Whitley Lodge is a fully inclusive school which ensures that all pupils achieve their potential personally, socially, emotionally, physically and educationally.
Our Local Offer lets you understand how we support pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
We consult with pupils and their families on our local offer by:
· Meeting with parents/carers when a child is first admitted to school regarding any existing needs or concerns.
· Liaising with the child’s previous placements and other agencies such as Speech Therapy, Language and Communication, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy or medical consultants.
· Regular meetings in school between teachers and families.
· Review meetings with families, school staff and other professionals involved in meeting the needs of a child, as listed above.
Supporting Pupils with Special Educational Needs /
Disabilities and Their Families
We will let families know about any concerns about a pupil’s learning by:
Holding regular parent – teacher consultation meetings.
Providing an “open door” policy whereby parents can contact school at any time if they have concerns. Meetings can then be arranged with appropriate school staff, including the Headteacher and/or School SENCo.
When a pupil is identified as having special educational needs, we support their development and progress by:
Carrying out assessments to clarify the nature of the need or difficulty.
Adapting tasks and resources to suit the pupil’s individual needs. This may include additional support from the class teacher or a teaching assistant.
Pupils may be placed in a small focus group for additional support in a specific curriculum area such as spelling, writing or number work. These interventions are reviewed termly to ascertain their effectiveness and inform future planning.
Parent-teacher consultation evenings are held each term. This discussion can be used to highlight ongoing concerns, contribute to the planning of future interventions, and monitor the effectiveness of on-going support.
Sometimes a pupil may need support from an outside agency. With parents consent, a referral can be made to a variety of teams who can offer more specialised assessment and advice.
The other people / agencies and teams providing services to children with a special educational need / disability in school include:
Speech and Language Therapists
Occupational Therapists
Physiotherapists
Language and Communication Team
Dyslexia Referral Team
Sensory Support Service
CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service)
Public Health Nurses
Transition
We will work in partnership with other education providers to ensure that pupils make a successful transition to the next stages of their learning, through careful and coordinated planning of the transition. The process of actual transition includes visits by the young person to their new placement with and without parents and school staff, visits by staff of the receiving placement to Whitley Lodge, and personal “handover” of all relevant information and resources.
Support staff are placed where they are needed throughout the school to ensure pupil progress, independence and value for money. Support is always given in excess of the hours stipulated on a statement (now called a “One Plan”). This may take the form of one to one intervention, small group work, or liaison with parents or other professionals working with the pupil.
All staff have completed, and will continue to receive, ongoing training in special educational needs and disabilities. Recent training has focused on meeting the needs of children with ADHD, ASD, and Dyslexia; and on accelerating progress in Maths.
Our fully trained Special Educational Needs Coordinator attends additional training each academic year, and provides advice and guidance to staff.The school works in partnership with families to help them support their children’s learning outside of school.
Families are also signposted to other services or organisations which may offer appropriate help and support.
Behaviour and anti-bullying policies are regularly reviewed with a focus on how they affect pupils’ with special educational needs or disabilities.
Other useful documents such as our Special Educational Needs and Inclusion Policy are also available on the school website.
The school’s self-evaluation process will look at teaching and learning for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
All school-related activities are evaluated in terms of their benefit to the learning and inclusion of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
If you would like further information about what we offer here at Whitley Lodge First School, then please contact the Special Educational Needs Coordinator, Mandy Elkin, on: 0191 2008781
School entitlement offer to pupils with special educational needs or disabilities | |
Support Available Within School |
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Communication and Interaction Needs: e.g.
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Cognition and Learning Needs: e.g. Moderate Learning DifficultiesDyslexia / Literacy-based difficulties |
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Social, Mental and Emotional health
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Sensory and Physical Needs: e.g. |
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