Wyndcliffe Primary School opened our Resource Base in 2019 to support the needs of young people within the local community with a formal diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). Our Resource Base has grown so much that it is now situated on two sites within the school one called the Hive and one called the Honeycomb. (The Honeycomb is being developed with support from the Local Authority so it is a similar resource to the Hive).
Wyndcliffe Resource Base staff strive to provide an environment where children and their families feel safe, welcome and supported. The Resource Base is staffed by a specialist team including Resource Base Manager, four specialist Teachers and a team of Teaching Assistants; all with a wealth of experience working with children with a diagnosis of Autism and other identified complex needs. The Resource Base team work closely with the SEND teaching staff in the main school and teaching staff as needed based on year groups for integration and developmental needs. Staffing requirements and ratios are based on our current cohort and individual needs of the young people.
We aim to enable every young person to become the very best they can be by nurturing and encouraging their individual strengths and interests, whilst giving them opportunities to learn new and exciting things in a safe and secure learning environment. All young people are supported to develop and use strategies that help them to overcome and cope with challenges they are faced with, developing them into resilient young learners.
Wyndcliffe Primary School Resource Base, focuses on delivering a specific educational programme for children identified with an Educational Health Care Plan and a formal diagnosis of ASC, for whom the Local Authority deem Resource Based provision to best meet their needs. Young people are placed within the Resource Base by the Special Educational Needs Assessment and Review Service (SENAR).
Wyndcliffe Primary School has 44 places for young people with ASC within our Resource Base provision both Hive and Honeycomb.
A tailored curriculum is provided to meet the individual needs of our Resource Based young people, to develop the ‘whole child’: balancing the development of life and social skills with academic learning.
Resource Based young people are grouped according to need, age and ability, and have access to a wide range of activities, including the National Curriculum where appropriate. They work in small class groupings with high staff ratios. The young people are encouraged to work with different adults to help them gain independence and life skills. Through an understanding of the ‘whole young person’, their sensory, communication, attention and developmental levels enables us to think about where the young person is and identify next steps within their learning.
Resource Based young people access the mainstream environment and work alongside their mainstream peers where appropriate. Attainment and progress are tracked using a ‘small steps’ approach that shows progress in clear and precise stages. We use several tools to monitor attainment and progress
- including National Curriculum assessment tools ,
- Access to Education toolkit tracker for Individual Teaching Plans,
- Cumin and Leach assessment tool for supporting our young people that are working at pre teaching levels (P5/4 and below Engagement model tool)
- Early Years assessment framework.
Tracking assessment is achieved daily using Tapestry
Small increments of progress are used to inform individual, personalised targets. Each young person in the Resource Base works in a structured, ASC-friendly environment where our staff receive training regularly to support the delivery of a variety of ASC strategies and techniques.
We work very closely with our families to support a fully holistic approach all our young people and have daily contact through our home school diaries and daily link to the Tapestry
Our Resource Base is at the heart of our school community and the young people currently share playtimes and lunchtimes with the mainstream children. We find that this supports social skills.
Across school, we are continuously ensuring that the school environment and all classes are Autism Friendly to support the young people in those classes and allow access to mainstream for all when appropriate. This ensures that all staff are able to support children with Autism and understand their needs. All of our school staff are trained by in Attention Autism training.
Our Resource Base young people have weekly lessons with our trained sports coaches. This allows the children to build relationships with other adults in school in preparation for their futures.
We are always here to help and support parents and families at home.
Ways we can help:
- Be there to listen when you need support.
- Providing strategies and resources that work in school.
- Offering training to support you at home.
- Sign posting to services (see list below).
- Making referrals to relevant professionals or organisations.
Quotes from the Primary Resource Base Review Birmingham City Council wrote:
- “Leaders were compelling in their narrative around why children in the resource base are doing well and data presented clearly reflects that needs of pupils are being met.”
- “The school has many external awards to validate their judgements of their effectiveness and the provision in the resource base is clearly highly thought of across the city and with the professionals they are working with as evidenced in the support advice and exemplars of good practice they are asked to share across other provisions and schools across the City.”
- “There is a robust process for gathering, analysing and acting upon the views of parents and carers and using these to develop and improve provision.”
- The LA is recommending other resource bases to visit Wyndcliffe RB as an example of good practice and the high engagement of other schools visiting and seeking advice from the Hive is an indication of the quality of the provision and the respect that the school and its resource base staff have.
SEND Birmingham
Lancaster Circus, PO Box 16289, Birmingham B2 2 XN
SENAR, Special Educational Needs Assessment and Review Service,
0121 303 0829