Working with other professionals

At St Francis we are committed to ensuring that pupils and their families receive the highest quality of provision. As a result, we encourage a multi- disciplinary approach and staff liaise with a variety of professionals to make certain that all needs are met.

We have a number of Speech and Language Therapists (all with different areas of expertise), Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists who visit the school regularly to update programmes and train and give advice to staff. In addition, we employ a specialist Occupational Therapist for one day per week to address sensory integration across the school, which is important for many pupils to enable them to access learning opportunities.

We hold many clinics on the school site for pupils and their families such as Orthotic clinics, Splinting clinics, and Wheelchair clinics. Our specialist school nurse Tracy Higgs is on site most of the time and clinics with Community Paediatricians are also held in school.

We continue to work closely with our colleagues from Children’s Services and, once a term, we hold multi-disciplinary meetings with representatives from School, the NHS, Children’s Services, local respite providers and CAHMS (Community Mental Health Service) – these professionals all come together and discuss the progress of specific pupils who may have particular needs. The school has a SHIP (School Home Integrated Programme) worker who works closely with families to transfer skills learnt in school to the home situation. Children’s Services also use the school premises to hold CIN (Child In Need) meetings as this is often more convenient for Parents and staff.

LUPS (let Us Play Scheme) is a play scheme which is run during the Easter and Summer holidays, this is run by a group of dedicated and hardworking volunteers. In addition, there is an after school club every Wednesday evening and one Saturday a month and this is provided by KIDS organisation.

Hampshire Educational Psychology Service provides support for the school, helping teachers and class teams to problem solve and find solutions to particular issues they may be experiencing difficulties with, as well as, providing evidence to support EHCP (Education Health Care Plan) documents.