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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.