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St Benedict's Catholic School

St Benedict's
Catholic School

Early Help Offer

The Early Help Offer from St Benedict’s reflects the range of support there is available to enable your son or daughter to feel valued and supported here at school.
 
Early Help is everybody’s responsibility: together we will make sure that children, young people and their families are safe, happy and ready for school, work and life’s challenges.
 
Early Help means better outcomes for children and families. Effective Early Help will resolve problems before they become overwhelming and require high cost, reactive services. Early Help enables children to be ready for school and more likely to achieve their full potential.
We recognise the importance of working with families in supporting young people.
 

Early Help Interventions

Achievement for All (AfA) (All Years)

Achievement for All Mentor to work on a one to one basis with students who have an identified need, whether that be social, emotional, behavioural or academic

Form Tutor (All Years)

All students have an allocated for tutor who they see on a daily basis. This is their first point of contact for any issues, and parents also have email access to their child’s tutor, In addition, there are scheduled parental meetings, but parents are encouraged to liaise more regularly as required. Tutors are responsible for overseeing the academic and pastoral wellbeing of their group, and liaising with other staff within the school as required to ensure that the appropriate support is in place as soon as a need is identified

Head of Year (All Years)

All students have an allocated Head of Year who can work with students on prioritising academic subjects, working on mapping revision and ensuring that provision is in place to make the best academic progress, including supporting the student to access other help if needed.

Pastoral Support workers (All)

Work with all students via staff or self-referral on a wide range of issues that are posing barriers to their success at school. Via these meetings programs of support be it anger management of help around friendships etc are put in place.

Chaplain (All Years)

The School Chaplain is available to talk to students about any issues they may have, whether related to religion or just general wellbeing. They will offer support such as talking to students who are grieving, suffering from worries or struggling with friendship issues. They will signpost to other help systems within the school where appropriate.

School Nursing Team (All Years)

School nurses available on a referral basis to see students with medical or wellbeing needs who either self-refer or are referred by the student support team.

County Inclusion Support Service (CISS) (Years 7-11)

This core service is enhanced by the purchase by the school of the traded service to provide an outreach service for Suffolk mainstream schools seeking additional support for pupils with: a diagnosis of ASD, traits of ASD but no diagnosis, social and communication difficulties, social, emotional and mental health difficulties and all associated behaviours.

Personalised Timetable (All Years)

Students who have particular medical needs, whether this is linked to physical or mental health, may be offered a bespoke timetable in conjunction with advice from their hospital consultant. In addition, some students are offered a bespoke timetable to meet their particular needs, whether on a temporary basis, or a permanent basis, on a case-by-case basis.

Study Skills (Years 10 & 11)

Programme of sessions run by a variety of members of staff looking at developing study skills and motivation in the most able learners. The programme aims to equip the students with the skills to tackle learning at a higher level by providing transferable skills and looks at topics such as metacognition, exam question analysis, research skills, self-regulation and essay writing.

Literacy and Numeracy Intervention (Year 7)

Targeting the students with the lowest literacy attainment, students work to focus on reading confidence, comprehension, spelling, grammar punctuation and numeracy.

Hub lunch club (All Years)

A safe space where students can come to have their lunch, some of the students that attend benefit from social interaction and lego therapy.

Young Carer support (All Years)

Working in partnership with Suffolk Young carers we offer a half termly drop in where students can enjoy a relaxed social environment, they can bring a friend and enjoy games and refreshments. This is joined up with the LM team as often the students are already supported by a member of the team. The young carer lead in school is Mrs Bourne. A link to the Suffolk Young Carers website can be found below.

Suffolk Young Carers Website

Homework club (All Years)

Homework support Monday and Friday at dinnertime. Sixth form students are on hand to support with guidance and resources.

External Agency Support (All Years)

The school work closely with external agencies to access additional support where appropriate, for example, behaviour support, CAF/TAC, family support workers, social workers, local police and PCSO, and Diversion Programme.

Drop-In (All Years)

Daily wellbeing drop-in session, run by the school Pastoral Support Workers. Available to any student who would like to discuss a wellbeing concern.

Careers Hub (All Years)

Specialist qualified careers practitioner available to discuss future career pathways, further or higher educational provision, work experience and employability skills. Bespoke advice and guidance on interview skills and employer/educational workshops targeting a wide variety of careers and labour market information.  Regular group work lessons for students on personalised timetables.

Extensive in house support to ensure identified students’ progress successfully, this includes personalised visits to college’s, group activity sessions and one to one support pre and post Year 11. Lunchtime space for students to sit quietly in a safe and comfortable environment.  Careers Practitioner has regular meetings with our allocated Young Person’s Worker at Health, Wellbeing and Children’s Services to support students at risk of becoming NEET in the future.