Blossom House
Blossom House
Nearest train station: Raynes Park
is a specialist school in Wimbledon for children from three to sixteen with speech , language and communication impairments. Although many of the children have some associated difficulties such as fine motor problems or poor organisational skills, they are all within normal range of intelligence. Our aim is that in the course of time as many children as possible will return to mainstream education.
Communication is fundamental to learning and in the majority of children the skills that are required to become good communicators develop spontaneously and effortlessly. There are, however, a group of children for whom the acquisition of these vital skills is a real problem and this number appears to be growing. We can rarely pin-point the cause of a speech and language disorder and although research is being undertaken, I suspect that we may never know the exact reason for these children's failure to develop speech and language. However, what we can do is to provide a high quality education that enables them to reach their potential.
Blossom House provides an integrated programme of learning in a caring and highly supportive environment. Self-esteem and confidence are crucial to success and many of our children arrive at Blossom House with a very poor self-image and little belief in any ability they do have. A positive behavioural approach encompasses every part of the school life so that all acceptable and appropriate behaviours are rewarded and unacceptable or inappropriate behaviours are ignored as far as possible. This often means that we have to praise the children for looking at the speaker or sitting quietly on their chairs - actions that in the normal course of life would never be commented on.
At Blossom House the children follow the National Curriculum although some areas will need modification to take account of specific difficulties. All the children in the full-time school learn keyboard skills as soon as they are developmentally ready with the aim that they will be able to use a laptop computer for some of their work later on. Speech and language therapy is an integral part of the curriculum and each child has access to a speech and language therapist daily either individually or in a small group session.
Physiotherapy, occupational therapy and music therapy are also key areas of the curriculum and each child will have the opportunity to have both individual and/or group sessions if the need is there.
Blossom House has a unique atmosphere created by a totally dedicated highly competent and wonderfully caring staff. Each child is valued as an individual so that his or her own specific strengths are acknowledged and weaknesses supported.