Our Provision

At Windy Arbor, we treat every child as an individual; offering the level of support appropriate to the child.

Universal provision:

Teaching is designed to build on your child’s current knowledge, skills, and understanding, with continuous assessment and focused feedback helping to guide progress. Retrieval activities are embedded across the curriculum to promote overlearning and reinforce key knowledge.

Various teaching approaches are used to ensure active engagement in learning, which may include practical activities or the use of adapted resources to meet your child's needs.

Specific strategies, recommended by the SENCO or external specialists, may also be implemented to support your child in accessing learning tasks. These strategies may include occasional support from a teaching assistant or key worker to address particular challenges.

Targeted provision:

Your child’s teacher will closely monitor their progress and may identify gaps in their learning that require additional support to help them reach the same level as their peers. Parents and carers will be actively involved as full partners in planning, reviewing, and evaluating any additional support or interventions. If a cognition and learning difficulty is identified, the child will be supported through the Birmingham Continuum bands, with more specific targets and individualized work tailored to their needs.

Interventions are time-limited, targeted support designed to help children make progress in specific areas of learning. These interventions have clear goals and will typically last for a set number of weeks. The class teacher, in collaboration with parents/carers, the pupil, and the SENCO, will plan interventions to meet the child's specific needs. These may include small group work or individual sessions.

Children with SEND may require more tailored support beyond the usual classroom adaptations. This will depend on their specific area of need. For children whose behaviour is a concern, we recognize that this may reflect underlying issues, such as difficulties with social interaction or communication. These needs are addressed through our school’s inclusion team, with a focus on providing appropriate support.

Small group interventions, when needed, are delivered by a teacher, teaching assistant, Learning Mentor, or external specialists, such as Speech and Language Therapists, using evidence-based programs. All staff delivering interventions have received training to ensure high-quality support.

Parents and carers will be fully involved in discussions and decisions about their child's progress. A meeting will be arranged to review the child’s progress and discuss any next steps.

In addition to interventions during the school day, we offer additional support for students outside regular school hours to further assist their learning.

Specialist provision:

When children fail to make adequate progress despite some targeted support, we work with specialists in various fields who help us assess pupils and recommend specific interventions to meet their needs. This includes, for example, 1:1 or small group speech therapy, extra literacy support, BEAM exercises, etc. A member of the SEND Team will deliver these interventions.

Through these three approaches, we can support children with a wide range of difficulties, including:

•Speech and language difficulties

•General or specific learning difficulties, including global development delay, Dyslexia, ADHD

•Autism

•Physical difficulties, including Dyspraxia or Cerebral Palsy

•Social, emotional and mental health problems, including anxiety

•Visual or hearing impairment

•A range of medical conditions where children need additional support

Our Speech and language team:

At Windy Arbor, we currently employ a speech and language therapist Nicola Cole two days a week and a part-time specialist teaching assistant, Mrs Taylor.

They work as a team to support children across the school with speech, language and communication difficulties. This includes assessment, 1:1 and small group sessions, training and liaising with teaching staff. They also liaise with the NHS Speech and language therapists and the SLCD teams.

In addition, Mrs Taylor takes the lead in delivering *language link supported by Miss Bibb and Mr Nally who deliver the interventions across all key stages.

*Language link is a screening, assessment and teaching tool that supports children with receptive language difficulties across the school.