Providing Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy to students in Wellington City.
Base: Kimi Ora School, 21 Turnbull St, Thorndon, Wellington
PH 4729045 ; Fax 4737525
Therapists:
Claire Hodson - Physiotherapist - claireh@kimiora.school.nz
Ruth McHugh - Occupational Therapist - ruthm@kimiora.school.nz
Service provided:
The Moderate Needs Team provide an itinerant service to schools in Wellington City.
Typically the students we provide therapy for do not receive ORRS funding.
They have difficulty in accessing the curriculum due to poor motor
skills / co-ordination.
These difficulties are not always detectable on
initial observation but become apparent when the student struggles to
complete a set task. i.e. produces messy hand writing, falls
frequently, is unable to catch a ball, struggles noticeably with PE
activities, struggles with fine motor tasks like holding a pencil
correctly, using scissors, doing up buttons etc.
Referral process:
Parents and teacher fill in an application form.
Send this to the Moderate Needs Team.
The student must have difficulties in 3 out of 5 of the following areas;
- Physical safety
- Gross motor skills
- Fine motor skills
- Self-management
- Change in circumstances or learning demand
An assessment is conducted at school to determine if they meet our criteria for intervention.
If they meet our criteria we can then visit the student at school for
therapeutic activities that will hopefully help improve their motor
skills and / or leave ideas and activities for the teacher aid, teacher
and parents to carry out.
Therapists may also attend IEPs to help co-ordinate
our plans with the teacher, parents and any one else involved with the
student's education programme.
During visits we use games and activities that
hopefully the student will repeat during school and later at home. Many
of our exercises are built into games so that they are appealing and
fun for our students to do, we also prepare hand writing work sheets
and various hand writing exercises that can be used at home and in the
classroom.
Referral forms can be downloaded in Word or PDF format or by contacting the team directly.
Or by downloading one from the Ministry of Education web site under Special Education / Moderate Needs Therapy.
Generic Activity:
A sample activity prepared by the Moderate Needs Team is generic activity handout.docgeneric activity handout.doc
