Learning Support

The school supports all children in their learning, but those with identified special needs are catered for appropriately. Pupils identified with special learning needs are those who require extra assistance, adapted programmes, specialised equipment or materials in order to access the curriculum and develop their full potential in a range of settings. 
 
The school, through its school-wide assessment programme at the beginning and end of year, identifies those children who have not maintained the expected level of progress or have been identified with specific learning needs. This is primarily in the key areas of numeracy and literacy, although other programmes are modified and adapted to better cater for their specific needs.
 
Children so identified are monitored through the classroom learning programmes, the school’s teacher appraisal programme, and through the establishment of the annual goals and targets. With the implementation of the national standards, those children who are achieving below and well below expectations will become a target group.
 
Currently, literacy learning needs are identified by an analysis of the assessment data – the reading running records and reading wedge graphs at the Y0 to Y2 levels and by STAR and PAT data at the Y3 to Y8 level. Asstle is also used at the Y4 to Y8 levels. The numeracy diagnostic interview is the main mechanism for identifying the learning needs in numeracy.
 
Details of the pupils identified as having learning, medical, behavioural, emotional and social issues are documented by the Special Needs Coordinator (SENCO) in the Special Needs Register.
 
Learning support staff is employed to work with special needs children. A literacy teacher monitors the reading progress of all pupils at the Y0 – Y3 levels and provides classroom teachers with in-depth data analysis and the ‘next step’ strategies for each child. The literacy teacher also intervenes, when appropriate, and withdraws children for individual support and assistance. This can be both long-term and short term, depending on needs.
 
Learning support teachers are based in the Year 1 and Year 2 classrooms in the morning to provide the teacher with an extra pair of hands to support numeracy and literacy learning. A learning support teacher is also based in the senior school and provides learning support for individuals or small groups in numeracy and literacy learning. The intervention is determined by the classroom teachers.
 
Funding which is provided for pupils with special needs is used to provide the necessary assistance to enable the pupils to progress at their expected level. This ORRS funding may be used for the provision of personnel, specialised teaching and learning aids, or modifications to programmes.
 
Individual education plans (IEP) are developed for identified pupils to ensure that learning goals and targets are monitored and evaluated. IEP meetings occur with the SENCO, the classroom teacher, the parents of the child, and the external provider(s) and specialist(s).