Enhanced Mainstream School (EMS) for Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD)

 

Contact details:
EMS for SpLD
Rossett School
Green Lane
Harrogate
HG2 9JP
EMSadmin@rossettschool.co.uk
Direct line: 01423 564444 ext 351 (please wait for the instruction before inputting extension number)

Secondary Schools
Boroughbridge High
Harrogate Grammar School
Harrogate High School
King James's High School
Nidderdale High School
Ripon College
Ripon Grammar School
Rossett School
St Aidan's CE High School
St John Fisher Catholic High School

What is an Enhanced Mainstream School (EMS) for Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD)?

The Rossett EMS for SpLD serves the Boroughbridge, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon, and Pateley Bridge areas. It is one of seven EMS for SpLD across the county and its ambition is, where possible, to support children and young people to learn in their local community school. It acts as a ‘host’ school with specialist staffing and a support base at the heart of the school.

The EMS for SpLD forms part of a flexible range of specialist provision which is able to meet the needs of children and young people - both in outreach and through its specialist placements - with high need specific learning difficulties and also develop the capacity of its community of local schools by sharing expertise in SpLD.

Children and young people with specific learning difficulties may experience particular difficulties in learning to read, write, spell or manipulate numbers to the extent that their performance in these areas may be below their performance in other areas, despite appropriate learning opportunities.

They may also experience problems with the speed of processing information, with working memory, with organisational skills and with co-ordination.

Outreach may include:

Advice and training on :

• Curriculum differentiation and personalised learning
• Modification of the learning environment / the physical and educational implications of specific conditions
• Access arrangements
• Modelling and coaching of teaching approaches and support for targeted pupils within the mainstream schools

Supporting:

• Transitions
• Identification and assessment of specific need
• Professional development for staff
• One to one teaching, where appropriate

 

How schools can access us

By contacting the EMS for informal advice.

By making a referral once all the conditions for making a referral are met.

Remember that you can also contact your Educational Psychologist, your Integrated Service Manager, or Advisors / Consultants in Q&I.

The information above is a shorter version of what is available in the Specification and the EMS Update September 2010.

Placement in the EMS (“in reach”)

Up to six young people will be considered for a full time placement in the EMS by the Local Authority (LA) if they:

• have a statement of SEN where it has been identified that they need to access additional specialist provision, other than that which is available through their statement of SEN in their local mainstream school, even with outreach support.

• have moved into the area and have, through a statement, been attending enhanced or resourced schools within their previous LA, and it is agreed that they cannot be supported in their local mainstream school, even with outreach support.

Placements may be considered by a LA Special Needs Advisory Panel (SENAP) [Section 3.5]

Informal Contact

Schools are welcome to call our office on 01423 564444 ext 351 to discuss provision with Mr Jones (Teacher in Charge) or Mrs Wilkins (Specialist Teacher).

This conversation should not include reference to a named individual child, as the referral has not yet been made and parental consent has not been sought. It is also expected that the school has gone through a similar process to the one described for 'when making a referral' before doing this.

The aim is to get informal advice about adaptations to the learning environment, curriculum, teaching styles or procedures which may help a school to better meet the needs of an individual child or young person.

The advice will often inevitably be quite generic and it is impossible for EMS staff receiving these requests to be fully apprised of the situation or aware of the resources and skills that your school has. However, we have been finding that this service works well despite these obvious limitations. Sometimes it becomes clear that the situation is highly complex and schools are recommended to either make a referral [click here for EMS checklist] or contact their Educational Psychologist, Quality & Improvement Consultants or Integrated Service Manager.

The EMS team will monitor the progress of the informal contact to gauge the effectiveness of advice given and ensure that staff feel confident in being able to support the child or young person. Mr Greg Jones will contact the school to check progress if the EMS team has not heard from the school, this will be approximately one month after the informal contact.

The Dyslexia Quality Mark

The new paperwork for the Dyslexia Quality Mark (DQM) is available now and forms Section 3 of the Specific Learning Difficulties Guidance Document (Revised Dyslexia Handbook), which is due out early 2011. The new paperwork is designed to be quickly completed and gives a school a clear idea of whether or not they would currently achieve verification or how long this might take.

Once the criteria appear to be met a school can contact NYCC and submit the paperwork ready for verification. Mr Jones and either Ms J Chapman (Lead for SpLD) or a Teacher in Charge from another EMS for SpLD will then visit the school once the programme for the day (secondary) or half day (primary) is arranged.

The revised guidance is aligned to the North Yorkshire Inclusion Quality Mark and the Quality Mark for the British Dyslexia Association. In going through this rigorous process and achieving the DQM, Headteachers and governing bodies can be assured of a high quality response to inclusion in their own schools.

The DQM is not now required for level 5 of the Inclusion Quality Mark. [see Revised Dyslexia Quality Mark Guidance document]. The DQM is an additional, multi-level, stand alone assessment of a school's response to meeting the needs of children and young people with dyslexia and a strong measure of inclusion.

The Dyslexia Friendly checklist at appendix no.21 to the Inclusion Quality Mark will be a self-assessment for contribution to a decision regarding preparedness for level 5 of the North Yorkshire Inclusion Quality Mark.

Updated guidance and appendices for the Inclusion Quality Mark will be issued in early 2011, which will clearly define the aims and purposes of The North Yorkshire Dyslexia Friendly School Self Assessment and the North Yorkshire Dyslexia Quality Mark.

Other agencies

NYCC

• Fronter Link:
  • SEN/LDD room
  • Dyslexia Friendly Room
  • IQM appendix 21 (DQM checklist)
  • IDP link
• Learning Net: Home EMS information

National/external advice/information

• PATOSS www.patoss-dyslexia.org
• BDA www.bdadyslexia.org.uk
• Dyslexia Action www.dyslexiaction
• The Dyslexia Trust www.thedyslexia-spldtrust.org.uk
• Helen Arkell Centre www.arkellcentre.org.uk
• Dyslexia Scotlandwww.dyslexiascotland.org.uk
• National Association for SEN www.nasen.org.uk
• Basic Skills Agency www.basic-skills.co.uk
• Xxtraordinary People www.xtraordinarypeople.com
• Dudes with Dyslexia (created by Harry a 10 year old with dyslexia!) www.dudeswithdyslexia.co.uk

Resource links

• www.senteacher.org
• www.irlenuk.com
• www.crossboweducation.com
• www.sparklebox.co.uk
• www.primaryresources.co.uk
• www.smartkids2.co.uk
  

Before making a referral…

These are the expectations for all schools working with children and young people at School Action or School Action Plus:

Every school is expected to have reviewed its provision in relation to an individual child prior to any referral to an EMS. This should include a school being able to identify the adaptations it has made to curriculum, environment, policies, procedures and support in order to try and meet a child’s needs.

Schools should use inclusion passports to record this on-going work. This will ensure that pupil and parent views are sought and helped to inform any evaluation of adaptations to provision, and will enable you to identify those strategies that have worked and those that haven’t.

A school should also be closely monitoring and evaluating any such adaptations and strategies over a reasonable period of time, for example half a term, in order to evidence the impact of these adaptations on the progress the pupil is making.

In making such adaptations a school will have done some or all of the following:-

• developed class and/or individual provision maps for the child’s specific needs
• provided specific interventions at Wave 2 or 3 (which may not have produced adequate progress)
• made reference to the ‘At a Glance’ guide
• accessed and implemented strategies within the Inclusion Development Programme or NYCC publications:
• Supporting Children & Young People (CYP) with Motor Coordination Difficulties
• SpLD Guidance handbook
• Let's Communicate DVDs
• Guidance on supporting children/young people with Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD) in mainstream settings and schools

Schools may have:-

• bought in consultant support from Quality & Improvement (Q&I) through an advice and support request form
• discussed the issues with their Educational Psychologist
• accessed support from a leading school for inclusion or from a leading SENCo
• consulted informally with an EMS, an adviser in Q&I, or an Integrated Service Manager (ISM).
• engaged the support of a range of other services as appropriate, such as Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD) Outreach Support Service (OSS), health visitor, CAMHS etc
• considered undertaking a Common Assessment in order to assess all factors impacting on the child both within and outside school and sought parental consent to do so

(This text has been extracted from the EMS Update - Sept 2010)

The “ meeting the needs” flow chart puts this information in a more visual format.

When is a referral appropriate?

• When a pupil is not making progress over a reasonable period despite working through the processes above and the involvement of outside agencies
• The strategies and adjustments the school have put in place do not appear to have made a difference. The Children & Young People (CYP) may have a complex or inconsistent learning profile and this might be causing difficulties
• If in any doubt, schools are advised to talk to their Educational Psychologist or make direct contact with Mr Jones (Teacher in Charge) to discuss unnamed* potential cases prior to making the referral. It can be difficult to decide how long to leave before making a referral and this does vary on a case by case basis. Early intervention is an important aim so schools are encouraged to contact the EMS for assistance.

* This conversation should not include reference to a named individual child, as the referral has not yet been made and parental consent has not been sought.

What do you do if a referral is appropriate?

Before completing the referral form you will need to:

• Gather information about the pupil
• Review pupil progress on the school tracker system
• Review current strategies and interventions for the pupil
• Update / put together the pupil’s Inclusion Passport
• Discuss this process with parents / Children & Young People (CYP)
• Ensure that the headteacher has endorsed the referral and understands that he/she will be expected to engage in the process
• Gain written parental permission specifically to refer to EMS
  

What information do I need to put together a good referral?

• Following recent developments in the EMS model, the new referral form is now very light in terms of the information provided. This reflects the expectation that there will be an Inclusion Passport (school and/or pupil/CYP) or detailed accompanying information like that outlined in our EMS Checklist.

The EMS team will need to see previous Learning Support Service reports, anything written by the Educational Psychologist, any private Educational Psychologist or Dyslexia Action reports and Occupational Therapy or Speech and Language reports. It is also very often necessary to include (even if posted separately) (an) example(s) of unaided writing and the evidence of parental consent.

Only one box should be highlighted in terms of Primary Need and if there is any doubt about this it is worth checking with the Educational Psychologist.

Links to and descriptions of the documents

• Referral form
• Inclusion Passport (School)
• Inclusion Passport (Pupil/CYP)
• EMS checklist – a full Inclusion Passport (IP) may well mean that this is not necessary. The form requests a lot of information and it might be difficult to supply all this. However, filling in the fields where possible will mean that producing a good IP will be easy and it should also ensure that key questions / stakeholders are not missed.
• Parental Questionnaire
• Pupil Voice Questionnaire
• The NYCC Supporting Children and Young People with Co-ordination Difficulties document provides several other more specific options in terms of pupil and parent voice, as well as a series of checklists to help specify the difficulties experienced.