SENCO and SEN Staff

At St Benet’s we have a dedicated Special Needs and Disability Co-ordinator (SENCO). Miss Loughlin is an experienced teacher and has began the NASENCO award this year and is due to complete the award in 2023. Miss Loughlin has experience of teaching in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 and has an excellent understanding of the Foundation Stage.

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.

The St Benet’s SEND team also includes staff trained in Elkan, Lego Therapy, Relax Kids, Team Teach, Supporting Children on the Autistic Spectrum and the Restorative Approach.

All staff regularly attend training courses as part of their professional development, including recent whole staff training on classroom strategies to support pupils with social communication difficulties (April 2018).

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 SEND Information,  Advice and Support Service
• Educational Psychologist
• Clinical Psychologist
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Occupational Therapy
• ASD Team
• SEND and Inclusion Team
• Behaviour Support
• CAMH’s

How We Secure Specialist Expertise

Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN. In 2019/20 this amount is £37, 317.00.

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

• Employing support assistants to work with children according to their needs. This may be on a 1-1 basis (if a child has an Education, Health Care Plan) or support within the classroom.
• Purchasing resources to cater for children’s needs. For example; sensory toys and resources, writing slops, coloured exercise books and social awareness programmes.
• Buying into a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Speech and Language Therapy who will deliver support sessions with children to enhance their development.
• Funding training purposes- some in-house training with specialised services from the ASD team, ADHD team, Behaviour team, Dyslexia Institute to keep staff updated with effective strategies to support children with SEND.

For those pupils with high needs and who receive additional funding from the Local Authority, costed provision maps are created with detailed evidence of the types of support and interventions provided in school. This builds a portfolio of the progress each child makes and additional funding and financial support can be applied for from the Local Authority through an Education and Health Care Plan.

If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes.