
Bevendean Primary School
and Nursery
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Launchpad








The Launchpad has been home to Brighton and Hove’s specialist provision for Deaf children for many years. Children from right across the city and beyond have been welcomed into The Launchpad and the wider Bevendean Primary community.
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The Launchpad has capacity for up to twelve Deaf pupils form Reception through to Year 6. They are supported by a team consisting of a Teacher of the Deaf/ team leader, an additional teacher, 3 HLTAs and 3 TAs. Between us, we have many years of experience of supporting Deaf children. The Launch Pad also has regular visits from other specialists, for example speech therapists and BSL signing experts.
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The Launchpad has three acoustically treated rooms to provide optimum listening conditions to help our pupils. We have two fully equipped small classrooms where we offer small group, partner or one-to-one sessions throughout the school day. In addition, staff also support learning and communication in the mainstream classrooms. Launchpad staff will use a mixture of spoken English and Sign-Supported English or BSL, depending on the individual needs of the child. Most of the children in the Launchpad are oral and use spoken English as to communicate, but we also have some BSL users. The whole school environment is continually reviewed to ensure it supports positive listening and learning for Deaf pupils. Visual aids, radio aids and soundfields are used in the great majority of mainstream sessions and assemblies involving our pupils.
Teaching in the Launchpad
All teaching and learning in the Launchpad is tailored to the individual child’s needs. Currently, most of our pupils are taught a daily English and Maths lesson in the Launchpad in a small group. The lessons are planned carefully to ensure the work matches each pupil’s learning and communication needs at a suitably challenging level in terms of language and understanding. Some of our children join their mainstream class for English and/or Maths and are supported in class by one of our brilliant TAs. Additionally, staff run intervention groups for a range of activities to develop the children’s speech, listening skills, social language and social skills as well as helping the children to learn about their Deafness and develop their Deaf identity.