PAGE 69

3.6 St Thomas R.C. Primary, Arbroath

Teamwork
St Thomas R.C. Primary

Dean has Cerebral palsy, which has affected the right side of his body. He is naturally right-handed but has had to adapt to writing with his left hand, as the fine motor control in his right is poor.

Dean moved to Abroath from Glasgow during P3 and moved back there, a few weeks ago, towards the end of P7. No Record of Needs had been started in Glasgow but the Head Teacher at St Thomas' set the wheels in motion, involving both the Educational Psychologist and the Physiotherapist.

The Armistead Child Development Unit in Broughty Ferry also assessed Dean. Meanwhile, I introduced a gross and fine motor skills programme based on James Russell's book Graded Activities for Children with Motor Difficulties (1988). This involved ball skills, bunny jumps, balancing, knocking down skittles, and for the fine motor skills, picking up buttons, threading beads, etc.

After assessing him, the physiotherapist gave me a sheet of exercises for Dean to work through at home and at school. These were updated regularly.

BT Assist was asked to assess him and an Alphasmart Laptop was purchased for his use. However, as he spent more time using the function keys and deleting work, this was not used on a regular basis.

As I initially had four schools to cover (now down to two), I was only able to work with him for half an hour per week, but he has benefited from the combined help from all agencies and is more able to cope with the daily routine of school life.