At Capella House we benefit from an onsite team of Speech and Language Therapists and therapy assistants, allowing us to integrate our specialist provision into the curriculum and wider school day. Our therapy team works closely with teachers, support staff, families and external professionals to ensure that the children’s speech, language and communication needs are supported both in school and in the community, globalising skills and maximising the progress of our young people.

Our specialist team do this in three ways:

Our integrated universal offer includes:

• One whole class communication session a week led by the Speech and language therapist-this targets a range of skills including language development, social communication, exam and employment skills.

• One mixed therapy session a week jointly led by the Speech and language therapist and Occupational therapist. 

• One intervention session a week led jointly by the therapy team and teachers. These focus on skills for learning individual to each child.

• Sign Supported English (SSE) is taught to staff and children and used throughout the school to support expression and understanding. For more information on SSE click here.

• A whole school approach to vocabulary learning, where keywords are pre-taught and reinforced in fun and engaging ways.

• A whole school approach to language development using Shape coding and our evidence based communication curriculum. 

• An extensive wellbeing package including the use of Zones of Regulation, input from our Emotional Literacy Support Assistant and tailored work with Achieving for children clinical and educational psychologists. 

In addition, all staff are provided with training in Speech Language and Communication needs and relevant interventions on a weekly basis, ensuring a high level of expertise across all areas of the school.

Click below to download our Universal Provision document.

All classroom staff will deliver occupational therapy, with training and oversight by an occupational therapist employed by the school. In addition, a Therapy Assistant will be appointed to support and deliver programmes across the school.

Physiotherapy will be provided to meet the requirement as set out in the EHCPs of individual pupils but the level of need for this type of therapy is expected to be relatively low.  

Additional therapies such as music therapy, art therapy and counselling to individual pupils and small groups based on need will be made available within Capella House School as required.

Referrals for these therapies will be made by staff, parents or the pupils themselves. Referrals will be considered based on the additional therapies that have already been accessed or are currently being accessed by pupils. Pupils will not access multiple additional therapies at one time. This will ensure that the impact of each of the therapies is known and evaluated.

Capella House will buy in time from the Educational Psychology Service, phased in as the school grows.

The Educational Psychologist will meet with the Headteacher to plan the support needs for the term ahead. This will be reviewed regularly, and additional support can be purchased from the Educational Psychology Service if necessary.  Referrals for support from the Clinical Psychology Service can also be made by the school as when needed.