SEND Support

Inclusion Team 

Ms Loveridge is the SENCO at LAR and previously worked in 4 other Leigh Academy Trust schools before joining LA. Ms Loveridge is experienced in working in partnership with local authorities, Educational Psychologists as well as a variety of specialist external agencies to ensure we have high quality referral and support systems in place for pupils with a range of needs. 

Teaching Assistants are assigned to year groups to provide targeted support in lessons and where it is deemed necessary further targeted interventions may be put in place to support students who are not making expected progress in specific areas e.g. speech, language or communication. Where we identify additional interventions are required e.g. SALT, ELSA, Physiotherapy, Sensory Circuits etc, we will work with external providers to train our own staff and utilise their services.

We liaise with the primary schools as part of the transition process to gather all the necessary information with regards to individual needs so that we can ensure a successful start to the Academic year. If you feel there is specific information the SEND team needs to know please ensure this has been outlined in detail on your enrolment forms.  


Brandy: Dog Mentor

Brandy is our Academy dog. She will be on site on occasions, as a mentor. They have been formally assessed to ascertain her suitability for the school setting and passed with flying colours. 


Some students who are identified as requiring additional support may be provided time with Brandy as part of a mentoring programme. Dog mentors have a calming effect and can prompt positive conversations where students feel comfortable sharing more about themselves so that we can better understand their emotions and needs. 

The dog mentoring programme may involve sitting quietly with Brandy and a mentor to openly discuss challenges and struggles at directed times, walking them to alleviate anxiety and stress a certain times of the day or playing with them to increase social skills and confidence. 


Brandy

Chromebooks and SEND

Every child having their own Chromebook will significantly support pupils with needs, empowering them to be more independent and less reliant on the support of additional adults in the room. The Leigh Academy Trusts Digital Advisor has put together this video to outline the accessibility features of the Chromebooks that can support students with additional needs. 

LAR SEN Leaflet Final.pdf

Interventions Beyond the Classroom

A number of our SEND students have more than one nee, however our interventions are open to all students regardless of their SEND status. So far this academic year the following interventions have taken place supporting a large number of students: 

Common Support Strategies in Lessons at LAR

The SEND Code of practice highlights that the most crucial form of support for all SEND students is quality first teaching with appropriate differentiation and scaffolding implemented by the teacher. All our teachers have had extensive training and support on what this looks like in the classroom meaning support is often embedded and not at all obvious to the students, creating an inclusive culture. 


SEN-K and SEN-E students require some form of additional support beyond the typical quality first teaching that takes place. This could be as simple as providing an overlay to support reading or having 1:1 interventions for literacy support. All our teachers are equipped with our LAR SEND Teacher Toolkit which provides an extensive range of everyday strategies that can be used to support students with need. In addition we have outlined for parents the common forms of support that appear on LSPs and that we implement for the range of needs we are supporting students with in the Academy. This is not the only support we offer but gives an example of some of the things we are offering. NB. Please note that the support strategies implemented for each child are applied on an individual basis so it would be wrong to assume that if your child has any of these needs that they have all the listed support in place. They are applied where it is identified that they are required by the child to make better progress.