The Learning Pathways Department

The newly formed Learning Pathways team are a team of Inclusion and EAL (English as an additional Language) Teachers that supports and teaches the learners in Crescendo-HELP International School who needs over and above what is being delivered in the classroom.

The Learning Pathways team offers short- medium and long-term instruction of carefully differentiated and individualised teaching 1:1, in small groups and in larger classes, guided by the SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years

The Learning Pathways team is now working towards becoming an outstanding department where the needs of the pupils are identified quickly and provided for. Having a tiered level of support, allows us to place a pupil in the right level of provision so that their needs can be met quickly.

The baseline assessments steer our provision and we can see clearly what the pupils can do and their areas of development through analysing their spelling, reading and writing. There might be some confusion of the alphabet sounds, not being able to blend sounds to form the segments in a word.

Some of our pupils find it hard to distinguish between the sounds at the beginning and the end of words as some of the sounds in the British alphabet might not be present in the pupil’s own language which adds an extra processing difficulty for the pupil.  Some of the pupils find it hard to spell words which contain vowel digraphs which might be evident in their writing also.

Once we have this information about the pupils, we then group them according to the intensity of their difficulties and provide the provision to support these gaps in their knowledge.

We are still on our first cycle of provision, having only started it the middle of September and once the pupils have received at least twelve sessions of teaching, we can then re-assess the pupils to see the impact of the provision and if we need to adjust it. If the provision is effective, we expect to see accelerated progress.

If any of the pupils who are receiving our interventions do not make the expected progress, then we will put in another layer of support to work more closely with the pupil.

Already we have had several teachers comment on what a difference the intervention programmes are having, not just on the learning outcomes, but on the confidence of the pupils.

Catch-Up Reading Programme

The Catch-up Literacy Intervention Programme is introduced as it is highly effective in supporting the development of reading fluency and spelling. Its kinaesthetic approach to reading allows pupils to decode quickly by reinforcing the sounds of the alphabet, blending and segmenting words correctly.

It is important for our pupils to learn words within context and it helps to accelerate pupils reading as much as twenty-four months in six weeks.

The Inclusion Team use the Catch-up approach in lots of ways. We have morning workshops for both Primary and Secondary pupils who receive Catch-up and it is used as a method of teaching reading in the smaller groups and EAL lessons.

EAL Classes

Pupils are recommended for the EAL classes if their verbal and vocabulary scores are below a certain threshold. The EAL classes skillfully balance what the pupils need to achieve in their English lesson, guided by the Class or subject Teacher and the individualised needs of the pupils in reading, writing and spelling; taken from the assessment data.

1:1 SpLD Sessions

For our pupils who have a diagnosis of dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia or dyspraxia. For the Secondary pupils, we provide 3 x 1:1 sessions per week. We provide 1:1 tutoring, study guides, homework support and organisational guidance for the preparation for exams.

Inclusion across the school

We work closely with the teachers within the school to ensure the pupils are supported. Parents will tell us when applying for a school placement, that their child may have some learning need and providing we can meet the needs of the pupils, we will include them in our provision.

Teachers refer pupils who may be struggling or have difficulties in completing their work in class. We will then observe the pupil, collect the necessary assessments and then provide the right level of provision. Sometimes our pupils transfer mid-year or at the start of a new Key stage and it takes time for the pupil to settle in to a new environment with teachers who may not speak their first language. It is important to give these pupils time to adjust to new expectations, a new environment and establishing themselves within an already established class but this does not mean they have additional needs. We will be aware of these pupils and will monitor their progress closely. It can take up to 4 years to develop social English and 7 years to develop academic English and we should be mindful that pupils will automatically revert back to their own language to try and find the answers requested of them by their teachers. The development of lexical resources and fluency in its usage are important for new pupils, so immersion in English is crucial.