SENCo
Queen's Park Primary School
Westminster
- New
- Expiring soon
- Quick apply
- Job type:
- Full Time, Maternity Cover
- Apply by:
- 6 July 2024
Job overview
Queen's Park Primary School is seeking to recruit a dedicated and experienced Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) with a passion for inclusion of pupils with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) to join our team on a fixed-term, maternity cover basis for 1 year.
Successful candidates will have a positive ethos and skillset required for inspiring and leading a team to support pupils who experience challenges with social communication and emotional regulation, or pupils who are on the autism pathway.
In return, we will offer you a warm and welcoming school environment, in the centre of our diverse and vibrant community. We have recently opened our Additional Resource Provision (ARP) and are looking to recruit someone to continue the leadership and strategic direction at this exciting time.
Main purpose:
The SENCO, under the direction of the headteacher, will:
- Determine the strategic development of special educational needs (SEN) policy and provision in the school.
- Be responsible for the day-to-day operation and strategic direction of our Alternative Resource Provision (ARP), the SEN policy and co-ordination of specific provision to support individual pupils with SEN or a disability.
- Provide professional guidance to colleagues, working closely with staff, parents and other agencies.
- The SENCO will be expected to fulfil the responsibilities of a teacher, as set out in the STPCD.
Duties and responsibilities:
Strategic development of SEN policy and provision, including our Alternative Resource Provision (ARP).
- Have a strategic overview of provision for pupils with SEN or a disability across the school, monitoring and reviewing the quality of provision.
- Contribute to school self-evaluation, particularly with respect to provision for pupils with SEN or a disability.
- Make sure the SEN policy is put into practice and its objectives are reflected in the school improvement plan (SIP)
- Maintain up-to-date knowledge of national and local initiatives that may affect the school’s policy and practice
- Evaluate whether funding is being used effectively, and suggest changes to make use of funding more effective
Operation of the SEN policy and co-ordination of provision
- Maintain an accurate SEND register and provision map
- Provide guidance to colleagues on teaching pupils with SEN or a disability, and advise on the graduated approach to SEN support
- Advise on the use of the school’s budget and other resources to meet pupils’ needs effectively, including staff deployment
- Be aware of the provision in the local offer
- Work with early years providers, other schools, educational psychologists, health and social care professionals and other external agencies
- Be a key point of contact for external agencies, especially the local authority (LA)
- Analyse assessment data for pupils with SEN or a disability
- Implement and lead intervention groups for pupils with SEN, and evaluate their effectiveness
Support for pupils with SEN or a disability
- Identify a pupil’s SEN
- Co-ordinate provision that meets the pupil’s needs, and monitor its effectiveness
- Secure relevant services for the pupil
- Ensure records are maintained and kept up to date
- Review the education, health and care plan (EHCP) with parents or carers and the pupil
- Communicate regularly with parents/carers
- Ensure if the pupil transfers to another school, all relevant information is conveyed to that school, and support a smooth transition for the pupil
- Promote the pupil’s inclusion in the school community and access to the curriculum, facilities and extra-curricular activities
- Work with the designated teacher for looked-after children (LAC), where a looked-after pupil has SEN or a disability
Leadership and management
- Work with the headteacher and governors to ensure the school meets its responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 in terms of reasonable adjustments and access arrangements
- Prepare and review information the governing board is required to publish
- Contribute to the SIP and whole-school policy
- Identify training needs for staff and how to meet these needs
- Lead INSETs for staff
- Share procedural information, such as the school’s SEN policy
- Promote an ethos and culture that supports the school’s SEN policy and promotes good outcomes for pupils with SEN or a disability
- Lead and manage teaching assistants (TAs) working with pupils with SEN or a disability
- Lead staff appraisals and produce appraisal reports
- Review staff performance on an ongoing basis
Safeguarding
- Liaise and collaborate with the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) on matters of safeguarding and welfare for pupils with SEN
- Remain alert to the fact that pupils with SEN may be more vulnerable to safeguarding challenges
Other areas of responsibility
- Must have SENCO experience of working and leading in an additional resource provision
- Must have SENCO experience working in a nursery
- The SENCO will be required to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people and follow school policies and the staff code of conduct.
Person specification:
Qualifications and training
- Qualified teacher status
- National Award for SEN Co-ordination, or a willingness to complete it
- Degree
Experience
- Teaching experience
- Experience of working at a whole-school level
- Involvement in self-evaluation and development planning
- Experience of conducting training/leading INSET
- Experience of working and leading in an additional resource provision
- Experience of working in a nursery
Skills and knowledge
- Sound knowledge of the SEND Code of Practice
- Understanding of what makes ‘quality first’ teaching, and of effective intervention strategies
- Ability to plan and evaluate interventions
- Data analysis skills and the ability to use data to inform provision planning
- Effective communication and interpersonal skills
- Ability to build effective working relationships
- Ability to influence and negotiate
- Good record-keeping skills
About Queen's Park Primary School
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Queen’s Park is a medium-sized school with approximately 300 pupils, from Nursery to Year 6. Located in North Westminster, Queen’s Park draws pupils from a socially and culturally diverse local community, with 30 different languages spoken by our families. The school was last inspected by OFSTED in November 2022. The school was judged to be ‘good’ and the report was extremely positive and highlighted many areas of strength, including the close community ties, a well-planned curriculum and effective leadership.
At Queen’s Park Primary School, we offer a curriculum which is broad and balanced: a curriculum which builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all children, whatever their starting points. The curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum alongside other experiences and opportunities which best meet the learning and developmental needs of the pupils in our school. We aim to empower our pupils to believe in their capacity to make a change in the world... a change for the good. We want our pupils to recognise their own unique potential and to believe that when they eventually leave school and enter adult life, they will be judged not only by the performance in tests of basic skills, but also by the depth and quality of their work and the quality of their character.
We value mental health and wellbeing as children learn best when they are happy and safe. Each member of staff at Queen's Park Primary is trained in Mental Health First Aid, parents have been being trained as Mental Health Champions and children are taught about neuroscience, looking at how the brain works and how this affects their learning. We have a full time wellbeing and behaviour specialist working at the school, who is trained as an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant. We also have a member of staff trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy available to support children with social and emotional needs.
We are an inclusive school, catering for a wide range of abilities and needs. At Queen’s Park School our vision is to provide pupils with a range of learning strategies and life skills that reflects a positive attitude towards their special educational needs. We aim to support the children to become confident learners in life and to strive towards the greatest independence possible. We recognise the importance of building and developing supportive and effective relationships with parents of children with SEND attending our school. Children with special needs and/or a specific learning difficulty will be on our Special Needs Register and both their academic and social progress will be closely monitored. We have a sensory room on site and our class sizes remain small to ensure all children receive the best support possible.
Queen's Park is the home to the Westminster Children's University, part of the nationwide Children’s University network providing children with extracurricular activities to enrich learning. We understand the need to inspire, challenge and empower children and through our work with the Children’s University aim to raise the aspirations of children across Westminster. We have looked for opportunities for our children to gain real life experiences to enrich learning through a mini lecture series, workshops and clubs, each with clear learning opportunities and delivered by industry specialists and members of our local community.
As the school is a beautiful listed Victorian building, we have been creative with our use of space. In addition to the classrooms, we have converted one of our halls into a computing suite and break out space. We also have smaller intervention rooms available for small group and 1 to 1 work. We have two playgrounds which provide the children with a small football pitch, stage area and basketball hoops. We regularly make use of the local surroundings such as Queen's Park Gardens, Meanwhile Gardens and our very own Forest School at the local church.
Staff members are lively, friendly, supportive and committed and between them have an impressive range of skills and a great sense of humour. Queen’s Park is a thriving school serving a wonderful community. We respect and welcome the diversity in our community as well as thinking of ourselves as one big family. Having recently joined the Queen's Park Federation with local nurseries, this is an exciting period of growth, collaboration and change for the school and wider community.
If you think you would be interested in joining the team at Queen’s Park Primary School, please contact the school to arrange a visit.
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