends
- Sensory Service staff will continue to offer visits to the home or meetings with families within the school setting even after children have started school at 3+ or 5+. This will depend on the needs of the children eg if a team around the child meeting is considered desirable or if there are particular requests by families for a meeting or visit.
- Visits to the home can be for a number of purposes. These can include:-
- Deafness:-
- Strategies for developing spoken language and supporting general development
- Support for encouraging hearing aid use and maintaining hearing aid
- Vision Impairment: -
- Strategies for developing spoken language and supporting general development
- Support for encouraging multi-sensory learning, sourcing and using Low Vision Aids and other adaptations
- Providing Habilitation Support, such as route learning, cane and pre-cane skills and training
- Deafness:-
How to complain:
If you have issues you would like to discuss, you can do so by contacting the Head of Service, or through the Royal Borough of Greenwich complaints department.
Local Offer Age Bands
Pre-Birth - 5 years
5-11 years
11-16 years
16-19 years
SEN Provision Type
Specialist