LEARNER SUPPORT GROUP
Strategic Intervention for Learning and Progression

Aims & Purpose
To create and test an in-school system to specify learner support according to need, identify students and match their needs to appropriate intervention, and measure success pre/post intervention in hard data terms.

Schools Involved
Churchfields School
Greendown Community School
Nova Hreod School
Dorcan Technology College
Swindon Academy

Key Partners
8th Day Studios - Virtual Schools

Background & Context
The document ‘Special Educational Needs: The Entitlement of Pupils in Mainstream Schools’ (2004) explains the special educational provision the local authority expects to be made from within a mainstream school’s budget share.
The document describes good practice that schools are expected to work towards. It is particularly useful in providing detailed level descriptors, linked to examples of appropriate provision and evaluation of progress.
The group set out to devise a whole-school system by which the intent of the document could be readily implemented by busy practitioners in large secondary schools, with an initial emphasis on Behaviour, Emotional and Social Needs.

Activities & Outcomes
The intended system has been sucessfully developed, implemented, tested, and refined in both schools. As a result, this has contributed to learner interventions being managed with:
- regular, time-tabled meetings within the school-day
- a clear agenda with focus on outcomes
- shared and transparent decision-making
- a common, consistent, and specific language
- tangible outcomes and measure of impact
- a clear monitoring and review cycle