SEND & Key Spaces

Our Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) is Miss Kirsty-Anne White.

All teachers are responsible for including students with SEND in the classroom and for providing an appropriately adapted curriculum that includes:

• setting suitable learning challenges

• responding to students’ diverse learning needs

• overcoming potential barriers to learning and assessment for individuals and groups of students

A student has SEND where their learning difficulty or disability calls for special educational provision, that is provision ‘different from or additional to’ that normally available to students of the same age. Making higher quality teaching normally available to the whole class is likely to mean that fewer students will require such support. Additional intervention and support cannot compensate for lack of good quality teaching.

Teachers should refer to individual student support plans for specific teaching strategies when planning lessons and should also record key strategies for SEND students on class seating plans. 

Learning Support Practitioners (LSPs) or Higher Level Teaching Assistants (HLTAs) are deployed in core subjects and other lessons depending on the needs of the student. LSPs will work with the classroom teacher to help make lessons accessible in line with the teacher LSP protocol.

Effective LSP support draws upon the recommendations outlined in the Education Endowment Fund MITA project (maximising the impact of teaching assistants). SEND provision is based on the graduated approach of ‘assess, plan, do and review’ in line with SEND Code of Practice (2015) guidelines. Student support plans record current interventions for each student and staff should take note of this information before contacting parents of a young person with SEND.

The SENDCo is responsible for keeping staff fully informed about SEND issues and ensuring the necessary provision is made for any student with SEND which includes making timely referral to external agencies as appropriate.

Teachers should alert the SENDCo to any concerns they may have about a particular student including examinations access arrangements (EAAs) so that information gathering can take place using the information request form.

Students being assessed for ‘additional needs support’ are recorded on the SEN monitoring register and individual class teachers are informed.

Key Spaces

Solutions, The Bridge and The Hub 

The John Warner Behaviour Curriculum is designed to ensure all students understand the part they play in creating a respectful and purposeful climate for learning.

Where students do not recognise this responsibility, as identified through the C1 to C6 Behaviour Chart, a robust programme of intervention is initiated commencing with Solutions, particularly when students have become involved in more complex, repeated incidents of difficult or dangerous behaviour. Within Solutions, students learn that individual rights coexist with responsibility for and towards others. 

Solutions is a safe space where students who exhibit difficult or dangerous behaviour begin working with staff to identify causes of this behaviour and therefore prevent it from happening again. A student may be referred to Solutions when their behaviour has become repeatedly difficult and therefore disruptive to the learning of others. Solutions is a layer of support which has a function of:

• Providing consequences
• Supporting students over time to change anti-social behaviour into pro-social behaviour
• Housing students on withdrawal

Only members of SLT may authorise a student to attend Solutions.

Once leaders of Solutions’ provision judge that students are ready for reintegration, they may be invited to attend The Bridge for a period of time where their behaviour is analysed and any specific needs / support identified. A Repair and Protect Plan is co-constructed with the student and parent / carer and a contract of behaviour agreed.

Solutions and The Bridge are manned by a team of Senior Leaders, including the AHT for Inclusion and the AHT for Teaching and Learning, alongside qualified pastoral support workers.

The Hub is an alternative learning provision used to support students with an identified SEN need or who may be experiencing particular vulnerability at a given point in time. It is overseen by the AHT for Inclusion and manned by the SENDCo and her team. It provides lessons for students who are on a Hub timetable as well as form time support and lunch and break time support. The emphasis in The Hub is very much on learning. Students may be referred to The Hub as part of the The Bridge reintegration process.  The Hub is a layer of support that has the function of:

•             Providing timetabled lessons to Hub students

•             Providing a productive space for current Hub students at break and lunchtime

•             Providing mentoring and guidance to Hub students 

•             Providing an alternative form time for selected students

•             Exploring alternative learning opportunities outside of The Hub 

Exploring programmes of alternative learning opportunities, students attached to The Hub may also be provided with an opportunity to explore learning opportunities outside of the school environment. These may include Youth Connections courses, work experience or other activities that promote prosocial experiences.  

Additional Support

Where students have significant behavioural needs such that they need support in addition to the monitoring and support provided by the pastoral team, the school works with Rivers Education Support Centre (ESC) https://www.riversesc.herts.sch.uk/, a provision that was rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted in 2018. Rivers ESC provides a number of in-school support programmes aimed at:

1. reducing problems
2. preventing further escalation of difficult behaviour  
3. re-engaging students with their learning

Programmes of intervention to reduce the risk of exclusion are agreed between the Outreach Worker and the school and may include:

• Topics of work - One to One Individual sessions with students designed around their     needs to help them develop appropriate self-management strategies
• Work with students to support them with emotional difficulties, anger management, self-    esteem and relationship difficulties
• Small group work with students identified as needing to develop their team building   skills or who are proving a challenge to manage
• Support with Pastoral Support Plans and target setting through consultation with   teachers
• Staff support: collaborative problem solving and lesson observations to inform Outreach   planning
• Support for parents in partnership with the school and other services/agencies and   reviews of support
• For students returning to mainstream school post exclusion there is a reintegration   support service

At the Rivers ESC Key Stage 3 centre in Hertford, students may either attend for an agreed period of respite or for a longer period while next steps are arranged. Students are provided with a broad curriculum, and barriers to education are identified. They are then supported to find strategies to overcome these barriers to support them to be successful in school. 

The Key Stage 4 centre in Hoddesdon provides education for students in Years 10 and 11. Many are supported to reintegrate back into mainstream education once it has been identified that they are likely to be successful. 

In addition, the following outside agencies are engaged where necessary to support students (please note this is not an exhaustive list):