Special Educational Needs

Special Education

The underlying principle which informs the school’s SEN policy is that of ‘inclusion’. All students are valued for what they bring to the school and are given every opportunity to take part in all that the school has to offer, in the most appropriate ways possible and given the resources available.
Although all members of the teaching and non teaching staff are committed to and part of the support of students identified as having special educational needs, the following people have specific roles and work as a team to ensure that each student’s needs are catered for within a safe and caring environment:-

Mrs. P. Russell – Inclusion Co-ordinator
Mrs. H. Brunt – School Nurse / Student Welfare
Miss. H. Opie – Language Support and SpLD
Mrs. L. Williams – Reading Support

Learning Support Assistants

Mrs. D. Forbes
Mrs. W. Horley
Miss. C. Kendrick
Mrs. R. Morris
Mrs. S. Votier

Liaison and Involvement with outside agencies

The school supports a multi-disciplinary approach to maximise the educational provision for special needs students. Many agencies and support services are able to help identify, assess and provide support for special needs students. Such agencies and support services include a wide variety of specialist teachers and other professionals.
The Head teacher, SENCO, School Nurse and Pastoral Team work with the following services:-
· Psychology Service
· Advisory Service
· Learning Support
· Specialist Careers Officers
· Speech Therapy
· Occupational Therapy
· Educational Welfare Service
· Child and Family
· Social Services
· Medical Services
· Behaviour Support Service
· Psychiatric Service
· Hearing Impaired Service
· Visual Impaired Service
· Youth Offending Service

The school’s core curriculum is inclusive and differentiated allowing the majority of students to achieve their potential without additional support. However, some students require additional and /or different action to make adequate progress.

Support Systems

· Students receive extra support in the classroom from learning support assistants.
· Students are withdrawn for more individual support from specialist teachers.
· Students follow one of the several reading recovery programmes available.
· Students are placed in one of the small ‘learning support’ classes where they receive high level support.
· Students follow the Successmaker programme in literacy and numeracy.

What is Successmaker?

The Successmaker Enterprise is an integrated learning system which assists in the development of a range of literacy and numeracy skills. Students in years 7, 8 and 9 Basic Skills classes receive a minimum of two hours support weekly in our dedicated computer suite.