Sensory education support team (SEST)
If you are a parent or setting with a child who has been identified with a hearing loss, you can seek support and advice from the SEST team.
Who are we:
We support families and settings with children and young people who have been identified with a hearing loss.
The hearing support team consists of specialist teachers and specialist teaching assistants who have worked and taught in a range of different schools and settings. The team attend a wide range of courses relating to supporting and working with children and young people with a sensory impairment and are highly skilled and experienced.
Our aim is to ensure that children and young people who have been identified with a hearing loss have full access to their learning environment, for them to make progress and achieve their full potential. If your child has had a medical diagnosis for their hearing, we are here to help.
How can we help:
We offer support, advice and specialist teaching to children and young people across a range of educational placements including nurseries, mainstream and special schools, This includes academies.
If your child is not yet in nursery or school the team may visit you and your child in the home. Support is offered during term time in school hours.
Children and young people with a hearing loss can face many unique challenges in accessing the curriculum and their environment. Our role is to identify those challenges and support those involved with the child or young person to overcome them.
As all children, young people, their families, schools, and settings are different, the frequency of visits and level of support offered will vary. The National Sensory Partnership Eligibility Framework (NATSIP) decides how much support is offered to each individual child or young person. This support is described as high, medium, low, monitor or advice.
The level of support is regularly monitored for any changes.
Babies who are identified with a permanent childhood hearing loss following newborn hearing screening are referred to the sensory education support team within 24 hours of an identification and contact is made with the family by a teacher of the deaf within two working days.
Children and young people aged between 0 and 25 can be referred at any other time once identified with a hearing loss. We accept new referrals from parents, ear nose and throat (ENT) and audiology departments, schools, and settings.
