Who do we cater for?
Mary Hare Primary School is a non-maintained special school which caters for primary-aged children with severe or profound hearing loss. We accept day and weekly boarding pupils of both sexes into our beautifully situated school on the rural outskirts of Newbury, Berkshire.
We welcome enquiries from any family who wants their child to develop their spoken language. We have children from hearing families, deaf families, schools for the deaf, mainstream schools, and units. Some children have very little language on arrival –perhaps only one, or a few words; others have a signing background and the family and child want to develop their oral skills, to be able to live successfully in both deaf and hearing worlds.
Other children have significant emotional difficulties because of their experience of failure in mainstream education. All children are exhibiting language delay and the frustrations and unhappiness that this can cause.
The school is non-denominational and follows a natural aural philosophy, aiming to produce talking deaf children, regardless of their degree of deafness or ability. Our teachers are specialist teachers of the deaf who are committed to this approach and who take every opportunity to make use of whatever residual hearing each child possesses. A significant number of our pupils have cochlear implants and the staff now have considerable experience of educating and catering for such children.
