The CIRB Team

Integral to the school is a specialist Communication and Interaction Resource Base (CIRB) run by the Local Authority SEN Support Services (SENSS) and known in school as the Base. The Base is primarily designed to support pupils with social, communication and interaction needs. Most of our pupils have a primary diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Diagnosis (ASD), in addition to other associated learning difficulties. 

The Base is staffed by two specialist teachers, and a range of specialist full and part-time teaching assistants. Places in the Base are allocated through a centralised local authority admissions panel. Pupils need to have an EHC Plan to be considered for a place. 

The main role of staff in the Base is to enable social, emotional and academic learning needs, along with the student’s independence and community participation – so aiding them to join mainstream classes as much as possible.  All pupils have an individual and differentiated timetable, designed to reflect their needs and abilities. Staff from the Base will support our students in the mainstream environment, working closely with mainstream teaching staff to ensure that successful outcomes can be achieved - both academically and socially. 

The CIRB is run as a therapeutic and proactive environment. Whilst working with students in the CIRB, staff will deliver a range of interventions; these include classes in Social Thinking, Life Skills, Sensory Experiences, Mindfulness and support with homework on various school platforms. The Warriner School has a farm, which our students enjoy visiting for outdoor learning sessions. We also have a qualified Forest School Leader who can ‘tailor’ sessions to the student’s needs, in the Farm attached to the school. Our students benefit enormously from this flexible and holistic approach to learning. 

We have a strong focus on helping the students to develop their independence, required in later stages of life, within the school. We also actively encourage reverse integration; whereby mainstream students will be encouraged to spend some break times with our students in the Base, sometimes acting as ’buddies’ or mentors. This helps to develop social skills, social awareness and understanding from both parties. 

Academic progress of the CIRB students is recorded, tracked and evaluated by mainstream teaching staff.  Social and emotional progress and levels of inclusion are monitored by the CIRB staff - and this information is updated and regularly shared with members of the mainstream team.  

The CIRB staff works very closely with teachers, parents and guardians around specific concerns and to develop behaviour plans and Educational Health Care Plans. We believe that close collaboration and regular contact is vital to the well-being of the family. In monitoring the progress of our students over the past years, we have many success stories where students have achieved good GCSE results and moved on to various higher education courses. 

Please see below some websites you may find useful. 

Autism Oxford - Autism Assessments & Clinical Services  

Welcome to Oxford ADHD & Autism Centre (oxfordadhdcentre.co.uk) 

Diagnostic services (autism.org.uk) 

Sign up to our newsletter (autism.org.uk) 

Autism and Girls - Autistic Girls Network