SENCO and SEN Staff
Our SENCO is Mrs Heron, email: newbrancepeth@durhamlearning.net Tel: 0191 373 0736.
More details of the SENCO’s role can be found in the SEN Policy which you can find in the School Policies section of our website.
External Specialists and Other Bodies
The school enjoys good working relationships with a wide range of people who provide services to children with SEND and their families.
The external specialists may:
- Act in an advisory capacity
- Extend expertise of school staff
- Provide additional assessment
- Support a child directly
- Suggest statutory assessment is advisable
- Consult with all parties involved with the child
These include:
- Durham County Council Local Offer
- Durham SEND Information, Advice and Support Service
- Occupational Therapy
- CAHMS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service)
- School Nursing Service
- Social Services
- Medical Professionals.
How We Secure Specialist Expertise
Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN. In 2018/19 this amount is £9,640.
This is used to support children and young people with SEND by:
- Teaching support, to ensure children with additional needs are well supported in all lessons
- A curriculum, tailored to the needs of the child with staffing, differentiation, teaching style, and resources.
- Some individual teaching, following dedicated programmes to address specific needs.
- Small group focus work to address shared issues, e.g. fine and gross motor skills groups; Durham Schools Movement Service supports us through assessment and targeted advice.
- Additional resources to enable better access to the curriculum, e.g. pencil grips, writing slopes, coloured overlays etc. Professional advice taken from Educational Psychology or the Cognition and Learning team.
- Thorough assessments undertaken by school staff or professionals
- Specialist interventions, e.g. Occupational Therapy, or Speech and Language Therapy tailored to the unique needs of individual children.
- Skilled and dedicated Teaching Assistant support within classes, in order for the work to be further differentiated to meet exact/additional needs.
A staff fully committed to inclusion and high quality experiences for all children.
If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes.
