SENCo: Mrs Katherine Murphy Email: katherinemurphy@ficedu.org Telephone: +44 (01394) 282388

Teachers soon get to know students as individuals with different learning styles due to the small class sizes at FIC. Frequent interactions, conversations and tutorials further equip teachers with information to differentiate tasks to suit a student’s ability. This may take the form of adapted worksheets and homework tasks for different abilities; some students may require extra time on a piece of work or extra teacher input, whilst others move on to more challenging extension activities.

A variety of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities are incorporated into lessons, with open and closed questions, to address learning styles. Students are encouraged to work independently, or with a thinking partner, or in small groups, to support each other to achieve aims. Working partnerships can mentor and help less able students, and in turn challenge the more able.

Target setting is frequently provided, following formative and summative assessments, and students are given time to reflect upon their achievements and build upon their prior learning.

Literacy

SEN students are provided extra support in lessons through adapted tasks, additional teacher input and modified expectations. They have specialist Guided Reading lessons with the English Co-ordinator and SENCo, regularly read aloud to older students, and dyslexic students have personal accounts on Nessy.com.

All non-SEN students are required to complete independent Outside Reading (OR). Weekly OR lessons are an opportunity for students to read something of their choice from a list of books suggested for their age group and respond to those texts by completing questions and activities to show understanding.         

Numeracy   

Any barriers to learning are identified on an ongoing basis, with support put in place and assessed regularly for effectiveness. Scaffolding is provided to help with problem solving, and manipulatives (beads, counters, numicon, etc) and technology (eg graphing software) may be used as students progress through concrete, visual and abstract understanding of topics, and how they are connected.

English as an Additional Language (EAL)

EAL students take part in weekly English Conversation lessons and further intervention lessons focusing on spelling, punctuation and grammar are provided for those who need them.

All KS4 EAL students follow the IGCSE English as a Second Language course, culminating in exams at the end of Year 11.

EAL students in KS5 attend weekly English/IELTS lessons to further their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills at a higher academic level. They prepare for the International English Language Testing System, which is a series of assessments to measure their ability against the requirements of English-speaking courses at universities around the world.

Contact SENCo: Katherine Murphy