INTENT

The Hub provision at St Martin’s is designed as a communication and interaction resource base to support those children with an identified special educational need who find the busy primary classroom environment overwhelming. A clear intent within the hub is to reduce children's anxiety about being in school, enabling them to focus more on their learning, where learning describes all elements of need which these children have.  For the majority of our children with additional needs, adjustments can be successfully made within our mainstream classrooms, but for an identified few, the support of our more bespoke communication and interaction resource base is provided. Our aim is to identify those children, look closely at their needs and find a way to make education more accessible for them through a tailor made curriculum linked closely to their EHCP and underpinned by our knowledge that learning only happens when a child feels safe and understood. For some children accessing the hub, a planned reintegration to mainstream is identified; for others. the hub provides a safe learning space while specialist provision is sought.

IMPLEMENTATION

Our provision focuses on nurturing and getting the children to a place emotionally where they feel safe, secure and happy; until this is achieved, learning remains hard and very stressful for some children. When the children are ready to learn,  staff  work in either small groups or one to one to try and get the children back into good learning habits and making progress.

As part of the Hub provision, children have their own learning area, with individual targets identified through assessment and their EHCP. Children also work collaboratively to develop their relational skills alongside having 1:1 teaching episodes to secure core learning.

Our ultimate aim, where possible,  is to get the children back into their class for as much time as they can, with their peers and their teacher so that they can progress along with their friends. 

We provide phonics support in line with the whole school use of Little Wandle, and assess phonic development regularly. We use Number Stacks to assess and identify gaps in early mathematics. For those children reading beyong phonically decodable books, we use Accelerated Reader. All children have a daily reading record which goes home in line with whole school practice. 

In addition, children, as they are able, join in whole school assemblies, have trips out of school and host their families in parent visits.

As part of the hub provision, we also run Enrichment groups for a wider group of children who struggle to stay in class for a whole day or week. The benefits of this are two fold - it offers children time away from their mainstream class to try new things in a smaller setting, and it provides our regular hub children with an opportunity to integrate with children from across the school.. 

We access numerous areas across the school, including our bus which overlooks the pond and forest area of the school grounds. Some of the hub children have been involved in maintenance and caretaking roles on the bus, which promote a sense of pride and responsibility for them.

At the heart of the provision are relationships, not just with the child, but with parents too. Working in partnership to support our vulnerable children is key to ensuring their progress. We take time to communicate successes and areas where we feel we can support each other. Our door is always open so parents can ask questions and see how their children are progressing.

IMPACT

The positive impact for children of being in the hub is seen through increased attendace, through reduction in dysregulation, including reductions in use of alternative provision and alternative timetables. 

Being in the centre of the school, positively impacts our whole school in recognising that children with additional needs are valued and supported in the same way as all children within school.

Engagement with learning opportunities increases as children become less stressed in their learning environment, and the evidence of this can be seen through the positive assessments in core subjects, the number of Star Postcards achieved, and the children's individual targets being met.

The impact of the hub can be further evidenced through parental comments, where children's dysregualtion has also decreased within the home, and getting children into school has become less challenging.