Thinking Schools Academy Trust announced the Rainbow Fish Inclusion Centre open on Friday, October 15. When full, Rainbow Fish Centre will have 2 classes, Starfish and Octopus.
This space will provide state-of-the-art facilities for children with complex cognition and learning difficulties aged between four and nine, who have an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP) across the city.
Located at Penhale Infant School, which is part of Thinking Schools Academy Trust, the Rainbow Fish Inclusion Centre has been designed to include an innovative sensory and soft-play room to help develop and engage students’ senses as well as offer a safe space and calming environment within school.
The Inclusion Centre is a resourced provision for children who have an EHCP or are currently undergoing assessment, who are awarded placement by the Inclusion Support Panel (ISP) which is run by Portsmouth City Council’s SEN Team. The children will work towards being able to integrate into mainstream for some learning, with a high level of support to meet their specific needs from the provision staff.
Our curriculum centres on each child of Rainbow Fish class as an individual, looking at their starting points and next steps. We follow the EYFS and National Curriculum, however, this is highly tailored to the needs of the children. We work closely with the mainstream part of Penhale to ensure that there are meaningful opportunities for children to integrate and learn in their link classes where appropriate.
To ensure that our curriculum is child-centred, we work with a range of other professionals such as Speech and Language Therapists, Educational Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists to ensure that each child’s holistic needs are being met as part of our curriculum.
Our topics are closely linked to the mainstream part of the school to support integration. However, these topics are a vehicle to the individualised learning for those children within the Inclusion Centre as their learning will be highly personalised to their individual level.
Our aim is to work closely with parents which is why we start with a home visit to ensure that our staff know the children as well as possible before they start within the Inclusion Centre. We have regular contact with parents using whichever method is best – in person, via telephone or email so that parents are kept informed about the child’s development within the Inclusion Centre.
We hold termly parents evenings to discuss the children’s next steps. We use communication books which go between home and school so that all adults involved with the child know about the day-to-day details so that children are well supported.
