Children with Additional Needs

At Adwick Park, we do not discriminate against children with additional needs. We believe that wherever possible we should change the organisation to meet the needs of the child, and we will do whatever we can to achieve this. We work closely with other agencies, including the pyramid special school, to ensure that the provision we offer for all learners is the best it can be.

Adwick Park is very successful at working with children (and where appropriate with their families) with diverse needs, we often succeed where other schools do not.

Physical access to the school is available through the provision of ramps; once in the building, all areas are accessible. The school will make the necessary resource purchases to enable any child with disabilities to access the curriculum.

The curriculum is always differentiated at classroom level, either by the amount of help given, by the task given or by the outcome expected. Where it is better for children of similar abilities to work together, all children are well provided for, the less able will be as well taught and as well resourced as the more able.

Children with emotional difficulties are helped to overcome them through nurture groups, and where necessary professional counselling can be made available.
Sometimes, problems do not manifest themselves at school, rather the difficulty arises at home. We will always do whatever we can to help families, offering advice if we are able to or put people in touch with other professional services as appropriate.

The policy for learners with additional needs is reviewed annually by the Governing Body, and is available at the school. The school benefits from staff members and Governors who have extensive experience of children with additional needs and inclusion.

General organisation for children with additional needs

Children come to Adwick Park with a wide range of skills, knowledge and understanding. Where these are under—developed, we can put in extra help. Where there is a known learning difficulty, we also put in extra help.

Such help will take many forms, and be dependent on the needs of the individual child.

• Additional teacher input, on a one to one basis, to develop an area of significant need
• Additional teacher input on a small group basis, where there is an additional need, but the child is able to cope in a small group
• Specific programmes to address specific problems, such as dyslexia
• Advice from the educational psychologist
• Advice from the LA, such as for children who are autistic, or who have a hearing or visual impairment
• Specialised equipment to aid the learning process (this may be following the advice given from the above people). This may well be ICT based equipment or programmes
• An additional adult to help with some aspects of learning, especially during Literacy and Numeracy lessons
• Individual Education Plans are written for children with additional needs, again in line with their specific requirements—this may be a long detailed document to a brief comment: for instance, a child with a minor hearing impairment may need to sit near the front of the class, but no further action needs to be taken. This obviously only requires a brief comment. A child who is autistic may well need much greater detail, not only to help the child, but to help the teacher and other adults understand and work with the difficulties encountered.

Fernbank School

We have developed strong links with Fernbank School. Whilst taking children with severe learning difficulties themselves, part of the work at Fernbank is dedicated to helping children in mainstream schools who need a little extra specialist input in language development. This covers understanding how language works, and how
to make it work for you, developing skills in memory, listening and in making connections (synthesis).

Small groups of children from Adwick Park visit Fernbank weekly, accompanied by Adwick Park staff. This enables us to carry out follow up work during the rest of the week. It also means that the class teacher can be advised on how to pitch their own language to enable the children to fully access the rest of the curriculum. We are also able to access the rich bank of learning resources held at Fernbank, to benefit the children we send there.

Rasing Concerns

The school SENCO is Mr. Crosby, he ishappy to speak to parents about their concerns at any time suitable to all parties concerned. Please do not leave concerns that are ‘new’ until parents evenings—we will do our very best to work with additional needs as soon as they arise. Mrs. Holt is always happy to talk to parents about any issue, including special needs.