Our Outreach Service
The Outreach Service forms part of BCP’s Offer for children who have Special Educational Needs or Disabilities.
Three special schools in Poole; Longspee, Montacute and Winchelsea, and two Special School in Bournemouth; Nigel Bowes and Linwood, provide Outreach services across the council.
Our core team comprises experienced special needs teachers and we have additional support from our Speech and Language Therapy team and other colleagues in school.
Between us, we have experience of successfully teaching and supporting children with a huge range of difficulties - from those working at the earliest levels of development to academic high-flyers.
The Aim of Outreach:
We aim to support children in their mainstream school so that they are happy and successful and make the best possible progress in their learning, independence and engagement.
Members of the team at Winchelsea are able to support children in mainstream schools who have problems with:
-Engagement
-Learning and Attention
-Communication and Interaction
-Sensory Needs
-Specific Learning Difficulties
-Global Developmental Delay
-Autism Spectrum Conditions
-Down Syndrome
-And others
At a wider level, we can offer training in:
-Early Bird and Early Bird Plus, for parents of children who have autism.
-Signalong – a sign language based on British Sign Language for parents and school staff.
And the following training for teachers and teaching assistants:
-Supporting children with Working Memory difficulties.
-Dyslexia friendly classroom
-Autism Friendly classroom
-Down Syndrome.
-And others.
How it works:
A member of the child’s school’s leadership team – often the Inclusion Manager or SENCo (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) speaks with the parents and it is agreed that a Request to Outreach should be made.
That member of staff fills in a Request for Involvement and sends it to the panel at BCP.
The child will be agreed at:
The Outreach teacher will do an assessment visit which may mean
-Observing the child,
-Talking with the child, where appropriate,
-Talking to staff.
The Outreach teacher will write a report to the school who copy it to parents and any other involved professionals, for example, Educational Psychologists.
The school then arranges a Joint Planning Meeting with parents/carers, members of the school staff – ideally the SENCo, the class teacher or form tutor, teaching assistants - and sometimes other professionals, such as Speech and Language Therapists.
At the meeting, we will talk about the difficulties the child is having with their learning and what is working well for them; Outcomes for the child will be identified and we will talk about ways we can all help the child to succeed.
We will arrange a Review Meeting a few weeks of the Joint Planning Meeting date.
In the meantime, the Outreach Teacher may support by:
-Assessing the child’s learning using formal and informal methods.
-Working with the child, modelling techniques.
-Making and recommending resources.
-Helping to implement advice from other professionals and drawing up a coherent programme for the child.
-Working with the teacher on planning and differentiation.
-Helping to set targets.
-Suggesting ways for the child to become more independent learners.
-Suggesting signposting to other services and agencies.
-Observing the child in different situations in school and giving feedback on what is working well and what else may work.
-Suggesting routines and advising about the learning environment.
-Setting up communication, behaviour or independent work systems.
-Providing handouts and information.
At the Review meeting, we discuss how well the child has made progress towards their Outcomes. We agree whether the suggestions put forward by Outreach have been helpful, what has been working well, whether more support is needed, in which case, further Outcomes will be identified, or whether the case should then be closed to Outreach.
Following involvement, the school and the Outreach teacher fill in evaluation forms which are sent to BCP with final review notes.