At Copeland Road Primary School, we receive a notional SEN budget from the Local Authority and this is used to support children and young people with SEND by offering a wide range of intervention and enhancement programmes within school and through our partnerships with other agencies and professionals within the Local Authority. This is monitored by the Governing Body.
We have Teaching Assistants who are partly funded from the SEN budget and deliver programmes or interventions designed to meet groups of children’s needs. The budget is allocated on a needs basis. The children who have the most complex needs are given targeted support.
All children no matter what their needs are, receive daily Quality First Teaching. We aim to keep children with SEND part of their whole class as often as possible, therefore support is generally given in the form of a Teaching Assistant working alongside the children and teacher. Interventions are carried out throughout the day at a range of times.
Our SENCO is Mrs Victoria Summerfield and she holds the National Award for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (NASENCO). She can be contacted on 01388 832576 or by emailing v.summerfield100@copelandroad.co.uk. She is supported by Mrs Sabrina Hughes, our Year 2 teacher.
More details of the SENCO’s role can be found in the SEN Policy.
External Specialists and Other Bodies
Copeland Road Primary school work closely with any external agencies that we feel are relevant to individual children’s needs within our school including 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
How we secure specialist expertise
Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN. This is used to support children and young people with SEND. If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes.
At Copeland Road Primary school, we liaise with the following agencies depending upon the individual child’s needs:
- Durham County Council Local Offer
- Autism Spectrum Communications Team
- Bishop Auckland One Point Centre
- CAMHS
- Crisis Response
- Education Psychology Service
- Future Steps
- Learning Difficulties and Disability Support Service
- Movement Difficulties Service
- Occupational Therapy
- School Nurse Team
- Social Care and Health Team
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Tree Tops
We encourage these professionals to visit school as often as possible to work with our staff and share their expertise. Wherever possible, staff implement programmes of work linked to these professionals e.g. speech and language programmes, exercises recommended by physical therapies etc.
