The Spires College is proud to be the designated secondary school in Torbay for students with hearing impairment.  As such, we have local authority funded places to ensure that Torbay has educational provision available for young people with a range of hearing loss.  As part of this provision, we have a Hearing Support Centre led by a specialist teacher of the deaf, Mr Lee Fullwood, and LSAs with training and experience that allows us to offer specialist support for students with hearing loss.

Where necessary, we tailor educational programmes for individuals that include regular lessons delivered by Mr Fullwood.  The Hearing Support Centre is purpose built especially for use with students with hearing impairments and the college operates a FM system linked to hearing aids to ensure that our students with hearing loss can access mainstream lessons. 

Admission Criteria

Students must have an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP).

Places at the enhanced provision for hearing impairment are allocated by the Local Authority and will be named on the students EHC plan either following an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) needs assessment or following an Annual Review of the students EHCP. 

To access the enhanced provision for hearing impairment at Spires Academy the child should:

• Be in receipt of an EHC plan naming sensory and physical difficulty and specifying a hearing impairment as their primary need;
• Be a child with at least a moderate hearing loss (41-70 db). Admissions for these pupils are managed by the Local Authority (SEN Team and Hearing Impaired Advisory Service).  
• Be between 11 and 19 years of age;
• Have a level of functioning and ability indicative of a child who does not experience severe learning difficulties; and
• Require access to an appropriately differentiated, broad and balanced curriculum and be included in mainstream activities for a significant percentage of the timetable. 

In addition, priority will be given to pupils transferring from special provisions for children with a hearing impairment, either primary, such as St Margaret’s School, or other specialist secondary provisions.