Winchelsea School’s Outreach Service
The Outreach Service forms part of BCP’s Offer for children and young people who have Special Educational Needs or Disabilities.
Three special schools in Poole; Longspee, Montacute and Winchelsea, and two Special Schools in Bournemouth; Linwood and Nigel Bowes, provide Outreach services across the council.
Our core team comprises experienced special needs teachers with additional support from our speech and language therapy team and other colleagues in school.
Between us, we have experience of successfully teaching and supporting children and young people who have a huge range of learning needs.
The Aim of Outreach:
We aim to support children and young people in their mainstream schools so that they are happy and successful and make the best possible progress in their learning, independence and engagement.
Support Offered:
Members of the team at Winchelsea are able to support children and young people whose learning is affected by:
-Problems with engagement
-Learning and attention difficulties
-Communication and Interaction difficulties
-Sensory needs
-Specific Learning Difficulties
-Global Developmental Delay
-Autism Spectrum Conditions
-Down syndrome
-And others
We can offer training in:
-Early Bird and Early Bird Plus, for parents of children and young people who have autism.
-Signalong – a sign language based on British Sign Language for parents and school staff.
And the following training for teachers and teaching assistants:
-Supporting children who have working memory difficulties.
-Dyslexia friendly classroom
-Autism friendly classroom
-Down syndrome.
-And others.
How it works:
A member of the child or young person’s school’s leadership team – often the Inclusion Manager or SENCo (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) speaks with the parents or carers and it is agreed that a request to Outreach should be made.
That member of staff fills in a Request for Involvement form and sends it to the panel at BCP.
If the panel agree that the child or young person may benefit from Outreach, then the Outreach teacher will do an assessment visit which may mean:
-Observing the child or young person
-Talking with the child or young person, where appropriate
-Talking to staff
The Outreach teacher will write a report to the school who copy it to parents or carers and any other involved professionals, for example, educational psychologists.
The school then arranges a Joint Planning Meeting with parents/carers, members of the school staff – ideally the SENCo, the class teacher or form tutor, teaching assistants - and sometimes other professionals, such as speech and language therapists.
At the meeting, we will talk about the difficulties the child or young person is having with their learning and what is working well for them. Outcomes for the child or young person will be identified and we will talk about ways we can all help them to succeed.
We will arrange to meet again, a few weeks after the Joint Planning Meeting, to review how things are going.
In the meantime, the Outreach teacher may support by:
-Working with the child or young person, modelling techniques.
-Making and recommending resources.
-Helping to implement advice from other professionals and drawing up a coherent programme for the child or young person.
-Working with the teacher on planning and differentiation.
-Helping to set targets.
-Suggesting ways for the child or young person to become a more independent learner.
-Signposting to other services and agencies.
-Observing the child or young person in different situations in school and giving feedback on what is working well and what else may work.
-Suggesting routines and advising about the learning environment.
-Setting up communication, behaviour or independent work systems.
-Providing handouts and information.
At the Review Meeting, we discuss the progress that the child or young person has made towards their outcomes. We agree whether the suggestions put forward by Outreach have been helpful, what has been working well, whether more support is needed or whether the case can be closed. If more support is needed, further outcomes may be identified, strategies may be revised and a new review date will be set.
Following involvement, the school and the Outreach teacher fill in evaluation forms which are sent to BCP with final review notes.