Children with severe and specific speech and language difficulties, such as a language disorder or significant language delay, may benefit from a placement in the Speech and Language Resource Base when these are their primary needs.

All children who attend the Speech and Language Resource Base have been referred by the Local Authority. The Speech and Language Resource Base at Fairways therefore requires a separate application from the main school (see below). Please note that children with speech and language needs in the main school do not have direct access to this specialist provision.

However, children who do attend the Speech and Language Resource Base are very much part of our school. We encourage children to achieve their best by providing specialist teaching and intensive speech and language therapy in a supportive environment. The Speech and Language Resource Base operates an inclusive policy tailored to meet the needs of each individual child.

Our ultimate aim is to equip the children with the necessary skills to be successfully included in their own community and local mainstream school.

We specialise in helping children with difficulties in:

• Understanding spoken language
• Following the sequence of instructions
• Understanding the meaning of words
• Understanding the rules of conversation
• Planning words in the right order and sentence construction
• Using language productively in a social context
• Learning and retrieving vocabulary
• Formulating abstract concepts
• Extracting the main points of information which is presented
  verbally
• Understanding inferences and subtleties of language e.g. metaphor
• Integrating and generalising from information which is presented verbally
• Learning and applying phonological rules
• Sequencing and organising speech sounds
• Articulating clearly

The Speech and Language Resource Base operates an inclusive model where children, if appropriate, work alongside their mainstream peers, usually in the afternoons.

Specialist teaching takes place within a language-enriched environment in small supportive groups.

Speech and Language therapy is provided, as appropriate to the needs of each child. This may focus upon developing receptive and expressive language skills, vocabulary, attention, listening and speech.

We have an ‘open door’ policy to all parents of children in the base and there is daily and weekly contact.