Castleview Cheque Presentation

Rotary club of Stirling meeting of 27/1/17.

President Alan Rankin welcomed our speaker Donna Wheater and two other guests, Leigh Provan and Harry Deerin.

Donna Wheater, head of Castleview school, started her talk by explaining that all of her pupils are severely disabled, mentally or physically.  The children live at home traveling to the school daily. The purpose of the school is to identify each child's educational needs by a process of staged intervention, initial assessment, then regular review, and to this end the school is well resourced in terms of equipment and staffing, 29 pupils, 5 teachers, and 18 support staff. Being next to Raploch Primary allows regular contact between the two groups of pupils, which is of benefit to both.  The school day starts as part of the group, moving on to activities chosen to address the educational needs of each pupil, and at the end of the day moving back into the group. Much of the communication with the pupils is by using Makaton, a system based on hand movements.
In addition, there are many out of school activities including working with the Big Noise. Despite the serious disabilities of the children, all our members who have visited the school noted how happy they are as a group, and the obvious high level of skill and dedication of the staff.

Donna thanked the club for its donation which would be used for equipment or social activities, and invited us to visit the school in the near future. 

The vote of thanks was given by Stewart Wilson.   

On 3rd February Speaker's host Derek Anderson, Visitor's host Elspeth King

Ian Richardson