SEN & Disability Provision

A special educational need is defined as ‘a learning difficulty or disability that makes learning a challenge for a child’. Children with SEND have greater difficulty learning than other children of the same age.

Kingsdown School aims to ensure that appropriate provision is available to champion each and every student to have equal access to curriculum opportunities and to ensure that the curriculum is differentiated to meet individual learning needs.

The newly formed Inclusion team have transformed the way in which they support students this year. The support hubs consist of behaviour, health, literacy, numeracy and SEMH. These five hubs work closely with their mainstream colleagues to offer supplementary support to the regular curriculum, for identified pupils needing periods of specific intervention for a fixed period of time. Additional programmes include Freshstart, Springboard, and access to a school counsellor.

Kingsdown has much of its teaching and learning space at ground floor level, and some access ramps and toilet facilities have been installed to those areas. Kingsdown has two lifts providing access to the Virtual Learning Centre (ICT) and to some science laboratories; however, wheelchair users would not be able to gain access to some upper floors.

Kingsdown has an Autistic Spectrum Condition Centre, which was opened in 2003; it has the capacity for 15 students and each year is usually oversubscribed.  It is designed for pupils who are academically capable of accessing the mainstream curriculum but need more support than can be offered in a totally mainstream environment. Admission to the centre is through the decision of a panel of professionals at the SEN Assessment Team and is not controlled by the usual channels of application. All students admitted to the Centre have an EHCP with Autism named as their primary need. The majority of students follow the mainstream curriculum and attend classes with Educational Support Champions. However, all students are withdrawn from certain lessons so they can complete homework and also work on developing key skills. Individualised ASDAN, National Autistic Society, Entry Level and corrective reading courses are taught in the centre, as these may be more appropriate for those students needing a more skills based practical curriculum.

Anxious and vulnerable students have daily access to ‘Haven Club’ in the ASC Centre, which enables them to have a safe space for unstructured, busy times of the day.

As of March 2013 Kingsdown became a Dyslexia Friendly School, and we were revalidated in 2017.

Related Documents

Annual Report to Parents and Carers on the provision for SEND 2018
Annual Report to Parents and Carers on the provision for SEND 2017