Alanbrooke Academy

Special Educational Needs (SEND)

Alanbrooke Academy believes in supporting all learners in order for them to make at least good progress.  The majority of children will require some additional support or intervention at some stage in their education.  Children are defined as having special educational needs or disability (SEND) if they have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of their age, which calls for additional or different educational provision to be made for them.

We currently use three levels of intervention for pupils with SEN:

• School Action - where the teacher or the school Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) decides to provide something for the child additional to or different from the school's usual differentiated approach to help children learn.
• School Action Plus - where the school consults specialists and requests help from external services. eg Education Psychologist, Behaviour Support, Learning Support, Speech and Language Therapy.
• Statement - where the child requires support beyond that which the school can provide and the local authority arranges appropriate provision.
• Special Educational Needs are the responsibility of all staff within school.  At Topcliffe CE, we have a dedicated team who are fastidious in supporting children.  School SENCo: Mrs Carol Merifield.
• We have trained Teaching Assistants who run intervention programmes such as Reading Intervention and First Class@Numbers.
• At times staff will mentor pupils, supporting engagement with their learning, or on an individual basis supporting behavioural, emotional and social needs.