Along with Alan McQueen, NDCS Family Officer and Paul Mullan, NDCS Scotland Campaigns Manager, I recently met with Aberdeenshire Council to discuss their recently announced changes to pupil support.
The Council outlined the background to the review of pupil support and the process of creating the new Pupil Support Assistant (PSA) role. This has replaced the previous posts of Classroom Assistant, Support for Learner auxiliary, Children’s Supervisor and Lunchtime auxiliary. In addition, following a needs assessment in all schools they will be reducing the overall number of PSAs by 183 full-time posts.
The Council confirmed that there would be no cuts to the specialist Sensory Support Service (ie Hearing Support Teachers) which is good news, and they gave a reassurance that children with the highest level of need will continue to receive effective support.
I was happy to have the chance to meet with senior officials from the Council to put forward our concerns around training levels for the new posts, how it is determined which children have the highest level of need, support for social inclusion amongst others, and I think we had a good discussion.
However, I reiterate to all our members that you are your child’s best advocate. You need to have continuous open communication with your school about what support your child needs and is receiving.
If you are aware of any specific cuts, please let us or NDCS know (they have an interactive map on their website for tracking cuts), or if you require advice or support around securing appropriate help for your child contact us or NDCS and we can put you in touch with relevant agencies.
FUNDING NEWS
Those of you who were at the Ceramic Experience in October may have spoken to Esther Dickson and her friends, a group of students at St Machar Academy who were putting together a presentation on GDCS for the Youth Philanthropic Initiative, which awards funding to charities based on school presentations.
We were delighted to hear that the girls were successful and secured £3000 for us and are hoping this will enable us to run another Abernethy residential weekend in 2013! Thanks girls!
If you are taking part in a fundraising event, please consider us, or if you have any ideas let us know.
BE OUR FRIEND ...
In our constant efforts to find quick, convenient, cheap and effective ways to communicate with our members, we’re now on Facebook. News and information is often posted there first simply because timescales are usually too short to get letters out. It is a ‘closed’ group meaning any Friend Requests have to be approved and only approved friends can post on it.
We’ve got around 20 friends already – a combination of young people, parents and professionals. Search in Facebook for ‘Grampian Deaf Children’s Society’ and hit the Friend button!
JIM HUNTER REMEMBERED
It was with great sadness that we learnt recently of the death of Jim Hunter. Jim was a former Head Teacher of Aberdeen School for the Deaf and then later Head of Hearing Impaired Services for Grampian Regional Council.
In both of these positions Jim worked tirelessly in support of deaf children and their families. Born of deaf parents, Jim had a special insight into the issues affecting deaf people and the needs of their deaf and hearing families. He was not only a great advocate for the deaf community but was at the forefront of thinking in terms of communication. At a time when the oral or sign education debate raged, he introduced Paget Gorman Signed Speech to the school as an effective communication tool for profoundly deaf pupils to promote combined speech and sign. He was a popular Paget Gorman instructor, teaching parents and friends the skills needed to communicate with their deaf children. As a fluent & natural BSL speaker he continued to support the subsequent introduction of BSL to the children.
He was also an active committee member of the Grampian Deaf Children’s Society. He continued in this position after retirement and even after resigning from the committee Jim and his wife Norma, retired nursery teacher at Aberdeen School for the Deaf supported GDCS in very practical ways by helping at events where a sign language interpreter was needed.
Jim had a great sense of humour, always with a smile and a kind word. He took great delight in scouring the minutes of committee meetings for any errors and he kept us on our toes. He was very generous with his time and talents helping out at National Deaf Children’s Society events as well.
He was very much liked and respected by staff, parents and pupils alike and will be greatly missed. Thoughts and best wishes go to Norma and their sons, Steven and Adrian, at this time along with appreciation of Norma’s own tremendous contributions over many years of service.
SUBTITLED FILMS
Over the years, we have bemoaned lack of subtitled films, or having to wait weeks/months after release of big movies to see a subtitled screening. Well, last summer we were contacted by the manager of Cineworld in Union Square who was committed to showing not only regular subtitled movies, but to ensure ‘blockbusters’ were available soon after release.
We organized a few trips last summer (Harry Potter 7.2 and Cars 2) and he has kept his word, and continued to screen at least two subtitled screenings per week, often big name movies only a week or two after release. A range of films and ratings are shown and I’d recommend you keep an eye on the listings. Recent subtitled films included Puss in Boots (just before Christmas) and War Horse (this week).
Listings are only planned a week or so in advance so it’s often not possible to arrange planned trips, but we will try to do so for some popular family movies. Due to the short notice, these trips are notified via email and Facebook, so make sure we have your email address, or you are our ‘Friend’ on Facebook.
See Events listing for details of Movies for Juniors – subtitled family films for £1.00.
Photos from Deeside Activity Park - June 2011
