The Learning Support Team at Christ the King aims to help students to access all opportunities so that they can learn, grow and achieve their potential in a supportive, caring environment.
The team consists of the following key staff: Mrs Cartwright: Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) – who oversees the management of the department,
Mrs Angela Hamilton: Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) – who oversees the day to day running of the department,
The team also consists of 5 classroom support assistants, many of whom have specialisms and interests in areas including literacy, visual impairments, EAL and autism. Administration support for statemented students and departmental support for exam access arrangements, timetabling, pupil testing and setting is also in place. The department facilities include the Learning Support Centre and Harbour Room all of which are housed close together in a prominent ground floor area, which is located in a very accessible part of school.
The environment is bright, welcoming, friendly and highly supportive. All students on our SEN register are encouraged to access the facility during break, lunch and after school in order to provide them with a safe and caring environment at all times.
Links with Parents
Communication with parents is at the forefront of the department’s work. We pride ourselves on the close links we have developed in order to ensure the student’s needs are met and families are confident in the knowledge that their children are happy and safe. This close communication helps students to overcome barriers, reach their academic potential and develop social skills and confidence in order to succeed when leaving school.
Opportunities for parents to meet with support staff on an informal basis are also available, with termly ‘Drop-In Evenings’ recently introduced.
How do we support our Students?
Many interventions are in place in order to ensure additional support is available for all our students on the SEN register. One of our key focus areas is raising literacy levels, which is also a whole school priority.
Interventions include:
In-class support from classroom support assistants (group and 1:1),
1:1 support in the Learning Support Centre with specialist support staff – This includes, amongst others, support for students with Visual Impairments, Autism, Social, Emotional and Behavioural needs,
Intervention at Registration on a daily basis in the Learning Support Centre – focusing on reading, comprehension, spelling, handwriting, basic numeracy and social skills.
Year 11 Reading Buddies during morning registration (daily) to assist Year 7 students with low Reading Ages.
Additional support where required including careers advice, exam access arrangements, access to the Learning Support Centre, mentors, external support from the Inclusion Disability Support Service.
In addition to this the Learning Support Department is also responsible for supporting students with English as an additional language. For further information regarding this, please refer to the EEAL/EAL Policy which can be found on the school website, or contact school for further information.
Whole School Approach
We pride ourselves in having a whole school approach to supporting our SEN students. The Learning Support Department works very closely with the pastoral team and subject teachers to ensure students are monitored and supported in terms of academic progress, medical, social, emotional, and behavioural needs.
We are a small school which enables us to provide a unique system for supporting students and offer a family approach where students feel valued, and staff are fully aware of individual needs. We ensure our teaching and non-teaching staff have access to additional training in order to help them provide an effective learning environment. This has included additional training in: autism, dyslexia, literacy, speech and language, braille, plus training from the school nurse for medical issues including epilepsy, diabetes, asthma, nut allergies.
For additional information on our SEN provision, a copy of the school SEN Policy can be found here. Alternatively, we welcome parents to contact school directly and speak to Mrs Cartwright or Mrs Hamilton.
