The Outreach team (pictured above) are line managed by the Deputy Head. We support S.E.N children, their teachers and assistants in mainstream settings; in infant, junior and primary schools across Southampton.

Schools refer pupils to the Primary Resource Panel which meets fortnightly. Springwell Outreach sends a representative to the panel meetings. The children we support either have learning difficulties and/or communication difficulties. Some have diagnoses of a variety of syndromes, including Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Asperger’s Syndrome. Some have statements for special educational needs.

We make an initial visit to the school where an observation of the child is made and objectives are agreed with the child’s team. An allocated member of the outreach team will visit the school, initially on a weekly basis, either for the duration of a morning or an afternoon. We suggest ideas and strategies to support inclusion and model and demonstrate activities that differentiate the curriculum to suit the child’s ability and styles of learning.

After about 8 weeks, we meet to review the objectives with the child’s team, set new ones if appropriate and gradually reduce the frequency of our visits. Finally, with the agreement of the school, we withdraw our support leaving the team confident to cascade skills and knowledge to the child’s future teachers and assistants.

The Outreach team each spends one day a week in class in Springwell School. Where appropriate, we offer our mainstream schools the opportunity to visit us at Springwell to meet our pupils and observe good teaching practice and differentiated strategies in use.