SEN Specialist Expertise

SENCO and SEN Staff

Our SENCO is Ms Victoria Hewison, 01913700238, BEd, MA (Ed), NASEN award.

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.

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 County Council Local Offer
• Durham SEND Information,  Advice and Support Service
• Speech and Language
• Occupational Therapy
• Educational Psychologist
• Behaviour Intervention
• ASD team
• Cognition and Learning team
• School nurse
• Any others recommended by our colleagues or health professionals

How We Secure Specialist Expertise

Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN. The expenditure is monitored through reporting to the Governing Body. Costings can also be found on support plans and costed provision maps.

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

• Strengthening the expertise and training of staff.
• Our SENCO has 9 years’ experience in this role alongside this we have a team of 6 teaching assistants who are trained to deliver SEN provision.
• In the last academic year, staff have received CPD on cognition and learning; occupational therapy and creating a sensory smart classroom.
• We use specialist staff for Nessy, Lexia, Speech and Language, Power of… and movement groups
• We continue to deliver CPD, in school support, the use of external specialists, SEN resources and keep up to date information through SENCO network meetings.

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