Welcome to Aspire

At The Warriner School we are committed to offering an inclusive education to enable students to make the best possible progress, whatever their needs or abilities.

Our aim is to provide the support needed by our young people who have SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities), whilst making sure that they are fully included in the life of the school. Our Aspire Team offers additional help and support to students with a wide range of barriers to their learning, so that they can learn and make good progress in school. These difficulties may include a Special Educational Need, but we also support students who may need additional support due to a medical need and students who are looked after or adopted.

Our department is based in a building in the centre of the school and is made up of two classrooms and two offices. We also have a further classroom and office space in one of the Elliott buildings. 

Please see the linked poster: Breakfast Club - to join us for breakfast in the mornings.

SEND PowerPoint Presentation

The work of the inclusion team encompasses Special Educational Needs. There is a statutory obligation to publish an annual report to Governors on SEN provision and outcomes which is available on our policies and statutory information page.

The Aspire team is the largest team in the school and is led by Anthony Jones (SENCo). We have 2 Assistant SENCos in the department, who are Mrs Jo Blackhall, who teaches nurture PSHE and Life Skills, and Claire Boyland, who teaches ASDAN and Life Skills. We have a team of 13 teaching assistants who have a range of skills and experience. Some of our TA’s are subject specialists. We have engagement mentors and a Looked After Children key worker. 

Sixth formers regularly offer their time as part of their enrichment programme and either support SEN students in lessons or run extra-curricular activities such as lunchtime clubs.

We are open in the mornings from 08:15 for breakfast club hosted in one of the Aspire classrooms. Our TA's are available in the building every break and lunchtime, and provide homework support. We also offer activities at lunchtime, primarily in the Aspire building.

We do our utmost to ensure that students’ needs are met in the mainstream classroom wherever possible. Aspire staff work closely with teachers and other colleagues to ensure that work set is differentiated and appropriate, and that staff are given strategies to support each individual student, providing materials and training to support where necessary. Teaching assistants provide additional support in lessons and are aware of each student's individual needs. We provide a number of smaller groups and alternative curriculum offers for targeted students. Where necessary we also have a broad range of individual and small group interventions including literacy, numeracy, language and social skills support.

Aspire has regular contact with parents, and all students with SEND have review meetings where parents are invited to discuss how things are going and plan the next steps. The SENCo is available at every subject consultation evening to meet with parents and discuss their child’s progress.

Aspire works very closely with other support staff in school such the pastoral support team, safeguarding leads; as well as meeting regularly with Heads of Year, Subject Leaders and Tutors.

We also have excellent links with outside agencies to support our work with pupils. These include the Speech and Language Therapy Service; Integrated Speech, Language and Communication Support Service; Educational Psychology Service; Autism Support Service; the Virtual School; the Hospital School; Parent Partnership; Meadowbrook College; Physical Disability Service; Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service; Occupational Therapy; Early Intervention Service at the Banbury Hub and the Advisory Team for Inclusion.

Please see our SEND Information Report page which gives much more detail about the identification of SEND, the levels of support and how we monitor the effectiveness of our provision.

There is a lot of information available about SEND that parents can find on the Oxfordshire County Council website. This is called ‘The Local Offer’ and is a new initiative where information about education, health and social care can all be found in one place, please click here.

The DfE is another useful place to look; please click here.