Most children and young people will have their special educational needs met in mainstream schools through good classroom practice. This is called Quality First Teaching. At Cockton Hill Junior School we follow a graduated support approach which is called “Assess, Plan, Do, Review”. This means that we will:
- Assess a child’s special educational needs
- Plan the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes
- Do put the provision in place to meet those outcomes
- Review the support and progress
As part of this approach, we will produce a SEND Support Plan that describes the provision that we will make to meet a child’s special educational needs and agreed outcomes. Parents/carers and children will be fully involved in this process.
A small percentage of children and young people with significant learning difficulties might need an assessment that could lead to an Education, Health and Care Plan. Full details can be found at the Family Information Service website at www.countydurhamfamilies.info.
Here are some of the actions we may put in place in order to meet the needs of SEND children. You can find details of how we adapt the curriculum and make it more accessible for pupils with SEND below:
Interventions are very much tailored to the individual needs of the child and it would be impossible to list every intervention used in our school. Should pupils require it, we aim to provide:
- Additional teacher support (in class or withdrawn)
- Additional teaching Assistant Support (in class or withdrawn)
- Peer mentoring
- Booster group activities
- Access to specific resources to support learning
We also run some intervention that is more specifically tailored to the four main areas of need.
Communication and Interaction
- Speech/ Language link assessments and programmes
- Personalised speech and language therapy programmes
- Talk Boost—group activity to develop language
- Language enrichment groups
- Social Stories
Cognition and Learning
- English Intervention groups including Toe by Toe and Lexia
- Maths Intervention groups including Power of 2, Numbers Count, First Class at Number and Success @ Arithmetic
- Working memory interventions
- Magic Spelling
- Frostig—Visual perception programme
- Phonics and spelling groups
- Rapid phonics and spelling programme
- Gross and fine motor programmes
Social, Emotional and mental health
- Social Stories
- Getting Along intervention groups
- Drawing and Talking Therapy
- Confidence building groups (developing self-esteem)
- Developing emotional intelligence
- Organised playground games (with adult and peer leaders)
- Relax Kids programme
Sensory and/or physical needs
- Fully accessible school, classrooms and outdoor areas (ramps to raised areas)
- Fully equipped and accessible toilet and changing space
- Motor Skills Intervention
- Access to sensory diets
- Temporary rooms for therapies can be set up
- Staff trained in the use of specialist equipment as and when required depending on individual needs
