Special Needs

Somerford Primary School has introduced the Thrive Approach for all children who attend. Mr Thorne is a licensed Thrive Practitioner and can offer children, their families and the staff who support them advice and interventions to help them develop their self-regulation and engagement to learning. If your child is identified as requiring further Thrive support, Mr Thorne will contact you to discuss what needs have been identified and to implement a more in-depth assessment. The school also offer Family Thrive sessions for families whose children require Thrive assessments and these are supportive sessions to help families develop strategies to help with behaviours that challenge, based upon child development principles and leading neuro-scientific research.

At Somerford Primary School, we operate a plan, do, review system to ensure children with additional needs are well provided for. If a teacher identifies a child as not making good progress, you will be advised of this and they will be placed on targeted interventions to help them catch up with their peers. If this intervention is not successful, a review of the challenge will be carried out and either a different intervention put in place, or an Individual Education Plan will be written and you will be consulted on the content of the plan. After the plan is implemented, it will be reviewed and the child will either come off the plan, as sufficient progress will have been made, or the plan will be modified or changed as per the need of the child. If a child’s progress continues to be significantly behind that of their peers, it may be necessary to ask for other professionals to offer advice and support. We currently work with NHS Speech and Language, BCP Educational Psychology and BCP BOOST Outreach Service for many of our children with SEN. If the school feel this support is necessary, we will discuss this with you prior to any consultation with other professionals.