SENCO and SEN Staff
Our SENCO is Julia Graham, and she holds the National Award for SENCO’s qualification. We also employ an SEND Teaching Assistant who has a wealth of experience of working with children with a wide range of needs, who assists the SENCO to coordinate provision across school.
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.
Our team includes staff trained in Makaton, Resilience training, Restorative Approaches, Talking Mats, ELKLAN and Supporting Children on the Autistic Spectrum.
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 Psychology Consultants
- Speech & Language Consultants
- Occupational Therapists
- Paediatriacian
- Early Years Team
How We Secure Specialist Expertise
We allocate funds from our school budget or through our Community of Learning to secure specialist advice. Sometimes this funding is used to provide additional support, train staff or provide additional specialist resources. Each year we purchase an SLA with the Educational Psychology service in order that children with difficulties in this area are quickly identified and supported.
If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional staffing through the LA Outreach pool of staff. Our nursery is a base school for two such staff and as a result we are able to observe effective practice and access advice and training.
