SEN Coordinator (SENCO): Mrs Helen Webster
Intervention Programme Outline
LEAP: Language Enrichment Activity Programme
The LEAP is a structured 12 session programme, which aims to develop children’s oral language skills.
The LEAP is appropriate for children from F1 –Y1 who may have limited speaking and listening skills for a range of reasons. This could include children with English as an additional language, children with poor speaking and listening skills, or children who have had limited opportunities to develop their speaking and listening.
The programme can be run by teaching assistants with the support of the class teacher and the SENCO.
VIP: Vocabulary Improvement Programme
The VIP is a structured 12 session programme, which aims to develop children’s oral vocabulary learning. This intervention develops children’s links between vocabulary, word meaning and sentence building skills.
The VIP is appropriate for children from F1 –Y4 who may have limited vocabulary skills for a range of reasons. This could include children with English as an additional language, children with poor speaking and listening skills, or children who have had limited opportunities to develop their oral language. The VIP aims to teach children vocabulary learning strategies to support storage and retrieval of vocabulary as well as new word learning.
The programme can be run by teaching assistants with the support of the class teacher and the SENCO.
NIP: Narrative Improvement Programme
The Narrative Programme is a structured 12 session programme, which aims to develop children’s oral language skills. This programme develops narrative skills and creates a small group language learning environment.
The Narrative Programme is appropriate for children from Y2 to Y6 who may have limited oral language skills for a range of reasons. This could include children with English as an additional language, children with poor speaking and listening skills, or children who have had limited opportunities to develop their oral language. The Narrative programme creates a language environment where children are motivated to talk, providing opportunities for teaching staff to scaffold language and enable children to develop their speaking and listening skills.
The programme can be run by teaching assistants with the support of the class teacher and the SENCO.
Pre-teaching and Post-teaching
Pre- and Post-teaching sessions are taught 1:1 or in small groups by a Teaching Assistant. Pre-teaching is used to teach the children new vocabulary that they will encounter in future lessons. The aim is to introduce the children to new concepts and information, use visuals to support children’s comprehension and present new information at a slower pace. Post-teaching is used to address children’s misunderstandings from recent lessons, to give further explanations and allow children to ask questions to clarify their understanding.
Emotional Support
Lego Therapy: This intervention is run by teaching assistants, it supports children's social interaction and friendship building.
Rainbows: This programme is run by a trained member of staff that delivers the Rainbows sessions which help support children through bereavement and loss.
1:1 Counselling: Emmaus Primary has access to a qualified counsellor. The school must apply for additional funding for this service when deemed necessary. Children can be offered 6 counselling sessions (with two meetings to involve parents) using play and art activities to support the sessions.
The Nest: School Nurture Provision
“A nurture room is there to provide a safe, predictable and structured space to support a child’s emotional and social development.” Our Nurture Room is built upon evidence-based practises and offers short-term, inclusive, focused intervention that enables children to develop their social, emotional and mental health. Nurture groups have between 6 to12 children and each group is led by two members of trained staff. These staff have been specifically chosen by myself and the Headteacher in relation to their precious experiences with SEMH children and their skilled ability to form positive relationships with children and parents. Children attend nurture groups but remain an active part of their main class group, they spend every afternoon within the nurture group according to their needs.
Nurture groups assess learning, social and emotional needs and give the necessary help to remove the barriers to learning. There is great emphasis on language development and communication. Nothing is taken for granted and everything is explained, supported by role modelling, demonstration and the use of gesture as appropriate. The relationship between the two staff, always nurturing and supportive, provides a role model that children observe and begin to copy. Food is shared at ‘snack time’ with many opportunities for social learning, helping children to attend to the needs of others, with time to listen and be listened to.
As the children learn academically and socially, they develop confidence, become responsive to others, learn self-respect and take pride in behaving well and in achieving. Nurture groups have been working successfully for more than 40 years in the UK and now in other countries including Canada, New Zealand and Romania, and have been praised, supported and recommended by Ofsted.
Local offer
Every early year setting, school and college must outline what their local offer is to children and young people with special educational needs and/or a disability (SEND).
To help you do this the local authority will publish your responses to the following questions. The responses need to be jargon free, ensure clarity of language and provide information about where to go to get further advice or guidance if needed.
Click on the attachment below for a list of Educational Websites and Apps.
Reviews and Referrals:
In school, we hold SEN Reviews every term. Parents are invited to meet with the SENCO and their child’s class teacher to discuss progress and set new targets. Each child has a ‘Support Plan’ with three targets on that are written specifically to the child’s needs. Progress in tracked and discussed in the following SEN Review meeting. For those children who are not making the expected progress, the school uses a number of outside agencies to investigate their development further:
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Fusion Learning Support
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Speech Therapy service
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Educational Psychologist
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Early Years Inclusion Team
The SENCO will also write supporting letters to a child’s GP following discussions with parents about ongoing concerns about a child’s development and progress. In Sheffield, we have two additional hospital services that assess children’s development:
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The Ryegate Children’s Hospital
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Children and Adult Mental Health Service (CAMHS)
Assessment and Tracking:
Children with SEN children will be assessed using the School’s PITA System. In addition to this, SEN children’s progress is tracked using either:
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The Boxall Profile (for social and emotional development)
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Loch and Beech Profile (for Early Years development)
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The Birmingham Toolkit (for significant Cognitive Difficulties in all age groups)
For children with specific and complex SEN difficulties, the SENCO will write a 'My Plan' alongside the class teacher and parents to outline the child’s needs and support necessary. If a child continues to show extremely delayed development and is making no progress towards targets set on their 'My Plan', the SENCO will request an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) assessment from the Local Authority.
Updated: Sept. 2022
Review : Sept. 2023
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