The Learning Skills (LS) Department is an integral part of Downe House that focuses on individual progress. Its aim is to enable each girl to learn in a way that suits her unique profile, and to promote those skills for learning that will underpin consistent progress across the subject range for the wider School community.

The department aims to encourage every girl to grow in confidence by recognising her unique strengths and to assist her in identifying useful strategies which she can transfer into her own learning; thus students are enabled to flourish in the classroom and beyond. As early identification is key, parents are requested to disclose the nature of any specific learning difficulties in advance of an application. The department can support pupils with a range of specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, mild speech and language and semantic pragmatic language disorders, low level attention deficit (hyperactive) disorder, as well as those in need of skills development.

The LS team consists of five well-qualified and experienced specialist teachers and it is well resourced with a variety of games, computer programmes and texts to encourage overlearning.

An ‘open door’ department

All programmes have an agreed set of termly targets which are reviewed regularly often as part of an individual educational plan to ensure pupil progress. Some on the database who are not deemed to need regular one-to-one support can have ‘open door’ access to a LS teacher, on a less regular basis; others on the database need little contact with the department, but the fact that their SpLD is noted on the database means that their progress is regularly monitored by the department and subject staff. The Head of LS is an assessor of students with SpLDs and has strong collaborative links with external SEN professionals, such as educational psychologists and Speech and Language therapists. All the LS teachers aim to respond flexibly and in co-operation with the wishes of the pupils and their parents.