Academic

As well as having lessons planned to meet their individual needs, some of our learners need further interventions to support their academic progress.  These tend to focus on basic skills.

Handwriting

Handwriting is a complex skill and some of our learners have difficulty mastering it causing frustration and distress and affect a learner's desire to write.  As learners get older they often mask this difficulty by misbehaving to avoid writing tasks.

Handwriting has many components to it, including fine motor skills and visual perceptual skills. Good posture, muscle tone and coordination are essential for handwriting. In 1:1 interventions, we work on the underlying causes of the problem as well as directly working on handwriting.

 Literacy including reading & SPaG

All learners complete a comprehensive baseline assessment on entry.  This generates a literacy profile enabling us to identify learners for specific and bespoke intervention packages.  To raise progress through literacy we use a variety of reading schemes and approaches to provide targeted intervention.  This includes but is not limited to the following:

• Dockside
• Elklan Activities
• Lifeboat
• Reading for pleasure groups
• Talisman
• Toe by Toe
• Working memory activites/games

We also use a variety of online programmes to engage learners including IDL literacy and Nessy.  These provide digital platforms for learners to practice a range of literacy skills including phonics, spelling and reading comprehension.

More information can be found at   

Elklan https://www.elklan.co.uk/

IDL (literacy) https://idlsgroup.com/literacy

Nessy https://www.nessy.com/en-gb

Toe-by-toe https://toe-by-toe.co.uk/

Numeracy

On entry learners are assessed using comprehensive baseline tests to identify gaps in their mathematical knowledge.  To address these gaps, we use a variety of interventions to support learners in making progress. 

There are a number of staff trained to deliver Maths Recovery and Numicon.  These are targeted intervention programmes where a visual and multi-sensory approach is used to extend learner number knowledge, understanding and strategies.

Alongside these specific interventions we have a variety of online Maths programmes to support progress including IDL Numeracy.  This programme improves ability with low achieving learners by providing a fully graded course to support areas of weakness.  These are delivered through mathematical games that improve engagement for those learners who normally feel anxiety when faced with mathematical problems. 

More information can be found at  

Maths Recovery https://www.mathsrecovery.org.uk/

IDL (numeracy) https://idlsgroup.com/numeracy

Phonics

Within our basic 26 letter alphabet there are about 140 different letter combinations which represent approximately 44 sounds (phonemes).  Some phonemes will correspond to a single letter while others, for example the long vowel phonemes, will have several common spellings using one or more letters.

Phonics intervention offers a systematic teaching of phonics and spelling that helps learners to learn to identify the phonemes and learn how each of these phonemes is commonly spelt.  Through the phonics intervention we teach learners to:

• identify sounds in spoken words (phonological awareness);
• recognise the common spellings for each phoneme;
• blend phonemes into words for reading;
• segment words into phonemes for spelling.

For our primary-aged learners staff use Letters & Sounds to support the phonics being taught in their mainstream schools.  For secondary-aged learners, trained staff mainly use Soundswrite to deliver structured phonics intervention.  This is a programme that starts with the basic building blocks of phonological knowledge linking sounds (phonemes) to their written representation (graphemes).  This enables learners to grasp the three essential skills of blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation which are the skills necessary to becoming fluent readers.

More information can be found at  

Letters & Sounds https://letters-and-sounds.com/

SoundsWrite https://sounds-write.co.uk/

Talking Partners

Talking partners is a targeted intervention programme aimed at supporting learners with their speaking and listening skills.  It is delivered in small groups with one of our trained members of staff.  Through a range of activities learners explore the importance of being a good communicator and work towards being an accomplished listener.  These skills enable greater success in the wider curriculum.