Providing Learning Support
Our approach to learning is ‘Are all children thinking? Are all children practicing? Are all children making meaning? The emphasis on ALL highlights our focus on inclusion. Our approach to teaching is structured and allows all children to achieve.
Our approach to inclusive teaching is built around four key principles:
- Anticipate – knowing pupils well and planning proactively for barriers to learning
- Adapt – making responsive adjustments to teaching, scaffolds, resources and lesson delivery.
- Assess – using regular formative assessment to check understanding and identify gaps.
- Monitor and Review – evaluating the impact of support and adapting provision where needed.
This model ensures that support is embedded within high-quality teaching rather than relying solely on additional intervention.
Tracking and Progress
All staff are responsible for assessing, monitoring and tracking the progress of our students. Each student is regularly assessed, and levels are recorded and reported to parents/carers throughout the academic year. At a whole school level, aspirational targets are set for all students, including those with SEND. Staff are responsible for setting each student achievable yet challenging targets within lessons and having high expectations. Heads of Department, Heads of Year, Tutors and the SENCO regularly check on the progress of students and if someone is not making the expected levels of progress then relevant and purposeful intervention is put in place with the aim of improving levels of progress.
Adaptations to the curriculum and learning environment
Our aim is to ensure that all teaching is based on building on accurate assessment and we are putting in place different ways of teaching so that your child is fully involved in learning in class as well as specific adaptive teaching strategies to support your child to learn. High-quality adaptive teaching is enhanced through targeted structured interventions where required – interventions are carefully selected to address identified needs and are reviewed regularly to evaluate impact on progress, attendance, engagement and wellbeing. Some children/classes at Whitworth Park have access to additional adults within their classrooms.
All students at Whitworth Park Academy benefit from our ordinarily available provision which includes:
- Consistent classroom routines
- Direct instruction
- Scaffolded modelling
- Retrieval practice
- Formative assessment
- Adaptive teaching
- Inclusive classrooms
- Early identification of need
- Access to enrichment and wider opportunities
- Pre-teaching of key vocabulary and concepts
- Overlearning and regular opportunities for retrieval
- Chunking of tasks
- Retrieval practice
- Sensory support
- Executive function support
- Structured scaffolding
Our universal offer reflects Durham Local Authority’s Ordinarily Available Provision guidance, ensuring that reasonable adjustments and adaptive teaching strategies are embedded within everyday classroom practice before additional SEND support is considered.
All SEND information is shared securely with relevant staff through our SEND register, support plans and pupil passports to ensure that staff understand individual needs and implement appropriate support consistently across the school.
At Whitworth Park, we adopt a graduated response (Assess-Plan-Do-Review) to meeting the needs of our students with SEND through the following:
- Universal Provision
- Monitoring
- SEND Passport
- SEND Support Plan
- Top-Up Funding
- Placement on the SEND register follows a graduated approach of Assess, Plan, Do and Review and is based on evidence that a student requires provision that is additional to or different from that ordinarily available to peers of the same age.
Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP)
We recognise that some pupils experience multiple barriers to learning. As part of our inclusive approach, we consider SEND alongside other vulnerabilities such as attendance concerns, disadvantage, social care involvement, literacy difficulties and emotional wellbeing needs.
- Ensuring that all teaching is based on building on accurate assessment.
- Putting in place different ways of teaching so that your child is fully involved in learning in class.
- Putting in place specific adaptive strategies to support your child to learn.
- High-quality adaptive teaching is enhanced through targeted structured interventions where required
- Some children/classes access additional adults within their classrooms.
Support plans
If your child is placed onto the SEND register, they will have a SEND Support Plan or a Pupil Passport. A Special Educational Needs (SEN) Support Plan or a Pupil Passport outlines your child’s needs and provides staff with teaching strategies that will help to support your child. All staff are aware that our students learn in different ways, the support plan helps to identify individual needs and set targets to ensure that these are met through a range of provisions. SEND Support Plans will be developed, reviewed and shared with both parents/carers and students to ensure that all stakeholders are fully informed of progress.
Exam Access Arrangements
At Whitworth Park Academy, Exam Access Arrangements (EAAs) are used to ensure that students with additional needs can access examinations fairly and demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Arrangements may include extra time, a reader, a scribe, rest breaks or the use of technology where appropriate. Access Arrangements are awarded in line with Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) regulations and are based on a student’s normal way of working in school, alongside evidence gathered through assessment and classroom practice. Arrangements are reviewed regularly to ensure they continue to meet students’ needs and support success in examinations.
