Learning Support at UWCSEA EAST

1. Learning Support at UWCSEA EAST An Overview

2. Learning Objectives By the end of this session, you should be able to: Explain the stage model of learning support at UWCSEA East. Know who is in the LS team. Describe the ways children can be referred to learning support. Explain in general terms how Learning support provision is organised. Explain what your teacher LS file is for and how to use it. Have some idea of what life is like for an LS child and when you should be referring to the LS team. Explain how p-files are updated by the LS department.

3. Who are we? Ailsa, Merran, Denise, Sam, Diana, Sara-Jane, Helen, Julie, Zehra and from January - Laura Points of contact: K1 and K2 – Merran Spring (mes) Grade 1 – Denise Richards (dri) Grade 2 – Ailsa Hill (aih) Grade 3 – Diana Smit (dis)/Laura Cosnett – you won’t get a response from Laura till January Grade 4 – Sam Osborne… who is also the person to contact whenever in doubt as her 3 letter code is (sos) Grade 5 – Sara –Jane Souter (sjs)

4. STAGES OF SUPPORT Stage 0 (Flag) Stage 0 the teacher may raise a minor concern about a child or ask a member of the LS team for some general advice about a child. At this stage, children are not on the learning support register and parents do not have to be informed. Stage 0 enables the LS team to have students on their ‘radar’. If a child is flagged more than once, the LS teacher will recommend movement to Stage 1.

5. Stages Of Support Stage 1 (inclusion on the LS register) Children whom the classroom teacher or the learning support team feel are ‘at risk’. At this stage, children’s progress will be closely monitored and evaluated every six months. May involve inclusion in ‘booster programmes’ being run by the learning support team.

6. Stage 2 (Direct intervention from Learning Support) At stage 2, the child is working directly with an LS teacher with either in-class support or pull out support. At stage 2, a child will have clearly defined learning goals. At stage 2, the LS department will make direct contact with the parent to discuss the provision of learning support in liaison with the class teacher. At stage 2, the child’s inclusion on the learning support register is indicated on his/her school report.

7. Stages of Support Stage 3(Significant Concerns) If it’s not working at stage 2, we’ll move them to stage 3. Usually, stage 3 children are withdrawn from second language unless concerns are purely behavioural or in maths only. The key purpose of stage 3 provision is to provide intensive remediation to enable the child to function effectively at a stage 2.

8. REFERRAL PROCEDURES Referral to the Learning Support Department A child may be referred to LS department through a number of different channels: • Analysis of school assessment and screening results -LS team will work with Heads of Grade to identify priority concerns. • Teacher concerns • Parental concerns

9. REFERRAL PROCEDURES Teacher concerns (beyond stage 0) should be raised with the LS department by completing a learning support referral form (find it on the LS wikispace) . All parental concerns should be referred to the LS department, even if the class teacher is not similarly concerned. Children can be referred to the LS department at any point through the school year, however the LS department will mainly conduct assessments and observations during the weeks allocated for this purpose between blocks of intervention (usually August and February) and ‘pick up’ new children at the start of the next block of intervention.

10. Provision of Learning Support Learning support will be provided in 3 blocks through the school year. Between blocks 2 and 3, two weeks will be allocated for LS teachers to conduct mid year assessments and observations, to meet with teachers and grades, to define priorities, groupings and programmes for the next block of support. Learning support will target students with the greatest need in that particular school year and therefore will not necessarily be evenly distributed across grades. Learning support provision will be based on developmental needs rather than this term’s curriculum content. Learning support is here to help with differentation!

11. Learning Support Provision We review whole school assessment data and conduct our own standardisedand diagnostic assessments to enable us to identify children and plan appropriate intervention programmes. When a child is on the learning support register, standardized tests of basic skills will be conducted every six months to track progress and determine future levels of support (this includes stage 1 children). All referrals to outside specialists need to go through learning support. If a parent ‘turns up’ with an assessment report – please send it to Ailsa

12. Class Teacher Files Each class teacher will be provided with a yellow A4 ring binder, which acts as his or her class learning support file. The LS team will distribute and collect these files at the beginning and end of each school year. It is the classroom teacher’s responsibility to maintain these working documents through the year and to share the contents as necessary with their teacher assistants and cover teachers. The learning support team will alert specialist teachers to children on stage 2 and 3 of the learning support register at the beginning of the school and refer them to the pupil profile form on e-portal (?) Specialist teachers who are concerned about a child through the year should raise these concerns in the first instance with the class teacher who will then inform the LS teacher.

13. Homework and Homework Club PLEASE be mindful of your LS children’s reading level, attention level and fatigue levels when setting homework. This year, the LS team will be running an ‘invitation only’ homework club. We will draw a line in the sand when we feel children have spent sufficient time on the homework and we may occasionally veto homework if it proves to be out with a child’s abilities at that time. If we do this – we will let you know and explain why. For LS children review and repetition of basic skills has to take priority otherwise, their educational career stalls. Our LSA (Zehra) will support with doing as much of this as possible during school time – please be welcoming and supportive.

14. Role of the LS teacher Support teachers in tracking the progress of individual children within the school by analysing school assessment results, talking to teachers about children and observing children in classrooms and the playground. Support teachers in identifying children who may be ‘at risk’ or are already failing in some aspect of school life. Promote and assist in the development of inclusion within the school and support teachers with differentiation to assist this. Plan and implement clearly defined intervention programmes to promote student success. Support teachers and parents during, what can be, emotionally difficult times in regards to children’s learning and success.

15. ESOL UWCSEA does not provide ESOL provision in the primary years. Children should have sufficient levels of English before entry. This does not mean that we don’t have children in the primary school whose primary learning challenge is lower levels of English. Give them until at least October to settle in and see how their English picks up. If you are still concerned, please refer the child to the LS team. We will make a decision as to whether short term inclusion in the LS programme is appropriate or whether the child should be referred for English language support outside of school. There is always the possibility of a ‘double whammy’ of ESOL and LS.

16. Experiencing Learning Difficulties Walking in their shoes……

17. NAMETAGS

18. ROUND ROBIN Word retrieval

19. Visual perception Is it a……. b d p q

20. The Psychology of Spelling The spelling choices for sound symbol accuracy can be difficult even for a proficient speller in English. George Bernard Shaw illustrated this very nicely in his spelling of the word ‘fish’ as ‘ghoti’. Anyone familiar with the rules of English spelling will know that this spelling is totally unacceptable, but it was constructed by analogy with the following words:

21. fish-ghoti ‘gh’ sounding /f/ as in cough ‘o’ sounding /i/ as in women ‘ti’ sounding /sh/ as in station fish-ghoti

22. PHONOLOGY-not a perfect ‘science’ The problem is that sounds can be spelt in many different ways. For example the sound /f/: ‘f’ as in fish ‘ph’ as in phone ‘ff’ as in puff ‘gh’ as in cough

23. MOTOR PLANNING When your brain and body do not communicate clearly It’s a bit like being drunk without the beer goggles!

24. KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER LS is here to help. We have expertise – please make use of it. We absolutely value class teacher opinions and observations, but we equally value our own. It’s a team effort. Our aim is to minimise long term difficulties and intervention and therefore we are pro EARLY intervention. It is much better to provide additional support and later find it wasn’t necessary than to fail to support a child and create a bigger problem. Our aim is to get children OFF the register.

25. Learning Support Wikispace Learning support wiki