

The Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (July 2014) places a duty on local authorities to publish a Local Offer, setting out in one place, information about provision available across education, health and social care for children and young people who have SEN or who are disabled.
All schools must publish a SEN Information Report. Read the aspects below to find out about our school’s approach to SEN.
Unsworth Primary School is a mainstream primary school with a specialist resourced provision for pupils with speech and language needs – the Speech and Language Resourced Provision. The provision has 14 places for pupils from Reception Class to Year 6 with complex speech and language disorders and delays. Currently these pupils are at SEN Support + or have an Education Health Care Plan.
In addition, the school will provide for any child with special educational needs across the four broad areas of need:
What is the Speech and Language Provision and who is it for?
The provision has been at Unsworth Primary School since 1983. There are places for 14 children from YR-Y6 (max of 2 per age group).
The speech and language resourced provision caters for children who have severe speech and language difficulties such as:
• Difficulty making the sounds of speech.
• Difficulty expressing what they want to say.
• Difficulty processing the language they hear.
• Difficulty remembering and recalling words.
All the children with resourced provision places either have an EHCP (Education Health Care Plan) or are at SEN Support+, stating speech and language impairments as their primary difficulty. Many children identified and provided for at an early age are able to return to their school in the future or can access learning at SEN Support.
What provision do the children receive?
All the children are members of a mainstream class and as such they take part in all the class/school activities. All the children are assessed and provided for on a basis of individual need. Each child has an IEP with communication and learning targets which are reviewed and revised each term. Each child receives:
• Up to 3 individual speech and language therapy sessions per week delivered by a speech and language therapist.
• Participation in a language group twice per week working on specific speech and language programmes which are devised by the speech and language therapists and delivered by all provision staff.
• Individualised or small group teaching time working on personalised programmes in English and/or maths. Teaching is planned and delivered by the teachers in SLRP and delivered by all staff in the base classroom.
• Teaching assistant support in class for all activities with a high language content, such as maths, science and humanities.
Who works in the Speech and Language Resourced Provision?
We are staffed by:
• 1 part time speech and language therapist.
• A specialist teacher.
• 3 full time teaching assistants and 1 part time teaching assistant.
There is a close liaison between provision staff and class teachers.
Activity Mornings
Activity mornings involving children and families take place twice each year. They provide opportunities for:
• Social communication activities for the children.
• Families to meet each other and the other children.
• Enhancement of communication between families and staff.
• Families to feel a part of their child’s school life and for children to enjoy the opportunity to share this with their families.
What the provision has meant to our families
“The Speech and Language Resourced Provision within Unsworth Primary School has been invaluable to our son who started there with speech problems in Reception class. We are always kept up to date with his development and our son has made fantastic improvement not only with his speech and language but also with his confidence.”
"This is an excellent provision for children who need regular speech and language therapy within a normal mainstream school. They learn in a happy, fun environment which helps them to thrive.”
“The Speech and Language Provision has given my daughter a tremendous start to her education and now in year 5, she is accessing an age appropriate curriculum and is full of confidence. I feel that she has the potential to go far.”
When identifying and assessing the needs of pupils with SEN, the school follows the guidance contained within the Code of Practice, 2014 and its own Policy for Special Educational Needs (revised September 2018).
The range of actions include:
A panel comprising of representatives from the school, the SEN Team, the Educational Psychology team of Bury Children’s Services and the Speech and Language Speech Therapy Service meet termly to identify and assess the needs of pupils referred to the panel for their SLC Needs. Places at the SLRP are allocated by the SEN Team in consultation with parents and members of the panel.
We work in partnership with parents, recognising their knowledge and expertise in relation to their child and recognising that the impact of SEN support is strengthened by increasing parental engagement in the approaches and teaching strategies that are being used.
Parents are consulted and informed from when a concern is first expressed about their child. Actions include:
We provide for all children with SEN in a variety of ways depending on the individual needs of the child. Class teachers and the SENCOs discuss with the parent the most appropriate approach to be taken with each child. The majority of children with SEN are taught in their own classroom for most of the time. We operate a graduated approach based upon assess, plan, do and review.
Within the Speech and Language Resourced Provision, children receive up to three sessions of speech and language therapy each week delivered by an onsite speech and language therapist. They also take part in two language groups each week directed by the speech and language therapist and delivered by a teaching assistant. A package of support is drawn up for each child on a basis of individual need. Most children are taught literacy either in a very small group or 1-1 in the language base classroom. Some have a mixed package of literacy teaching both in base and in class. Depending on need, some children are withdrawn for individual or small group teaching in maths. Others access their learning in class as part of a group with teaching assistant support. All children have shared support for subjects with a high language content such as science, history and geography.
The SENCOs are Mrs C Canning (Mon, Tue, Wed) and Mrs G Eisen (Wed, Thu, Fri)
Telephone: 0161 766 4876
Email: Unsworth@bury.gov.uk
The SENCOs are members of the Leadership Team. One has 28 years teaching experience within primary schools, of which 18 years has been in the role of SENCO at Unsworth Primary and for 12 years has been the teacher in charge of the Speech and Language Resourced Provision. One SENCO has extensive experience of working in specialist resourced provisions and has particular expertise with pupils with autistic spectrum condition.
Unsworth Primary is a fully inclusive school and all activities are available to those children with and without SEN.
The emotional health and well-being of all our pupils is very important to us and is demonstrated through the following:
School has access to a range of services which it calls upon as required, as listed below:
We ask parents to first approach class teachers or the SENCOs and hopefully any matters can be resolved. If concerns remain the headteacher can be contacted. The Complaints Procedure is available via this website.