Significant Adult Provision (SAP) – supporting primary schools to prevent permanent exclusions
What’s a SAP?
We are the people that work in the Significant Adult Provision, sometimes known as Pupil Support Workers.
You may have heard people talking about us, you may have had the pleasure of working with us, or you may have been too bogged down with Covid, lock downs, testing and home learning to find out more. Hopefully this short article will give you more of an insight of what we do, and how we can take the strain off you when it comes to challenging behaviours, hard to reach parents and classroom difficulties.
What do we do?
Children that have been through the Fair Access Protocol will naturally be referred to us under Priority 1 - permanently excluded or Priority 2 - managed move/transfer. We support the school, child, and family to begin the transition into their new setting. In addition, we support children that fall under the Priority 3 - those at risk and who may require a referral to the FAP Primary & Assessment Gateway in the future. The aim of the Significant Adult (SAP) is to reduce the number of referrals made to the panel by early intervention.
How do we do it?
Think of us as the link that can pull everything together, by opening lines of communication with schools (inc. secondary), families, pupils and external agencies we have a unique opportunity to ensure everyone is working together to achieve the best outcomes for the child and your schools.
By fostering positive relationships with all involved we have found that we have improved communication and families are more willing to access and accept support. In some cases, we have been a mediator where relationships have broken down between parents/carer’s and have supported school to adopt the restorative practice approach. Having the time to dedicate to families, some of whom have previously been hard to reach has given us the opportunity to look at how home life can impact children’s education, as well as how school life impacts home. Having the time to support the child, offering 1:1 mentoring sessions has seen positive changes in the child’s behaviour both at school, and at home. In addition, we have been able to offer support to teaching staff providing a variety of behaviour management strategies, adding to the tools and strategies they currently practice. Working collaboratively has encouraged home to mirror and support practices in school, and vice versa resulting in positive outcomes.
Being able to review all plans in place around the child we have the chance to support the Assess, Plan, Do, Review process, offering help where needed to implement any interventions recommended, sign post to relevant support networks, share best practice and identify potential training / learning needs which would benefit the child and the school. This has been something we’ve been able to facilitate and in some instances, we’ve sought external agencies to deliver training. The SAP network means we connect across all consortiums countywide and wherever possible we deliver and support collectively as well as sharing good practice and resources.
How you can commission a SAP?
Speak to your Primary Consortia Chair or contact the SAP directly:
Significant Adults
Consortia 1 Nuneaton East & Stockingford – Not yet in post
Consortia 2 Bedworth – Sue Coombes, email coombes.s@welearn365.com
Consortia 3A North Warwickshire – Julie Deeming, email Julie.deeming@racemeadow.org
Consortia 3B Coleshill & Kingsbury – Lisa Allison, email Allison.l1@welearn365.com
Consortia 4 Nuneaton & Hartshill - Helen Buckler, email buckler.h1@welearn365.com
Consortia 5 Studley/ Stratford/ Henley – Lauretta Redman, email redman.l@welearn365.com
Consortia 6 Bidford & Alcester – Not yet in post
Consortia 7 Kineton & Shipston – Helen Collins, email head3024@welearn365.com
Consortia 8A Leamington North – Gayle Foley, email foley.g@welearn365.com
Consortia 8B Leamington South – Vicki Plumb, email miles.j2@welearn365.com
Consortia 9 Warwick & Southam – Debra Bradford, email bradford.d1@welearn365.com
Consortia 10 Kenilworth – Jaime Shilton, email shilton.j@welearn365.com
Consortia 11 Rugby Town – Sam Smythe, email smythe.s@welearn365.com
Consortia 12 Rural Rugby – Carys Pape, email pape.c@welearn365.com
Please find an overview/example of the SAP intent statement/process for commissioning.