COMMUNICATION is king at Maes Ebbw – a school to the west of Newport which caters for children and teenagers with special needs.

Though small at first glance, with only 140 pupils aged 3-19, Maes Ebbw crams a lot into a small space, and boasts a staff of 90 made up of teachers support staff.

Ms Allan, who left her role at the Regional School Improvement Service to take up the position of head, has only been at the school since September, 2017, but in that time she’s overseen plans for a new wing set to be finished by 2019.

“I wanted to be back in the classroom environment working with the children and families," said Ms Allan.

“I started life as a teacher in a normal school which had a special needs unit, and that’s where I found my calling.

“The school was actually only designed for 99 pupils,” explained Ms Allan.

“But here we have children with a whole range of different needs from learning difficulties to Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

“That means that we have small classroom sizes – they can be as small a six pupils in some cases. But that takes up a lot of space, especially with the amount of staff we have.

“Construction on the new wing is starting next month and should be finished by Easter 2019, meaning additional classroom space.

“There’s a nursing team on the site supporting the children’s medical needs, as well as physios and occupational therapists who come on a weekly basis.

“It will give us more space for touch trust therapy rooms, or example, which use specialist sensory equipment to allow some of our pupils with profound difficulties to experience different sensations."

Ms Allan explained the school’s main focus at the moment was a push to improve student communication skills.

Being a school with a number of severely disabled children, this is an important area to focus on, said Ms Allan.

“We have staff trained in ‘sign along’, which is a simplified form of sign language and is more suitable for people who might have learning difficulties,” she said.

“Another push is to use augmented and assisted communication devices. It’s a technological solution to help improve communication.

“It uses eye gauging technology or touch and it makes a huge difference with pupil who can’t usually communicate. They can use eye movements or touch to select things or express something.”

Another important focus, continued Ms Allan, was preparing older students for life outside the safety of the school.

“We teach skills like cooking and getting the bus independently, managing money and so on. They are skills that our older students need to be able to live as independently as possible when they leave school.”

As well as their theme of communication, Ms Allan was excited to tell us about the host of initiatives designed to give pupils at the school the best learning experience possible.

Ms Allan said: “The most popular lesson for the children here has to be the rebound therapy.

“It would look like just a big trampoline to some people, but we use it for the children’s physical development.

“By using it, children can develop muscle and core skills. Some of our more disabled pupils will lie down and be bounced by trained staff, while others can do backflips. They all absolutely love it though.

“We do a lot of work with the Welsh national Opera. They have kindly come in most Fridays this year to sing and perform with the children. The pupils really love it, and especially when they get to join in.

“We go out to Able Radio once a week with some of our older students. There the pupils can publish their own shows and some of the older children like to DJ and record their own programmes.

“This term we have introduced a 10K challenge to all pupils in the school. They do a lap, or as much as they can, around the school, which contributes towards their 10K challenge.

“It gets them all exercising, even if the walk or have to be pushed in their chairs.”

“Another initiative we are proud of is our ‘Parent’s Wednesdays’.

“On Wednesday morning we invite parents into the school. They come from all over Newport and often parent’s don’t know each other.

“More importantly they don’t know other parents who have children in the same situation, who can usually offer support and understanding.

“The group are really active and are really constructive in their ideas and support for the school.

“We also have a dedicated woodland area where he run forest school activities. The children love it out there because they can make dens and toast marshmallows and sing campfire songs.”