• A strong and highly trained pastoral team who are responsive for student’s needs
• High levels of personalised materials in lessons
• Individual and small group literacy and numeracy support
• Pastoral support coaches and welfare support officers
• Small class sizes
• A high level of therapeutic support – Wellbeing Coach, Accredited Counsellor, Level 7 Counsellor, Assistant Principal leading on Health and Wellbeing
• Family liaison officer and family support
• Behaviour focused programmes, such as Martial Arts and bag work, physical therapies
• A variety of programmes to help students for Social Emotional and Mental Health
• Bespoke 1:1 intervention and/or small group intervention
• Technology for access and access arrangements in class and for examinations
• Referral to external agencies

The Assistant Principal/SENDCO and the SEN Officers work closely with the commissioning academy to transition students with SEND to the academy through the admissions process. Parents and carers are invited to an induction meeting at the start of the placement to share information and ensure that an effective plan is in place for the student’s SEND support. All students have an Individual Education and Behaviour plan, updated frequently by their form tutor and SEND team. Form tutors contact parents on a weekly basis where parents are invited to discuss SEND needs informally, and tri-annual parent consultation is offered to ensure parental involvement.

The academy has strong relationships with specialist services within the local area. These include, but are not limited to:

• Educational Psychologists
• Occupational therapy
• Complex Needs Team
• Speech and Language Therapist Team
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)
• STARS – Autistic Spectrum Conditions
• SENIT (Complex Needs Team) – Dyslexia specialists specifically

This list is not exhaustive and The Stephen Longfellow Academy is committed to communicating and working closely with professionals involved with a young person or child and their family.

• SENDCo and an Assistant SENDCo for both primary and
• Attendance and welfare support
• Primary Teaching Assistant
• Senior Pastoral Coach/Pastoral Coach – both primary and secondary
• BACP Accredited Counsellor
• Accredited wellbeing coach
• Level 7 qualified therapist/counsellor
• Welfare officers – behaviour and emotional regulation support
• Assistant Principal – lead for health and wellbeing (medically trained professional)
• SENDCos referrals where further personalisation and intervention is needed
• Assemblies, form time activities around Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development and Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship
• Physical and behaviour focused support
• Family support
• The academy has 9 trained Child Protection Designated Officer
• Daily check-ins with pastoral staff
• Green rooms access and pastoral support

The academy has a robust admissions process to ensure that we fully understand the needs of students when they are referred to the academy. This includes speaking with SENDCos from partner schools and sharing SEND planning and reports. We ensure that all members of staff receive a New Student Guide before a students starts at the academy to ensure we can support the student and provide personlisation and intervention to meet their needs.

Quality assurance of SEND practice takes place throughout the academic year to ensure that the students have the right support at the right time for them. This includes, learning walks, lesson observations, work scrutiny and ongoing review of interventions. Regular meeting with SEND staff take place with senior leaders to review support and provision for students identified as SEND.

The academy provides a broad and balanced curriculum, which can be personalised to meet the varied needs of our students, led by the expertise of Curriculum Leaders and teaching staff with support and advice from the SEND team and health and wellbeing professionals within the academy. Where students are identified as not making progress through the exceptional quality first teaching at the academy, they will be further assessed for additional support through the global intervention offer.

Students with Social, emotional and mental health needs will be assessed through the global intervention pathway, and supported offered based on their identified needs, whether this is 1-1 therapeutic intervention or programmes of intervention.

All teachers are teachers of students with SEBD and will support students aligned with their individual needs set out in the student’s Individual Education and Behaviour Plan through adaptive teaching and learning. Teachers with concerns regarding a student’s academic progress or emotional wellbeing, will refer into the global intervention offer for additional assessment and support.

The Assistant Principal/SENDCO oversees the SEND provision within the academy with the support of the SEN officers, which includes the quality assurance of the teaching and learning and pastoral support for students.

All students have 2 sessions per day with their form tutor, where the student’s day is reviewed, issues identified, and progress is praised.

Some children attending the academy are already on the SEND Register, other are referred to the academy with identified difficulties, however not fully assessed.

The Global Intervention Offer at the academy, means that children will be assessed based on information from the commissioning academy, literacy assessments and where appropriate, Social Emotional and Mental health assessments to ascertain the level of support required from the academy.

The Assistant Principal/SENDCO will review the information, including any professional reports to identify where students may have a specific difficulty. Students may then undertake further assessments which would be discussed with the parents and carers.

If you feel that your child/young person has SEND, you can contact the Assistant Principal/SENDCO to discuss further.

All students within the academy are assessed formally on a termly basis and this data is reported to parents/carers along with information about whether your child/young person is on track to achieve their target grades. This data is accompanied by summary comments from the form tutor, SLT and health and wellbeing workers.

The SEND team and professional agencies may use different assessment tools to assess the learning of students with SEND to further investigate if they have a specific difficulty or need that impacts their learning.

The Assistant Principal/SENDCO along with the Senior Leadership Team analyse the data at each assessment point to ensure that students with SEND are making progress. If students are not making progress, intervention may be put in place to support.

Tri-annual SEND consultations with parents/carers take place, to review progress and set targets for Individual Education and Behaviour Plans, and to discuss and plan interventions.

The Stephen Longfellow Academy is an Alternative Provision setting for both Primary and Secondary children/young people and we are primarily a setting where students are referred from a mainstream school to attend an alternative school. We cater for the same SEN as mainstream school which are:

• Communication and Interaction (For example: Speech and Language, or Autistic Spectrum Condition)
• Social, emotional and mental health difficulties (SEMH, for example Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, Anxiety )
• Sensory and/or physical needs (Inclusive of visual, hearing and multi-sensory impairment)
• Cognition and Learning

We have students with varied needs, and a higher than average of students identified as SEND which is often why we students are referred to attend our provision, in order to access additional support. We are not, however a specialist setting exclusively providing education for SEND students only and also have students in attendance that do not have SEND.

The needs of our students vary but are not only students identified as having Social Emotional and Mental Health needs.

Contact:

Miss Jenny Holden/Miss Abigail Cliff (Year 9-11)

Nathan Wright (Primary and year 7/8)

Telephone: 0113 4685999

Email: [email protected] – Requesting contact from the SENDCo

The academy offers breakfast to student in both our primary and secondary setting. We also have an enrichment timetable after school, which includes the BIG 3 and Gorse Gets Healthy activities of rowing, karate, table tennis, gym, football – we also run an art club,  mindful colouring, computer club, chess club and movie club. Students can also attend additional catch up activities after school.

If you would like to speak to a senior leader at the academy with regards to a complaint please email the academy on [email protected] – all information with regards to complaints can be found in the following policy.