How can we adapt our classroom?

Recently me and my colleges have been discussing how we can adapt our classrooms to enable childrens learning. It is more common these days to use the likes of pecs, visual ads for all children. In some schools is it a must that the class is introduced to visual ads. Basically what it does it uses pictures to show the children how the days is going to run. In some instances this is a positive as it prepares children for the day ahead, they are able to identify what comes next and be able to settle easier. Also if the class has a child with additional needs who needs pecs to be able to have a settled day it introduces all the children to it so ultimatly its a more inclusive classroom.

Today we had an interesting meeting with a teacher of the deaf about understanding deafness and how children are affected. 4 IN 30 children in a class suffer from some sort of deafness wether it be mild or profound. We discussed about what signs we need to look for if we feel maybe a child is not hearing aswel as they should. These were things like, moving away from the teacher when she was speaking, speaking loudly, speaking in a high pitch, staring, looking like they are dreamy, not answering when called, giggling when spoken to. All of these could be an indication to us that a child has something wrong with their ears.
She discussed with us how the ear can be damaged, what we can do from an early age as parents to prevent this. We all used hearing ads to get a feeling of what it must feel like.
She also discussed with us about how we deliver to children and using clear speech and alliteration, especially for the younger children and our EAL children (no english)

I feel like this is important to share with those of you that work in schools as it is something that is over looked in when children get to an older age. We have a dentist and a nurse to check childrens height and weight in reception but no one to test hearing. This means that children are falling through the net.

I intend to look more into this and why children are not seen by some professions at an early age.