Hermitage Primary School

Teaching Assistants: Mrs Dooley, Mrs Clough, Mrs Northwood and Miss Willdig

The Den and The Hub are our SEND and Pastoral Provision within school. Our aim is to support children with additional needs to access mainstream education by nurturing and inspiring our children so that they make progress and develop confidence to achieve. Children access a range of interventions; such as Attention Autism, ELSA, Speech and Language and Sensory Circuits.

Within The Den, which is our resource provision, we follow the Sensory Classroom curriculum based on the Equals curriculum which is tailored to individual needs. We teach children through a range of sensory learning techniques, helping to build confidence, understanding, self-regulation and communication.

The Hub provides a space for leaners who need a more tailored education, but one which is more closely aligned to the mainstream classroom. Staff will work with teachers across the school to adapt and deliver the curriculum, focussing on learning behaviours, social and emotional support, with children accessing some mainstream lessons with their peers in their year group.

The Sensory Curriculum is designed to cover the range of subjects through termly topics. In in the first few weeks of the year, we will focus on routines, emotions and settling back in to school. Our topics for the terms ahead in The Den are:

• Ourselves (Autumn Term)
• Our School (Spring Term)
• Weather and Seasons (Summer Term)

We understand that homework can be difficult for many of our children. For that reason, our expectations regarding work at home are different. We will provide some weekly spellings and/or phonics reading depending on your child's level which we would like you to practice at home if possible. Children will be given their spellings on a Friday and given a chance to learn them before a test on Thursday.

However, we still expect that you will read with your child at least 3 times a week. We will provide a reading book for your children, but you can also read a story to them, listen to an audiobook, or listen to them read a book, newspaper or any literary material which engages them.

Please record any reading in your child's reading record. We will follow the whole school reading reward system and your child's reading at home will be celebrated in a way which they value.

We value our children feeling included in the life of our whole school. As such, this year our children will be awarded merit points for their allocated house as a way of rewarding them for the choices they make; including following instructions, joining in and working hard. They will join our achievement assemblies every Friday to hear who won. Each week, our staff may award a certificate to a child or children who have shown one or more of our THRIVE school values which will be awarded by Mr Young in assembly on Fridays.

The children can also earn special class merit "stars" for exceptional teamwork, learning and showing kindness to one another. When the class fills their jar with stars, they will recieve a class treat.

Below is a weekly timetable for the Den. Learning will take place in short bursts, with time for children to regulate and engage in child-led play and activities with adult support focussed around their individual needs and learning targets. Some children may spend some of their time in the mainstream classroom so their individual timetable may look slightly different.

Children based in The Hub will follow a similar timetable to those for their year group. Please see the weekly overviews on the other class pages for more information.