St James the Great R.C (V.A) Primary & Nursery School

AGM 2000

SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

The Governors have continued to recognise the range of Special Needs provision required in order to appropriately meet the needs of individual pupils. As a result of the reorganisation of staff responsibilities Mrs. Tuck has now taken over the role of SENCO. The Governors have recognised the demands of this post by confirming it as a point eight provision. As part of her role Mrs Tuck will also keep under review provision for ethnic minority pupils. She will be allocated some clerical support to enable her to manage the administrative aspects of her role. At the end of the academic year there were fifty-eight pupils on the Special Needs register. We continue to move towards our aim of targeting the majority of the non-statemented support in the early years in order to integrate pupils into mainstream provision and thereby lessen the support demands further up the school.

Children have been supported in class, through withdrawal from class, and by outside agencies including the Nursery Support Team, SENSS, Hearing Service, The Catholic Children's Society, Art Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Support, Literacy Centre and Child Guidance Clinic.

Parents have continued to support a daily reading programme.

The Educational Psychologist visits once a month to assess children and meet parents. Individual Education Plans have been reviewed twice a year or more frequently if required with parents.

The Governors thank Mrs Tuck for her work as SENCO. Staff and parents appreciate the school's high level of provision for special needs. The Governors see it as a priority to maintain at current levels budgetary support at least in the medium term. We would also like to record our appreciation to Mrs Macadam, the nominated Governor with an interest in special needs, for her continued interest in this area and for her input at Governor level on Special Needs issues.