SENCO and SEN Staff
Our SENCO is Mrs Grace Churchill. She can be contacted at middleton@durhamlearning.net
More details of the SENCO’s role can be found in the SEN Policy which you can find in the School Policies section of our website.
External Specialists and Other Bodies
The school enjoys good working relationships with a wide range of people who provide services to children with SEND and their families.
The external specialists may:
- Act in an advisory capacity
- Extend expertise of school staff
- Provide additional assessment
- Support a child directly
- Suggest statutory assessment is advisable
- Consult with all parties involved with the child
These include:
- Durham County Council Local Offer
- Durham SEND Information, Advice and Support Service
- Durham Educational Psychology Service
- Barnard Castle One Point Hub
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)
- Speech and Language Therapists
- Durham Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Communication Team
- Durham Cognition and Learning Team
- Durham Emotional, Wellbeing and Effective Learning Team
- Durham Behaviour Support Services / Crisis Response.
- Treetops Occupational Therapy Service for Children
- Educational Social Workers
- Looked After Children Team
- Learning Difficulties and Disability Support Service
- Occupational Therapy
- Medical Practitioners
- Counselling Service
How We Secure Specialist Expertise
Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN. At Middleton-in-Teesdale Nursery and Primary School, our notional SEN budget amounts to £39,280.34.
This is used to support children and young people with SEND by:
- Providing each class with a teaching assistant to support children within class, or to carry out interventions when necessary.
- The purchase of specialist computer packages to help support specific needs.
- Allowing staff to access training specific to individual needs, for example ADHD, Autism, Nurture Group training and Makaton.
- Providing one to one support, or one to two support from a teaching assistant, where necessary.
- The running of a ‘Nurture Room’ where children receive individualised support.
If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes.
