The Designated Provision

Please click here for council issued information regarding Designated Provisions in Warrington.

 

The designated provision is a specialist facility for (13) young people with Learning and Cognition difficulties. The adapted provision and specialist support offers a personalised bespoke learning environment with timetables which are tailored to suit the needs of each young person’s specific strengths and needs.

Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School strives to provide a fully inclusive environment. Students are all in mainstream forms and are actively encouraged to participate in all areas of our school community. Young people have different strengths, which need to be nurtured and developed hence the curriculum developed is bespoke and tailored to the individual. What is right for one person is not for another. Therefore, the curriculum needs to reflect these strengths. 

All students are given the opportunity to represent the school in a variety of capacities and our DP students are actively encouraged to become involved. Examples include: Young ambassadors, prefects, sports leaders, school council member and club leaders. There are a vast array of lunch time clubs, after school sports and academic clubs also available. Some pupils may need or want support and others access clubs independently.

Staff

There are three members of staff assigned to the provision who are supported by the LINKS team and help to develop a fully inclusive family learning environment.

DP Lead Teacher: Miss Power – Specialist SEND teacher and English specialist

Specialist HLTA: Mrs R Griffiths – specialist dyslexia, dyscalculic SEND. BA (Hons), Education, Foundation Degree Award Teaching and learning.  Supports/delivers 1:1 speech and language programs monitored by our NHS designated speech and language specialist, Dyspraxia training by NHS staff and BDA. ASD training by specialists, ADHD and Behavior support training/ SEAL trained.

Specialist subject teachers and heads of department across the school work closely with our DP teacher to ensure up to date supportive delivery of core subjects. Maths and English specialist teach some of the lessons with and alongside our DP teacher to ensure a smooth transition over the time table and key stage. This will help to enable, where appropriate, students to access mainstream and GCSE subjects or Entry Level Certificates.

If students have a reduced mainstream timetable they can access Science, RE, art, DT and PE as part of a DP lesson delivered by specialist subject teachers. Students can either be given extra opportunities to have more time if already in these mainstream subjects or work towards other qualification within this time.

Pupil and parent conferencing with diagnostic assessments help to design the curriculum for each individual. A specialist speech and language assessment is conduced. Students who need to follow this program will have either small group session or 1:1 sessions with our HLTA should this be recommended.

Where appropriate the students are given the opportunity to follow mainstream lessons. They are fully included in all aspects of school life at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School. All pupils are part of a form within mainstream and have the same high quality pastoral care, supported and enriched by our DP staff.

Key stage 3 (KS3 – Year 7 to 9)

Social skills and Speech, Language lessons promote communication skills, in which pupils follow a structured schemes set by our designated speech and language advisor.

Year 7

Students tend to spend more time as a DP class in year 7 to gradually build skills to allow them to access more mainstreams lessons. However, this is not always the case. Dependent upon the specific abilities of the child mainstream lessons are accessed.

The subjects studied in the DP currently include: English, Mathematics, ICT, Speech and Language, Food, DT, RE, gardening and Art.

All students access mainstream PE, food and Design Technology. AQA unit awards in food.

Year 8, Year 9

In year 8 and 9 most students have gained more confidence and as well as accessing the curriculum as stated for year 7, will also attend more mainstream classes such as; science, DT, food, art  and  PE. AQA unit awards will include skills such as shopping, travelling (e.g. getting on a bus) and gardening.

Key Stage 4 (KS4 – Year 10 and 11)

In KS4 it is hoped that many of your young people will have gained enough confidence and knowledge to attend some mainstream GCSE classes for both core and option subjects. However, this depends upon the strengths of the individuals. For other pupil’s Entry Level Certificates (ELC) in Maths, English and ICT are also offered alongside ASDAN which is another qualification available to our pupils within the designated provision. Unit level awards including first aid, sport and horticulture are also options for students.

ASDAN

ASDAN is a nationally recognised qualification which offers a vast array of ways to develop students learning in a vocational capacity which is also accredited. Activities promote a wide range of skills; interpersonal, social life skills and practical achievements, as well as introducing them to new activities and challenges.

Assessment:

Whole school assessments are applied; which have 4 main assessment points throughout the year.

Extra assessments may come from our designated Speech, Language and Communication Specialist (Mr. Greg Whitehouse – NHS) who works closely with us to ensure that personalised programmes are delivered effectively.

Diagnostic assessments – Progress can and will be assessed by our LINKS specialist SEN expert should the young persons’ progress stall.

Assessment at key stage 3

  • BSquared – diagnostic assessment tool
  • Academic progress- Mainstream assessments are also given for any mainstream subjects taken.
  • Social outcomes
  • Speech, Language and communication (if appropriate)

Assessment at key stage 4

Dependent upon the individuals personalised timetable students may be assessed in the following qualifications. Assessment points follow whole school policies.

  • GCSE
  • ELC (Entry Level Certificate) English and Maths AQA and ICT OCR exam boards.
  • ELC unit awards with AQA exam board.
  • ASDAN Bronze / CoPE / ICT/ Gardening

Parents evening:

Parents evenings are with the young person’s year group. Our specialist DP teacher, TAs and SENCO are available, alongside mainstream teachers, to discuss your child’s progress.

Informal Parents Events:

We also invite you to attend an informal tea and cake drop in event to discuss your child with the DP teachers, teaching assistants and SENCo.

DP Placements

  • Places are allocated by the Local Authority.
  • All students within the DP must have an EHCP which suggests that they need a non-mainstream provision.

Transition processes

Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School works extensively with our local primary schools from Year 5 (amawby@boteler.org.uk). Alongside this a bespoke programme is developed with parents/careers, student, SENCo’s and the primary school teachers.

Students are also supported at the end of KS4 to assist in the transition to further education. This is through liaison with the next education provider and appropriate independent advice and guidance.

If you need any more information please contact the SENCO (Miss Power – fpower@boteler.org.uk)