A
Brief History
St.
Luke’s Primary School is a day special school
in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire. Currently, there
are just over one hundred children on roll aged from
3-11 years with moderate, severe and profound learning
difficulties. The majority of children have severe
learning difficulties (SLD) but about 15 per cent
of them have moderate learning difficulties (MLD).
25 per cent have profound and multiple learning difficulties
(PMLD).
The school was opened in September 2002 following
reorganisation by the North Lincolnshire LEA of its
two special schools. Both of the former special schools
were successful schools but had extreme accommodation
difficulties. Reorganisation was a long process starting
in early 1997. There were five years of considerable
uncertainty for staff and parents, although the children
themselves were remarkably resilient throughout. The
process was helped by the excellent cooperation and
goodwill shown by all parties but was hindered by
frustrating setbacks and vicissitudes. However, the
two new schools, St. Hugh’s Secondary School
and St. Luke’s Primary School, are now settled
into very good new buildings. Pleasingly, and reassuringly,
both have had good reports following Ofsted inspections
in 2004/05 and 2007. The
Buildings
From the outset
all of us – staff, governors, parents and
pupils - were involved in some way in the design
of the new buildings. As regards all aspects of
the provision for the pupils, we had a significant
influence upon the design of the whole building
as well as the specialist provision through our
close work with the architects. We may not have
got everything we wanted due to prohibitive costs
but we certainly got everything that we felt was
essential.
 The
building does provide all of the facilities required
to deliver a high quality education. One key ‘selling
point’ for the new school from the outset
was the pool for warm water activities which are
essential to the physical development programmes
of for pupils with physical disabilities. Another
is that the building is all on one level and does
not present access problems for wheelchair users.
The corridors have a good width and the walls have
been protected with brightly coloured ‘bumpers’
so that it does not matter when children do not
steer properly their mobility aids or wheelchairs.
Even so, we have had to tape plumbers’ lagging
to some mobility aids to reduce damage to the building.
Steering only comes with practice!
 The
school has separate PE and dining halls so that
there is full-time access to a hall for, say, a
music and movement activity. Specialist fitness
trails and adventure playground equipment have been
installed in the school grounds. There are areas
for football and other team games. At the children’s
request, raod markings have been put down for the
scooters and trikes used by them at break times.
Each classroom has a ceiling mounted tracking rail
and hoist for the safe moving and handling of children
with physical disabilities so that they can have
regular changes of position for their physical well-being
and so that they can access a range of activities.
All rooms have adjustable height sinks, and some
have adjustable tables, to accommodate children
who are in standing frames or wheelchairs. There
are specially equipped hygiene areas nearby and
a lot of thought has gone into the planning of the
layout of these. The sensory garden in the school’s
inner courtyard has raised beds created using log
rolls and adjustable height horticultural benches
for gardening activities.
We are very pleased with our specialist teaching
areas, the cookery room, the art room with its pottery
facilities, the ball pool and the multi-sensory
studio with its good range of visual and auditory
resources that can be operated by the children using
a range of specialist switches.
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