Inclusion
Alternative Provision
A small number of students follow a full or partial curriculum, receiving nurturing support to keep them in worthwhile education. Internally, we offer the following tailored provision:
Cheney Extra consists of two distinct offers: a long term and a short-term provision.
Long-term Provision
Offered to students who have significant Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties (SEMH) barriers and have experienced considerable difficulties in the mainstream environment. This provision offers a small and nurturing environment, which provides them with a full suite of qualifications, including GCSEs, BTECs and Skills for Life, to allow progression to post-16 courses.
Short-term Provision
Generally one or two short terms, this is aimed at young people who experience challenges around managing their emotions. Their choices impact on their attitude to learning and academic, social and emotional progress and development. The desired outcomes are to reduce exclusion rates and to allow successful reintegration into mainstream lessons. There is a lot of individual support, centred on self-regulation, positive relationships and self-worth, in addition to an academic curriculum delivered by subject specialists.
SEND and Intervention
Students with SEND are further supported by a range of in-class strategies and adjustments to ensure they are able to access the curriculum and some may also work with Teaching Assistants and receive additional small group provision. Targeted interventions, including literacy and English as an Additional Language (EAL) support, are also provided for students who are most in need. In addition, we offer ‘Star’ and ‘Up’ classes at Key Stage Three which support some students with their literacy, numeracy and SEMH needs.
Special Educational Needs Department
We do our utmost to ensure that students' needs are met in the mainstream classroom wherever possible. Staff in the Learning Support Faculty work closely with teachers and other colleagues in all subjects to ensure that the work set is accessible to all, appropriate and allows progression. Staff are given strategies to support each individual student, providing materials and training to aid where necessary. But where more individualised support and/or teaching is required, this is usually led by Learning Support staff (SEN teacher, Higher Level Teaching Assistants (HLTAs) and Teaching Assistants (TAs).
We also work closely with a range of professionals outside school to provide informed academic, social, emotional and pastoral support, and to support learning, based on students’ specific, individual needs.
Listening to children and young people, working with parents and listening to their aspirations and those of their children, and to achieve the most appropriate provision, are all key elements in all our work.
This link to an animation explains how a child or young person can receive support and help through an Education, Health and Care Plan (an EHC Plan).
Journey of a student with SEND
Our SEND Policy and Information report can be found in the 'Policies' menu on our website.
Literacy Support
The literacy team provides targeted one to one literacy support for students who have difficulty with aspects of literacy acquisition. These difficulties may be highlighted by teachers, parents, SEND assessments, screening tests or by students themselves. The objective is to assist students to improve their overall reading ability and become independent readers. We provide short-term interventions for Key Stage 3 students and some long-term literacy support for selected students in Key Stage 4.
The interventions are, usually, the systematic teaching of phonics for reading and spelling which includes the use of a variety of multisensory activities. The students choose a book at the appropriate level and phonics work is built around that. However, as the interventions are designed with the individual's needs in mind, other intervention programmes are sometimes used; such as Toe by Toe, Read Write Inc, Rapid Readers and Alpha to Omega.
The purpose of all interventions is to enable the students to achieve accelerated progress in their reading or spelling: on average there is an increase in their reading or spelling age of two months for every month that has passed. While all students will progress at different rates, many of them progress significantly more quickly than this average.
