SEND at Gillas Lane
At Gillas Lane, we are proud of our commitment to the education of the whole child and meeting the needs of individual pupils. We believe that ‘every teacher is a teacher of every child’, but we also recognise that during their time at primary school, children may need additional help or support for a short or longer period of time. This help may be needed for many reasons, including: communication & interaction, cognition & learning, social, emotional & mental-health and sensory and/or physical needs.
The school follows the Code of Practice for children who have special or additional needs. If a child has special or individual needs, parents will be informed that their child is being registered on the special needs register. These children will have a support plan, which is reviewed with parents each term.
Children with particular learning or other special needs can benefit from specialist help. This help is given within the classroom wherever possible, but there can be occasions when individual or small group work outside of the classroom is appropriate.
For a very small number of children the school may need to involve other specialists to help assess and support children with special educational needs. In such circumstances parents would always be informed.
Mrs Sandra Dodds is the SENDCo at Gillas Lane Primary Academy. You can contact her via Class Dojo or you can send her an email:
sandra.dodds@aimhigh.co.uk
To view our SEND information report (Local Offer) please click here.
Panathlon
We are proud to be a school with a Panathlon Team. "What is Panathlon?", I hear you ask. Well, Panathlon gives our children with special educational needs and disabilities a chance to shine in competitive sport. Every year, our Panathlon Team takes part in a range of impairment specific programmes such as boccia, new age kurling an 10-pin bowling. We have competed in local events and regional finals; from not knowing how to pronounce 'boccia', we soon became the Tyne and Wear champions! To see our Panathlon Team come back from events sporting their team t-shirts and wearing their medals with pride demonstrates the impact Panathlon has on the confidence and self-belief of our children with SEND.
As we work so closely with Panathlon, Mrs Monaghan was asked to be the first guest on the Panathlon People Podcast to talk about the impact the programme has made at Gillas Lane.
