Climbing into secondary school

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My name is Sharon McKennay and I'm Skye's Mum.

Skye was basically born completely profoundly deaf.

A week before her first birthday,

she was given the cochlear implant

and from that she has just gone on with the cochlear

and been given the opportunity
to hear and speak and listen.

I think school is great and it's a lot of fun when you're around your friends.

Skye has been here since she was three and a half.

The support has been amazing.

Basically anything that Skye has needed,

she's been given.

The support from teachers, visiting teachers

and teachers' assistants,

it's just been a wonderful, very positive experience.

It's been fantastic.

I've been working with Skye now for 2 years.

Initially we were coming twice a week

and we've gradually, as she's developed her listening and speaking skills

we've been able to reduce that service because

she's becoming more and more independent.

Basically, it's as the first day of high school

so they'll learn to meet new friends,

and there's also going to be lots of challenges

along the way so in terms of the activities going on

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I'm really excited and nervous.
- Yeah.

It's very scary at first

but once you get into the rhythm and stuff

you feel happy and have fun around everyone.

Everybody's breaking into groups now

so we're doing some search and rescue or flying fox

and there's even a rope climbing course inside.

So all the kids are about to do that

which they're really looking forward to.

I think it's great so you can meet other kids

with the same things and make new friends

and they all have the same, we're all in the same boat.

So it was put together because next year

there's going to be two different cohorts of students.

We wanted to organise something about transitioning

because kids with a hearing loss have some

special needs that need to be addressed

so we thought it would be

a great opportunity to bring all the kids together

and have a bit of a chat with them etc.

It gives everybody the opportunity

to meet each other and then grab some

contact details and phone numbers

and support each other afterwards.

A lot of the kids are mainstreamed

which means they're the only student

in the school who has a hearing loss

so this is one of the very few opportunities

where the kids get to come together

to meet each other and talk to each other

and realise that they're not the only person in the world with their special need.

I think it's going to be really fun and also I'm going to be a bit nervous.

It's really exciting and it's really different to what I expected.