Learning Support at HIS
Harrow students generally achieve high standards but teachers or parents sometimes find that a student is having difficulties in keeping up. Teachers will help the student through behavioural management, tutoring, consultation with the parents, or counselling.
If these measures prove unsuccessful, the student may be referred to Learning Support Services for assessment. This will be achieved through reports from teachers, parents and boarding staff, through observation and diagnostic tests, which are now mostly computer-based and of a high level of technical complexity. Accurate diagnosis, sometimes with the help of outside agencies such as our Consultant Educational psychologist or Occupational Therapist, leads to the design of effective individualised support programmes. Our task is to devise a programme to help the student, through the class teacher, through classroom support or by withdrawal. The response is usually very positive and the students learn well, quickly gaining more confidence and self esteem through success. Dyslexic students, for example, once diagnosed, can make spectacular progress through our Units of Sound programme, gaining several years in Reading Age in a relatively short time. Our aim is to return our students, as soon as possible, to mainstream, fully equipped to address the curriculum adequately. . Recent LS ‘graduates’ are now studying in UK at a top university, on a scholarship in a distinguished UK music school and at a prestigious art school in Bangkok.
Learning Support Services have continuously sought to make better provision for students who have Learning Difficulties and this year we have gone from strength to strength with improved staffing and resources. Both Primary and Secondary L.S. centres have been refurbished with purpose-made workstations, providing an ideal, attractive environment for individualised work on multisensory phonological and other computer programs and associated exercises. Students can work without distraction, independently or with teacher support.
We continue to develop our own skills through high level courses undertaken locally and overseas. We are privileged to work in an area that enables us to facilitate the achievement of full potential in students with different cognitive characteristics.
Learning Support Services staff:
Primary
Amy Kelley : Learning Support Coordinator
Miss Lek : Learning Support TA
Preparatory
Mr Bill Nordstrom : Learning Support Coordinator
Secondary
Colin Appleton : Senior Learning Support Advisor
Jib Piper : Specialist Learning Support Teacher
Speech Therapy
Vered Pomagrin : Speech & Language Therapist
