Teams We Work With
SEND Teams we Work With
Teams and agencies which may provide services to children with a special educational need / disability at Riverside Primary School include:
Educational Psychology
Who are EPs?
Educational Psychologists (EPs) are specially trained psychologists who are skilled in assessing children and young people’s educational needs and offering advice on how they can be supported in school
What to EPs do?
EPs work with individual children, school staff and parents, either individually, in small groups or with whole staff teams. Work can include:
· Observations
· Assessment, including exam arrangement work
· Therapeutic intervention
· Training
· Problem Solving
· Gathering Children and Young People’s Views.
Speech and Language Therapy
Our speech and language therapy service can support children and young people from birth to 19 who have speech, language or communication needs or difficulties with eating, drinking or swallowing.
These include:
- Stammering, where sounds or words are regularly repeated or a lot of effort is needed to produce them.
- Speaking with a persistently unusual voice quality, which might sound croaky, breathy, or hoarse.
- Difficulties in saying specific sounds when talking making your speech difficult to understand by others.
- Difficulties with speaking, including difficulties putting words and sentences together to ask for something, telling a story or holding a conversation.
- Making sense of what other people say to you and/or understanding and using body language and eye contact.
- Difficulties learning the ‘rules’ of conversation such as when it is your turn to speak and when it is time to change the topic of conversation.
- Feeding or swallowing difficulties.
As well as occurring on their own, these difficulties are common in children and young people who have other diagnoses such as autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, cleft palate, learning, physical or hearing difficulties.
Dyslexic Referral Team
A team of specialist teachers with post-graduate qualifications and Associate Membership of the British Dyslexia Association (AMBDA) who have been trained to assess and teach children with dyslexia/ persistent literacy difficulties.
· We also assess for specific difficulties with numeracy.
· We work in mainstream schools in North Tyneside.
· We provide an advice and consultation service for school staff in ARP’s and special schools. This includes access to the team’s training workshops and resources to address difficulties with sound awareness, phonics, reading and spelling.
Public Health Nurse
https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/category/1231/childrens-public-health-service-0-19
School health
ChatHealth
ChatHealth is a texting service is available for young people aged 11-19 looking for confidential support and advice. The number to text is: 07507 332 532
The school nursing team can be contacted via telephone Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm on 0191 643 8251.
Public Health School Nurses provide support in and out of school, with issues such as:
- Emotional health and wellbeing
- Keeping healthy and weight management
- Enuresis (bed wetting)
- Sexual health
- Smoking, drugs and alcohol
National Childhood Measurement Programme
The National Childhood Measurement Programme is delivered in reception and year 6, further information can be found below.
Vision screening
Vision screening is offered to reception age children, further details on the test and results is available below.
Language and Communication Team
The Language and Communication Team is a North Tyneside commissioned service based within Benton Dene School which includes the specialist nursery, Dene Communication Centre.
• The Team is staffed by specialist teachers and specialist support assistants. We provide advice, support and teaching strategies for pupils with specific language and communication needs in a variety of educational settings. These include children with social communication difficulties and autism spectrum disorders.
• All team members have additional specialist qualifications in the areas of speech, language and communication.
• The Team works closely with parents, educational settings and a range of other agencies.
The Language and Communication Team work with pupils aged 4-19 providing:
• Statutory and non-statutory assessment
• Teaching/support of pupils with speech, language and communication needs • Targeted interventions
• Monitoring
• Development and provision of appropriate resources
• Joint work with other professionals We provide advice, support & training for:
• Professionals in an educational setting (including non-teaching staff)
• Parents
• Other agencies
Sensory Team
https://beaconhill.org.uk/north-tyneside-sensory-service/
Aims of the Service
The Sensory Service at Beacon Hill aims to provide appropriate and effective advice and support to children and young people with a visual and/or hearing loss. This support and advice is available from the point of diagnosis through school until the young person leaves education or reaches the age of 25 years. Support and advice is dependent upon each individual need.
A sensory (sight or hearing) loss is a low incidence loss and the number of children and young people we support can fluctuate year on year.
With improved medical care and the development of early screening and diagnosis, specialists within the team work with young babies and their families/carers. The aim of our support, is to work with parents/carers to maximise the young child’s development and to prepare them to lead a full and inclusive life at school.
There is a continuum of support which can be:
• Advice and work with the family.
• Advice and recommendations into nurseries, early years settings, primary, secondary schools and 6th Form/full time college settings.
• Some children and young people will require direct teaching specialist teachers
• Teaching, support and advice are flexible meeting the needs of individual children and families
Occupational Therapists
Our team includes occupational therapists and occupational therapy technical instructors.
We work with children and young people from birth to 18 years of age, assessing your health, education and social care needs to maximize your independence and learning both at home and school.
Our occupational therapists can advise on strategies to support and develop you in tasks such as dressing, feeding, bathing, toileting and fine motor skills. In order to meet your child’s needs, we may advise and recommend equipment or adaptations to promote safety and independence in their home and school environment.
We work closely with other professionals involved in your care to support your family across a variety of settings including home, nursery, school and respite facilities.
We will assess you depending on your needs which may include environmental assessments (at home and school), observations during play, structured work time during lessons and completion of tasks. Where appropriate we may do these as joint visits with other health, social and education practitioners.
Following an assessment, treatment plans can include one or more of the following:
- One to one support from an occupational therapist or occupational therapy technical instructor. This will include advice, strategies and information to be used in daily life.
- A plan of agreed individual targets and goals including your parents or carers and other professionals who support you.
- Specialist assessment of need for equipment and adaptations
- Involvement in local authority statutory assessment and procedures for children with special educational needs including contribution to individual Education, Health and Care Plans
- Liaison with your parents / carers and professionals involved in your care.
We provide short term care to meet the needs identified with you and your family when a child or young person is referred, once completed you will be discharged from the service. Should your needs change you can be referred back into the service at any time.
School Support Team
https://www.educationservices.org.uk/Page/37415
North Tyneside is very proud of the genuine collaboration and cooperation of all schools and the Local Authority to work together to:
- Keep Children Safe and in Education
- Act with a sense of urgency to minimise a pupil’s time out of education
- Secure appropriate school placements
- Support children and young people to access and thrive in their education
We recognise that both the process and student support offer we have in North Tyneside is unique. Other local authorities provide the basic offer in fulfilling their statutory responsibility. They facilitate a monthly fair access panel, which processes children requiring education after permanent exclusion, provides Day 6 provision and considers Section 19 responsibility for appropriate education provision. We don’t believe that adopting that approach would be in the best interests of supporting the children and young people of North Tyneside.
Children and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS)
Young people come and see us for lots of different reasons, such as:
Anxiety
Depression
Eating disorders
Self-harm
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
You may meet several different kinds of professionals in CAMHS. All of our staff are trained in assessing children and young people.