John Jamieson School

The East SILC John Jamieson is a through generic special school. Pupils join our school with a wide range of challenges in their lives. Presently, we have children with moderate learning difficulties, severe learning difficulties, complex medical needs, physical difficulties, Downs Syndrome, hearing and/or visual impairments and Autism.

Our Post 16 provision also includes a site at Brigshaw which some of our young people can access from Year 12.

Developing the whole child and young person is important to us.  Our ethos is to provide a secure, caring and supportive environment where pupils are encouraged to fulfil their potential and thrive, academically, emotionally and physically. The pupils’ EHCP is at the heart of their learning and we strive to ensure that needs are met through a broad, dynamic and personalised curriculum.

The school applies a holistic approach to learning, and works closely with the speech therapists, the occupational therapists, physio therapists, educational psychologist and school nursing team. This enables to us to work closely with our young people and ensure that that they have the best support possible to access the curriculum and learn skills to prepare them for adulthood. Our nursing team are on hand to support with the medical needs of our pupils and the NHS paediatricians regularly hold clinics on site.

Communication and the development of communication skills plays a great part across all three Phases of our school.  We work hard to maintain a ‘Total Communication’ environment and use a range of strategies to support our pupils with communication needs.  These include the comprehensive use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication including PECS, Makaton, Eye Gaze, Talkers and other devices to support our learners with their communication needs.

Dependent on developmental stage, our pupils will follow a subject-specific or non-subject specific curriculum.  This is supported by a range of resources that are in place to enhance the learning experience. These include carefully adapted, specialist teaching rooms for science and food technology and therapeutic spaces such as the sensory room and ball pool. Our highly skilled team of professionals including teachers and teaching assistants work together positively to enable the absolute best outcomes for our pupils, who always remain at the heart of all we do.