All children have a common entitlement to a broad balanced and enriched curriculum.
Please CLICK HERE to view our SEND offer.
All pupils at St Nicolas School have access through a variety of resources.
The modification of programmes of study for both more and less able pupils is vital in ensuring all pupils make progress and all pupils have challenging targets.
We respond to pupils’ diverse learning needs, and enable more suitable learning challenges to be set for all. Some pupils experience barriers to learning as a result of their disability, heritage, gender, special educational need, ethnicity, social group, race or culture.
These barriers to learning are recognised and support given to ensure all pupils are engaged and confident learners.
Pupils who have individual educational needs such as learning, speech and language or physical difficulties, will be monitored and supported on the Record of Need. Pupils together with their parents or carers, have termly meetings with the class teacher to review progress towards set targets; to discuss new targets and the strategies which need to be actioned to enable the pupil to achieve new targets.
ICT often plays a large part in students accessing and addressing learning targets set. A teaching assistant supports learning in every classroom throughout the school each morning. This enables learners of all abilities to make maximum learning gains in every lesson.
Support staff also lead targeted literacy support groups for pupils who have difficulty accessing this crucial aspect of lifelong learning. Our support staff are a highly trained and very professional team with our children’s needs at the heart of their work. Cornwall’s SEND Local Offer describes the provision that is available for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and their families.
Cornwall’s SEND Local Offer website helps families by gathering in one place, the information that they need to know in order to make informed choices about the support they receive. Cornwall’s SEND Local Offer can be found here.
Early Help Hub
What is Early Help? Early Help includes help provided in both early childhood and early in the development of a problem. Early Help is available to children and young people of all ages from pre-birth up to the age of 18, and up to the age of 25 where young people have special educational needs or disability.
www.cornwall.gov.uk/earlyhelphub
01872322277
earlyhelphub@cornwall.gov.uk
Family Information Service (FIS)
The Family Information Service is service provided in Cornwall to bring together a wealth of information for parents and professionals alike, about what is available to support families in Cornwall. It is a great starting point for finding out extra information on the services we work with as a school, as well as services provided for families. It has many useful links and contacts on the website. They are a very supportive team who are always happy to answer your questions, if it can’t be found on the website.
visit http://www.cornwallfisdirectory.org.uk/
Tel: 01872 323 535
Email: fis@cornwall.gov.uk
Multi Agency Referral Unit (MARU)
Here we can seek advice and make referrals in cases of child protection and safeguarding.
http://www.safechildren-cios.co.uk/
Who to contact if you have concerns about a child:
Multi-agency Referral Unit – 0300 123 1116
Out of Hours Service – 01208 251300
MultiAgencyReferralUnit@cornwall.gcsx.gov.uk
The Speech and Language Team
The Speech and Language Therapy Team works with children, young people and their families in order to help children who have difficulties with communication or with eating, drinking and swallowing. They support us by carrying out assessments and 1:1 sessions, as well as providing us with resources to support our pupils
Contact can be made through the Early Help Hub above.
The Autism team/Autistic Spectrum Disorder Assessment team (ASDAT)
The Autistic Spectrum team support us in providing for pupils with a diagnosis of Autism. We work closely with them to provide resources and support to pupils and their families.
The ASDAT team is the more specialised assessment team, who work mainly in diagnoses of Autism. We contact the ASDAT team if we are seeking information on assessment.
Contact can be made through ‘Children’s schools and families’
0300 1234 101
http://www.cornwallft.nhs.uk/services/childrens-services/asdat-team/
The Educational Psychologist (EP)
We work with Cornwall Council to provide an EP service for pupils with particular needs. This is a very specialised service, where referrals are made if pupils meet certain, specific criteria. They also provide us with a consultations service where we can seek advice and resources for anonymous pupils. The EP service also provides a phone line for parents and professionals. This is a confidential line for seeking advice. It is available Wednesdays from 2pm-5pm. This aims to provide quick and easy access to professional advice; a listening ear; working together to find solutions; and signposting to other services if appropriate.
For additional cases, we work with other local EPs e.g. for further assessment, support and activity sessions. We pay for these additional services. visit http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/
Our Current EP contact at Cornwall Council is Dr Siobhan Gould Telephone: 01579 341132 EP phone line: 01872 322888 Margie Tunbridge is an EP we work with for additional services as part of a MAT trust bridge128@outlook.com The Cornwall Dyslexia Team/Cognition and Learning We work with a dyslexia advisor and the Cornwall Council dyslexia team. We work with them in different ways including consultations, advice, referrals, work with pupils, dyslexia screening tests, advice for parents and support in working towards the ‘dyslexia friendly schools’ award. We work closely with our advisor, who provides her services through the dyslexia/cognition and learning team.
www.dyslexiacornwall.org.uk
enquiries@dyslexiacornwall.org.uk
01872222911 01872274827
Hearing Support Team
The Hearing Support Team provides a specialist support service for the Local Authority, staffed and resourced to meet the needs of infants, children and young people who are affected temporarily or permanently by some degree of educationally significant hearing loss. Their support includes hearing tests in Year 1 and additional referrals for support if required.
Hearing Support Team
The Educational Audiology Centre
01726 61004
Information about referrals: http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/hearingsupport
School Nurse
School nurses provide confidential advice and health information. This advice is available to young people, their parents, carers and teachers. School nurses will help ensure children and young people stay fit and healthy. School Nursing Cornwall offers health assessments to all children when they start primary and secondary school. This information is used by the NHS to help plan and improve services for children. As well helping parents to bring up healthy children by providing information on healthy eating and hygiene, they also help teachers to meet any health needs children may have at school. We also work with the epilepsy nurse in our area for training and support for individual pupils Contact and referrals can be made through through Early Help Hub above. Vision Support Team The team work with children and young people (0-25 years) with a diagnosed visual impairment in their homes, early years settings and schools to enable them to overcome barriers to their education caused by their vision loss. http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/visionsupport
Occupational Therapy Team
Our Occupational therapy team are based in Plymouth, at the Child development centre. Our colleagues at Occupational Therapy support us to provide support for pupils who have sensory or functional needs, so that they can become as independent as possible. They often work with us through referrals or on a consultation basis Information can be found by searching ‘occupational therapy children’ on the cornwall council website.
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), support children and young people up to the age of 18. The service helps children and young people deal with emotional, behavioural or mental health issues. These include:
Emotional problems e.g. anxiety, depression, anger, mood swings, low self-esteem
Problems with behaviour e.g. violence, destructiveness, self-harm, hyper-activity, over-sexualisation and obsession.
Relationship problems, including difficulties in the family, with friends or colleagues, in school or the community, as well as difficulties associated with attachment and loss.
We can seek advice or make referrals for special cases. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Children and Young People Referrals can be made through the Early Help Hub.
