What support do you offer for children experiencing additional emotional and social needs?

Glade Hill Primary and Nursery School has a very supportive and nurturing ethos, with a clear commitment to supporting and developing children’s social and emotional needs. All of the children at Glade Hill are provided with support and guidance in terms of their social and emotional well-being through Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) sessions in their classes. We also plan themed weeks throughout the school year aimed to support their social and emotional well-being. For example, Anti-bullying week, Cyber safety. We also often have visitors into school with a PSHE focus. For example, First aid for children, Epilepsy awareness, Childline, Life Education Bus. We aim for all of the children in our school, including those with SEN or a disability, to fully participate in all of these activities.

For children with additional social and emotional needs we can provide individual or group sessions with our lead Pastoral Practitioner and ELSA, Mrs Gadsby or one of our teaching assistants. These sessions may include specialist interventions to help support the social and emotional needs of children. For example, circle of friends, anger management, interactive music, social stories, nurture group, bereavement counselling. This is not a definitive list of provision, as the sessions will be planned and based on the needs of the children.

Children with social and emotional difficulties will be referred to Mrs Gadsby by their class teacher or by the Inclusion Leader. They may be given a key member of staff to talk to and may have contact with this person throughout the week. Children with significant difficulties who are unable to follow the school behaviour policy will have an individual behaviour plan written for them. They may also have an individual handling policy and risk assessment. When it is identified that a pupil finds a certain time of the school day difficult, interventions will be put into place to support at these times. For example, if a child finds lunch times difficult, they will be allocated support by a member of staff during that time. Provision will be addressed on an individual basis to ensure a child’s social and emotional needs are met. For further details please see the school’s behaviour policy.

Children with SEND will be entitled to access all available extra-curricular activities, including those outside of the classroom, including school trips. Staffing for these activities will be addressed to provide support as and when necessary. However, if an individual risk assessment completed by Mrs Stapleton (Head Teacher) or Miss Wardle (Inclusion Leader) deems it unsafe for a child to take part in an activity, they will make the decision not to include the child and the reasons why will be shared with the parents and pupil.