Meeting the needs of all learners
At St George’s, we aim to provide and ensure quality teaching in the classroom, with the need and requirement of differentiation and being adaptable, paramount.
We offer further support to students through one-to-one interventions, specific styles of learning, and the use of resources to remove barriers to learning.
Our key focus is to raise and nurture the aspirations and expectations of all students with SEND.
All students, including those identified as having special educational needs and disabilities, have a common entitlement to a broad and balanced academic and social curriculum, which is accessible to them, and to be fully included in all aspects of school life.
When appropriate, we devise individualised learning programmes for our pupils. We also set up a framework of learning support within our mainstream classes, in a number of subjects and for different age groups. Students with a variety of learning needs can make progress at their own rate, while at the same time gaining confidence in their ability to tackle a variety of curriculum subjects.
Separate teaching of literacy and numeracy skills is provided for a few of our students by specialist teachers. Pupils are taught in groups which are deliberately kept as small as possible. The School also runs clubs to help those students who need to improve the standard of their work. Some of these are by invitation only. In addition, where appropriate, there are paired reading arrangements. We also invite some pupils to take part in literacy skills lessons, which are taught in a series of intensive termly units.
Whatever help a particular student needs, we understand the importance of close liaison with parents in monitoring their progress.
By all these means, we offer the opportunity for pupils of differing abilities to develop to the full, and ultimately, we encourage them to make the most of the opportunities the school has to offer.
St George’s School works under the government’s Code of Practice for Special Educational Needs called ‘Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice: 0 to 25yrs’.
The school has a history of viewing education holistically, where class teachers, house staff, parents and pupils work together to support a pupil’s learning.
The key points of the code are:
- Interventions need to be in place in a graduated manner.
- All teachers follow the principle of “quality first” teaching for all pupils.
- All interventions for a pupil’s learning must follow the process of “assess, plan, do, review”. For a pupil with special educational needs, this means that subject teachers work with Learning Support to assess the student’s needs, plan the lesson, teach the lesson and then review the pupil’s progress and learning outcomes.
- To support a pupil’s education, we run various clubs to improve elements of their learning.
- As a school, we have access to a range of specialist advisory teachers. They support the school by delivering INSET to staff or suggesting strategies to support a particular pupil’s learning needs.
- Our aim is for all pupils to achieve the best possible education and other outcomes.
