SENCO and SEN Staff
Our SENCO is Claire Sim. She has BA (Hons) In Advanced studies in Early Years and a National Award for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators. She has also attended training in:
- SENCO as a Strategic Leader
- Costed Provision Map Training
- Talk in the Primary School
- Team Teach
- If you care share
- Listening matters and Nurture group lead training
- National Primary Qualification for Senior Leadership
Mrs Featherstone and Miss Wild both have Nurture Group training. Miss Wild is also trained to deliver Therapeutic Writing Sessions and Forest School.
Ms Kitching is trained to deliver Listening Matters sessions.
All staff have received training in:
- How to support pupils with ASD, including how to write
- Team Teach
- If you care share
- Lego Therapy
- Zones of Regulation
- Restorative approach
- Phonics
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 SEND Information, Advice and Support Service
- Our school’s community of learning, where we share resources and effective practice with a number of schools in our surrounding area
- Special Educational Needs – Inclusion Team
- Educational Psychology Service
- One Point Children’s Service
- Health Agencies
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAHMS)
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Durham Autistic Spectrum Team
- Behaviour Support Services
- Durham Movement Difficulties Service
- Tree Tops Occupational Therapy
- The Service for Hearing Impaired
- The Service for the Visually Impaired
- Educational Social Workers
- School Parent Support Advisor
- Looked After Children Team
- Learning Difficulties and Disability Support Service
- Occupational Therapy
- Medical Practitioners
- School Nurse
How We Secure Specialist Expertise
The school funding formula is generated to include financial provision to specifically support pupil’s individual special needs.
The budget allocation is agreed between our school and the Local Authority at the beginning of each financial year. This is monitored each term by the Governing Body.
Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN. The notional budget for the year 2023-2024 was £48, 078.
At Sunnybrow Primary School, we spend our SEND budget on:
*Funding additional support from Teaching Assistants who support children in class and deliver targeted interventions
*Buy-in services such as Educational Psychology, advisory teacher guidance from the Local Authority Cognition and Learning team and ASD team
*Purchase any resources required to support pupil progress and development.
*Provide extra support (up to £6000) for pupils with high levels of SEND
This funding is prioritised to tailor make learning to ensure small steps of progress are continually made by all SEN learners.
Throughout the academic year 2022-2023, we spent the following from the SEND notional budget:
- £250 spent on general and specific SEND resources
- £30,000 providing additional funding for pupils with a high level of special educational need
- Bought into the Educational Psychologist and Crisis Response service level agreements with Durham County Council
- Bought into services provided by the Local Authority Special Needs Services for Cognition and Learning, Emotional Wellbeing, ASD and Motor Difficulties. Each package can cost between £175-£500.
- Purchased credits for Mable online speech therapy.
If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes. For those pupils, Costed Provision Maps are created with detailed evidence of supporting resources provided in school. This builds a portfolio of the progress each child makes and additional funding and financial support can be applied for from the Local Authority.
We will continue to update this section with expenditure after meetings of the Governing Body Finance committee.
