Angus receives National Shine a Light Award

Moor House student Angus Smith received a Highly Commended Award for Young Person of the Year! Angus has Specific Language Impairment and social communication difficulties which impact on many areas of his daily life because they affect his understanding and use of language and his ability to interact with others.

 

Angus received his award from Vanessa Feltz at a ceremony in London in November 2011 as part of the Shine a Light campaign.

 

Shine a Light was designed to honour individuals and teams that have demonstrated excellence in supporting the needs of all children and young people’s communication, including those with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN).

 

Angus explained “I often get my words mumbled up and have trouble being socially interactive. I need help in my lessons such as History, English and Science with making clear sentences and making my responses more structured with an introduction and conclusion. I find some of the words really hard to figure out. I get help from my Speech Therapist with understanding the vocabulary and she helps by using visual things and acting things out.”

 

Principal Hilary Dobbie said “I am extremely proud of Angus and all the pupils at Moor House. The Shine a Light Awards have provided a rare opportunity to celebrate the determination and compassion of one of our pupils.”

 

Lisa Campbell, Angus’ Speech and Language Therapist said “Angus was generally regarded as a quiet and shy young man around school until he astonished us with his determination to raise ‘serious money’ for The Comic Relief charity earlier this year. He personally volunteered to give away what was most precious to him, his shoulder length, curly, sandy brown locks and raised an astonishing £1362.00.  Angus has developed the skills and confidence to communicate with others in order to request for and collect sponsorship money; an achievement that would have been impossible for him just a couple of years ago because of his complex communication difficulties.”

 

Angus said “I am a Mentor to younger students with similar issues. My role is to set an example and to help a particular student and all new students settle into Moor House School so they can achieve things. I also wanted to show them new things and help them with and understand their difficulties. I often help those who are in distress. I want to make sure they are happy here.”

 

“I am really proud of what I have done. I have managed to prove to people that I am independent, sociable and a kind individual and now people won’t see me as the quiet boy who doesn’t contribute much to the school as when I first came here. I still have some difficulties but I am still trying to work myself around those difficulties and I see my speech therapist more often than I usually would because I want to improve myself and she helps with this and proves that just because I have language impairment does not mean I am not capable of achieving things.”

 

Karen Smith, Angus’ mother commented “Naturally we are very proud of Angus. We are also acutely aware that none of the achievements that have culminated in the award would have been possible without the "A" team of highly specialised therapists who have been supporting him at Moor House. Our thanks go out to EVERYONE at Moor House who has been and continues to “be there” for Gus and all the other pupils.