Special Schools Consultancy Service

Both the Castle School and Brookfields School are involved in providing consultancy services to mainstream West Berkshire schools – both primary and secondary. The Castle School deals with referrals from schools in the west side of the unitary authority.

This service is free of charge.

The purpose of the Consultancy is to support pupils with SEN in their mainstream settings in order to assist inclusion

Support may include:

• Support for individual pupils offering advice regarding          
  • the learning environment
  • differentiation of curriculum materials
  • resources
  • assessment
  • behaviour management 
• professional development sessions for staff
  • e.g.  P levels, IEP writing, SCRIP online inset (ASD and Communication) 
• professional development for mainstream staff via visits to a special school to observe strategies 

The referral process is clearly outlined in the West Berkshire Service Level Agreement which should be available in all schools or from the SEN department at West Berkshire Council.

In order to access the service a referral form needs to be completed and returned to either The Castle School, Brookfields School or the SEN department.

The referral is then discussed at fortnightly SSC Panel meetings which consists of representatives from the Local Authority, the Special Needs Support Team and the SSC.

Possible responses may be:

1. Agreement for the SSC to be involved
2. Referral to another service e.g. Advisory teacher for pupils with ASD

Initial visit

If the referral is directed to the SSC, the school will receive a phone call confirming that the Consultancy will be involved and agreeing a date for the initial visit. This will be followed by a letter outlining

• the need for the referring school to notify parents and
• allow appropriate staff to be available for the visit
• Paper work, such as statements, recent professionals’ reports, school reports and assessment results need to be available so that the consultant can establish a detailed picture of the pupil’s needs.

The findings of the initial visit will be discussed at the SSC panel meeting.

After the initial visit, a consultant will be allocated who has experience in the specific area of special needs (e.g. Downs Syndrome) and subsequent visits will be arranged to establish targets for the intervention.

Targets will be reviewed regularly and should be related to pupil progress.

Regular meetings will be held to give consultants an opportunity to feed back progress, receive advice and discuss any concerns. This information will be reported to the Panel at the fortnightly meetings.

The main purpose of the visits is to provide advice and if appropriate, resources for staff working with the pupil and is time limited.

Back | TopPage last updated: 02/02/2012