St Stephen Churchtown Academy is a mainstream school. We believe that children have a right to a safe, happy, varied and challenging learning experience. Every individual child matters and all children have talents and potential which must be realised. Within this context, respect, cooperation, responsibility and perseverance are the key personal qualities which we value from all members of our school community and that we feel are essential to success in later life.
Children with additional needs are identified through a combination of observations of the children as individuals within their classes by our experienced staff, tracking the outcomes of assessments and through discussions with parents. Our Special Educational Needs & Disabilities Co-ordinator (SENDCo) is Mrs Ellis. She works with the class teachers and teaching assistants to create programmes of support that meet the needs of the child. If you wish to discuss your child's learning programme, please do not hesitate to contact your child's class teacher in the first instance and then should you require further information please contact our SENDCo or wider SEN team including Mrs Geach.
We work with a range of external agencies to provide the best support for all our children. There are too many to list, but they include:
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Cognition and Learning Service
- Educational Psychology
- Early Years Inclusion Service
- Occupational Therapy
- Physiotherapy
- Physical and Medical Needs Advisory Service
- School Nursing Team
Special educational needs can mean that a child or young person has:
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Communication and interaction needs - difficulty in expressing themselves, understanding what others are saying or difficulties socially interacting with others
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Cognition and learning needs – difficulties in learning or retaining basic skills or a specific difficulty with reading, writing, mathematics or understanding information
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Social, emotional and mental health needs – difficulties making friends or relating to adults. May be withdrawn, isolated or find regulating their behaviours challenging
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Sensory and/or physical needs –sensory impairments or difficulties such as those affecting sight or hearing, or physical difficulties which impact on their learning Individual children or young people may have needs that cut across some or all these areas and their needs may change over time.
A child or young person may have needs in more than one area of need.
LOCAL OFFER
The Local Offer aims to help families of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) by gathering useful information they need to know, in one place, so they can make informed choices about the support they receive.
Our Local Offer describes the provision and guidance that is available for children and young people:
- with SEND;
- with or without an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan
Mrs Ellis is St Stephen Churchtown's SEND co-coordinator. If you would like to speak with her please contact the office on 01726 822568 or email jo.ellis@ststephenchurchtown.org.uk.
Parents are free to contact the class teacher, SENDCo or the Headteacher at any time to discuss their child’s progress. Contact can be made through school reception or via the school email at:-
hello@ststephenchurchtown.org.uk
The school has a maintained Nursery which take pupils from aged 2.
The Early Years lead arranges meetings for all new entrants to the setting so that the school is aware of the needs of the children entering Nursery and our school. Additionally class teachers attend Early Support TAC/Multi Agency meetings to ensure smooth transitions between phases for children with DSEN.
The Year 6 teacher, together with the DSL and SENDCo, meet with secondary placements, including Brannel School regarding transitions into secondary school for children with DSEN. This has proved to be a very useful tool, and ensure that children are supported appropriately in secondary school.
At St Stephen Churchtown Academy, every child matters; every moment counts. Across our whole school day, we support all of our pupils to access a broad and balanced curriculum. Some of the reasonable adjustments and adaptations to our curriculum subjects can be found in the documents below.
