SEND Specialist Expertise

SENDCO and SEND Staff

Our SENDCO is Mrs Addison and can be contacted in 07900702297. More details of the SENDCO’s role can be found in the SEND policy which you can find in the school policies section of the website.

At Tudhoe Colliery Primary, we receive a notional SEND budget from the Local Authority and this is used to support children and young people with SEND by offering a wide range of intervention and enhancement programmes within school and through our partnerships with other agencies and professionals within the Local Authority. This is monitored each term by the Governing Body.

We have Learning Support Assistants who are partly funded from the SEND budget and deliver programmes or interventions designed to meet groups of children’s needs. The budget is allocated on a needs basis. The children who have the most complex needs are given targeted support.

All children no matter what their needs are, receive daily High Quality Teaching. We aim to keep children with SEND part of their whole class as often as possible, therefore support is generally given in the form of Classroom Assistant working alongside the children and teacher. Interventions are carried out throughout the day at a range of times.

 

External Specialists and Other Bodies (click to open new page)

 

How We Secure Specialist Expertise

Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN.  In 2022/23 this amount is £100, 743.73. 

This is used to support children and young people with SEND by:

  • Specialist training for all staff
  • Specialist training for SENDCO
  • Enabling the school to employ members of staff to support children and run programmes of intervention
  • Resources to enable children to meet outcomes
  • Buy in the services of specialists
  • Buy into support packages
  • Purchase assessment and intervention tools

If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes. The additional needs funding is monitored by the Senior Leadership Team and Governing Body to ensure support is secured to meet needs and has a positive impact on outcomes for children with SEND.

 

Agencies and Partnerships

Tudhoe Colliery Primary works closely with any external agencies that we feel are relevant to individual children’s needs within our school including people who provide services to children with SEND and their families, particularly when a child is demonstrating further cause for concern or their learning need is more complex and persistent.

The external specialists may:

  • Act in an advisory capacity
  • Extend expertise of school staff
  • Provide additional assessment
  • Support a child directly
  • Suggest statutory assessment
  • Consult with all parties involved with the child

 

At Tudhoe Colliery Primary, we liaise with the following agencies depending upon the individual child’s needs:

  • One Point Centre
  • CAMHS
  • Neurodevelopmental Diagnostic Pathway
  • Cognition and Learning Team
  • Autism and Social Communication Team
  • Sensory Team
  • EWEL Team
  • NHS Occupational Therapy
  • SensoryWorx
  • School Nurse Team
  • SEN Nurse
  • Speech and Language Therapy
  • Butterwick Hospice
  • SENDIASS

 

What training do staff supporting children with SEND have?

Members of staff have Paediatric First Aid and Safeguarding Level 1 and 2 qualification. In addition, our  staff have a selection of training relating to Movement Difficulties Programmes, specific training from Speech and Language Therapists as well as annual allergy training. The Trust have also recently benefitted from training on Autism, Anxiety, Understanding & Responding to Challenging Behaviours & Trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences which were led by Dr Pooky Knightsmith and Nerys Hughes across last academic year. The SENDCO also attends half-termly SEND Trust training sessions with the SEND Advisory Officer from the Local Authority.

We have teaching and support staff specially trained in;

  • Relax kids
  • Lego Therapy 
  • Therapeutic Storywriting
  • Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
  • No Worries 

From October 2022, we have also appointed a school counsellor who will be working 1 day a week at our school in order to support children’s mental wellbeing further.