School White / Smartboards

[Eastyone]

My daughter is hard of hearing and can only wear a hearing aid in one ear (the other ear has a moderate / severe loss)
I want to ask the school to provide back ups of lessons and homework information by email as she is missing out on a lot of information how easy is this to do or do people have any other suggestions?

Thanks for listening

I think some of the resources they might use would require the smartboard software to run the presentations but if they are word or powerpoint- e-mailing them might well be possible.

I am surprised a pupil with a significant hearing loss hasnt got some sort of support in place.

I assume you have a visiting specialist teacher of the Deaf? Perhaps contact him/ her to see if they can set something in place- if not go on the local authority website which should have information regarding the Specialist teacher team for HI who you could contact for some advice.

Make an appointment to see the school SENco and ask for some support for her. The thing alot of teachers done realise is that its very difficult to make notes when you rely on lip reading- perhaps a note taker would be useful to her? Also- does she have the use of a radio aid? There are loads of good systems out there- again your visiting ToD or school SENCo should be able to investigate this.

Just out of interest I am interested to know why a moderate severe hearing loss isn't being aided? I am actually a ToD and several of my pupils have hearing losses in this range and are all aided. Only the very profoundest of losses are deemed unaidable these days.

Thank you for replying so quickly. The ear cannot be aided due to cholesteatoma and infection. Further down the line a BAHA may be offered she's just undergone surgery for the fifth time

There is a TOD who seems to be led by the SENco each time she visits an email arrives saying everything is just fine and I say no and state why things are still wrong but I think it is fair to say as parents we seem to be ignored.

My daughter is doing her GCSEs and I am now in touch with the head but I need to put forward a clear case. I have lots of examples where things are misheard and mistakes made. The school also seem to focus on the hearing aid and not the fact that she is hard of hearing

It may be down to 'reasonable adjustments' as she is very shy and won't want for example a speaker on her desk. I think emailing lessons would be the best solution but I'm sure they will put up a fight

I'm a maths teacher. I would not be able to email lessons, as I write a lot of stuff in pen on a non interactive whiteboard. Tbh even if I could email lessons this would create an unsustainable workload and I can't imagine teachers keeping up with it.

Ah that explains it. BAHAs are wonderful- I have had pupils with these and they really make a difference. My mum also had a BAHA due to a disease that destroyed her eardrums and middle ears. Conventional hearing aids did nothing for her but she could hear pretty much at a normal level with the BAHA.

Sounds like the ToD and or SENCO aren't much help. Ask for contact details for the ToD- you need to speak with her directly not through the SENCo.

Have you considered talking to the NDCS? They should have a local rep near you who may be able to go into the school to discuss how your daughter can be helped. The one in this area is fearsome! Really out the wind up one of our local mainstream schools who were doing nothing for an HI pupil!

Have a look on their website- there are loads of resources for schools explaining the difficulties of partially hearing pupils and what can be done to help. There has been quite a bit in the news recently about how HI pupils are being failed in mainstream schools. I would start to make some noise as with the right support there is no reason why she shouldn't acheive the same as her peers.

And I disagree with the poster above- I think many teachers would be prepared to e- mail their presentations/ notes to a pupil who, let's face it, has a disability?

Didn't you read my post? I don't have presentations to email! And I can guarantee that emailing a student after every lesson with various attachments would fall way down a list of teacher's priorities and get forgotten quite often.

Anyway, even if a presentation was emailed, if the problem is missing what is being said in the classroom, then that won't help.

I am a maths teacher and agree with noble giraffe that I wouldn't be able to email presentations. I only use a ppt around 50 % of the time. However, I do make sure that all key information is clear on the board for pupils to copy down.

When I have had hearing impaired students I always sit them in the classroom in a position where they are able to access the lesson, if the hearing is that severe then I feel extra interventions through senco should be in place.

Thanks PurpleAlert it doesn't look good for the whiteboard. I must say though Maths isn't such a problem as she is great with numbers and has a book with handouts so what the teacher is saying isn't too much of a problem. Also they are encouraged to work in pairs and she has a super brainy pair she gets on with.
I'm trying to think outside the box and make realistic suggestions to the school - I've looked at the Roger pen (which we could fund) but think it would be damaged in school too easily. Perhaps the school could take screen shots via a TA as I think a scribe? would not be wanted and seems really primative
Subjects where there is a lot of writing and not any resourses are the problem and I have asked over and over for these . The NDCS have been good and suggested isense other technology but there are waiting lists to trial. They suggested the whiteboard option
Does your mum also have cholesteatoma?

A TA take screenshots? At GCSE age your daughter should be able to do this herself! If mobile phones are banned in school then she should have permission to bring a camera and take the shots herself.

What access arrangements are in place for your daughter? Use of a camera should be added to that at her next review meeting or by parental request via SENCO.

I imagine that your DD constantly taking screenshots (very few classes have a TA and they have other things to do) would be more embarrassing to her than having a pen on her desk. Why do you think the pen would be damaged? I imagine that you could get a hard case for it. Something that could sit on her desk and allow her to hear the lesson would be by far the best solution.

Also, your daughter should be seated at the front or wherever the teacher speaks from. Teachers should be aware that your daughter has hearing loss and adjust their teaching accordingly, eg by making sure they are near her and on her "good" side when they speak, and by checking that she has understood homework instructions etc. and written them down correctly in her planner

It is unreasonable to expect teachers to email notes home to you. I think that it could be counter productive for you to have these without actually having been in the lesson as you could easily misinterpret the explanation of a bullet point that your daughter did actually hear correctly, creating confusion all round.

I think that you need to make sure that your daughter has appropriate classroom support to enable her to be an independent learner, be that by using technology or by her understanding that she must take responsibility for checking that her understanding is correct. It will be a valuable life skill.

Noblegiraffe - I work with many pupils who take frequent screenshots and, for them and the class, it is an established way of working. They sit near the board so can do this easily without disrupting everyone else and take the shot when the teacher says she is about to wipe the board.

Some screenshot directly to a laptop so they can annotate as they go but that does take some getting used to is mainly for VI students.

harriet I didn't say screenshots would be a problem themselves, but as the OP said her DD was very shy and too embarrassed to have a speaker on her desk she probably wouldn't want to stand out by taking photos.

All the standard (sit near the front, good side nearest teacher is in place) but thing are going wrong. I would love her to be an independent learner and I have tried for a short while to leave her to her own devices but things are quite serious now and she needs something in place
I don't think I could persuade her to do screen shots herself as it would draw too much attention and questions from peers.
As far as the Roger pen goes -she gets through a lot of pens, other children write on her pencil case and in her diary so would probably be curious and fiddle with the pen

Have you considered having a radio aid. My DS had a cholesteatoma, wears two hearing aids and finds his radio aid makes a major difference. He has a moderate to severe loss. It is very tiring struggling to hear.

It's not a pen though, it's an expensive piece of kit. Surely she could just ask other people not to touch it as 'mum would kill me if I break it'? The other students are old enough to understand.

I can suggest a radio aid but not sure why it wasn't already suggested by TOD
Yes the Roger pen is expensive (£540 I think) and we would need to trial it. Also not sure if TOD only works with certain aids.

I think you need to arrange a meeting with the school, including whatever SEN support staff they have (sorry my DD is at primary so not sure exactly how it works for older kids) ASAP.

I appreciate you want to go in and present your case with lots of ideas but it might be easier to start by having a dialogue as their experience/ideas may help and there's no point coming up with lots of wonderful potential solutions if the school then say they are unable to facilitate them.

I hope you manage to get it sorted soon. My mum is hard of hearing and I can't imagine how tough if must be for a teen.

As an English teacher in a school with a sensory unit I am expected to always hand my schemes of work over before each half term to the unit plus copies of books, plays etc. It seems to work well.