SEND (Special Education Needs and Disability)

Our Learning Support Department aims to ensure that all children should have access to an appropriate education that allows them to achieve their personal potential. Statemented students are allotted SEN (Special Educational Needs) learning support assistants and specialist teachers to meet the requirement and provision of their statements.

The Learning Support Department aims to:

  • Identify students with special educational needs and disabilities and ensure that their needs are met.
  • Ensure that students with special educational needs and disabilities are able to join in with all the activities of the college.
  • Ensure that all learners make the best possible progress.
  • Identify any students with developing or more serious SEN as soon as possible and move them onto an appropriate state of intervention.
  • Ensure that parents are informed of their child’s special needs and that there is effective communication between parents and college.
  • Through our programme of assessment and record-keeping, evaluate and track student’s progress through numeracy, literacy and emotional wellbeing.
  • Ensure that learners express their views and are fully involved in decisions that affect their education.
  • Liaise with the appropriate outside agencies which include the school nurse, educational psychologist, speech and language therapists etc.
View the 2021 SEND Policy
View our Local Offer

Pupil Premium

The Pupil Premium is allocated to Local Authorities and Schools with students on roll in January of each year that are known to have been eligible for free school meals at any time in the last six years. We take the support of our most vulnerable students seriously and with the Government initiative of the Pupil Premium, we can put into place some exciting projects and specialist staff posts to further enhance this ongoing support.

Find out more about Pupil Premium

Student Support

The Student Support Centre is a short-term centre for students who experience a disruption to their normal school life. It is an integral part of our college’s approach to learning and behaviour support, providing separate short-term teaching and support programmes tailored to the need of individual students. The curriculum followed by students depends upon individual needs and range from ‘shadowing’ our mainstream curriculum to addressing issues such as anger management, raising self-esteem and improving social skills. Students who could benefit from being in the SSC are identified through a referral process.

Pastoral Care

At the heart of life at St Thomas More Language College is a strong and inclusive pastoral system, supporting the values and ethos of the college in the everyday lives of our students. All staff within the college community, from teachers to support staff, have a responsibility for the pastoral care and well-being of our students. Form tutors play a vital role within the pastoral support of our students being the first point of call for students. Tutors are supported in this work by the Pastoral and Academic Leaders (PAL) who are non-teaching heads of year and who oversee the academic and pastoral care of their respective year groups. Each tutor and PAL can easily be contacted by parents.

Our understanding of Pastoral Care:

Pastoral casework 

  • Pastoral casework is individual work with students who are having problems, be they of an academic, vocational, social, emotional or behavioural nature.

Pastoral curriculum

  • The pastoral curriculum includes both the 'hidden curriculum' that is the ethos of the college, the day to day relationships between staff and students, the value system of a school and the opportunities for moral, spiritual, social and cultural development.

Through this Pastoral Care, we aim to:

  • Ensure that each student has access to personal, vocational and academic guidance and support where necessary.
  • Promote in students the self-awareness and self-confidence that they need to face the challenges, both academic and personal, that are placed on them.