At Cockton Hill Infants’ School we consult with a range of agencies and partnerships to facilitate arrangements for supporting children and young people with pastoral, medical and social needs. The class teacher is responsible for this for every child in their class, so would be the first point of contact for parents. If further support is required, the class teacher may consult the SENDCO for further advice.
This may involve working with other agencies such as the Behaviour Support Team or the Schools Counselling service. We also have staff trained in Lego Therapy, Makaton, Elklan, Relax Kids and Nurture groups and who are able to run interventions and provide support linked to these. The child’s voice is taken into account through questionnaires and the School Council. All children know that they can talk to their teacher.
The school has an SLA with the Behaviour Support Service and Educational Psychology to further support the children’s needs. The school also has a Parent Support Worker who can support parents with any concerns about their children, support them with referrals to services and paperwork and offer advice or information about groups/services who can help them.
Examples of interventions/provision the school may offer to support children’s emotional and social development are:
- Support/advice from SENDCO
- Makaton/ PECS/Communication boards to aid communication
- Lego Therapy to help social communication skills
- Nurture group to help children feel safe and supported in school, and to help them talk about and manage their feelings and emotions
- Use of a sensory room to allow children to feel calm and to provide a place for children when they need it
- Access to targeted small group work with class teacher or TA
- Access to intervention group work with class teacher or TA
- Access to speech language and communication support materials e.g. speech link/language link resources
- Additional appropriately skilled adult (e.g. TA) for focused support during unstructured times e.g. lunchtime supervision/ targeted extra- curriculum activities, supervision in the playground.
- Access to a quiet, distraction-free environment in which to deliver intervention groups
- Access to specific SALT sessions
- ELSA/Theraplay to help children with emotional needs.
- Access to the SEND unit where they can have differentiated activities, interventions and follow recommended programmes in a quiet, small-group environment.
More details on how we adapt information, our environment and curriculum can be found in the Accessibility Plan, our SEND Policy and our Teaching and Learning Policy which you can find in the School Policies section of our website.
