All students have a Tutor who they see each morning, every day of the week.

This person is their first port of call for any questions or problems they may have. The Tutor can also be contacted by parents if they are concerned or worried about their child.

In addition to their Tutor, students also have a 'Pastoral Leader' who oversees their progress and wellbeing, supported by the Assistant Pastoral Leader for their unit.

They will contact home should there be any concerns about a child and parents are welcome to contact them directly as well.

• The Year 7 Pastoral Leader is the Head of Year 7 and the Deputy Head of Year 7. This pastoral team work exclusively with Year 7 to help them to transition and adjust to life at secondary school.
• The Year 8 Pastoral Leader is the Head of Year 8 and the Deputy Head of Year 8.
• Year 9 -11 students move up into our House System. We have four houses, each led by a Head of House. These pastoral leaders support your child throughout these three years at Backwell School. 

When your child joins the school, they will be assigned a tutor group within one of our four houses.

Our Tutor Groups are year group specific, meaning they are all children of the same age/ school year.

When completing an application for Year 7, students are encouraged to provide us with the names of three children who they have worked well with in primary school, and we endeavour to place them in the same Tutor group with at least one of those friends.

All Backwell students follow a broad, balanced, inclusive curriculum, which is differentiated and supported where necessary.

This is delivered at an appropriate pace and depth, where teaching styles, strategies, learning tasks and materials are modified to ensure all students can make progress.

We believe being able to access learning is key to students’ enjoyment of school and is crucial to them achieving success. We therefore offer a curriculum that aims to inspire, stimulate and motivate every student, regardless of any additional needs they may have.

This is our Wave 1, universal teaching provision that meets the needs of the vast majority of our students, including many students with additional learning or social and emotional needs.

All students are taught in mainstream classes with the vast majority of students making good progress through high quality teaching and pastoral support. 

Student's needs are communicated to teachers through a Pen Portrait, a document written in collaboration with parents and students, which helps our staff understand how to best support a student's progress. 

A small number of pupils with persistent and complex needs may take part in additional support classes and interventions to support their progress in mainstream classes or to facilitate specific catch-up work, pre learning or post learning.

Interventions are put in place for a short, but intense, period of time in order to help a student make rapid progress. These interventions support literacy, numeracy, speech and language development, wellbeing and social skills. 

The progress of these students is carefully monitored both during and after the intervention period. This forms our Wave 2 provision for those who require SEND support, with some of these pupils being supported formally on the SEND register.

Where pupils fail to make progress through Wave 1 and Wave 2 provision, support may be sought from external professionals such as educational psychologists or specialist teaching staff.

These pupils are our high needs, Wave 3 pupils and have a bespoke program of support in place to meet their educational needs, which may include application for additional funding or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). 

We work collaboratively with parents and students to ensure they have the opportunity to shape the provision available for their child. 

The school pastoral, behaviour support, wellbeing and SEND departments work collaboratively with the curriculum teams to ensure each pupil has the support they need to reach their potential.

For further information about support available, including accessibility, please see the SEND Information Report and our Equalities Policy on the Policies page of our website.

I think my child may have ADHD/ASD. What should I do?

If you are concerned that your child may be struggling in school, please contact their form tutor in the first instance. Young people do not need a diagnosis to have support in school, including support with exams.

If support is already in place and you would like to explore the possibility of a medical diagnosis such as ADHD and ASD to see if this is the cause of their difficulties, you can seek a referral to community paediatrics for an assessment. The local policy is currently for schools, not GPs, to make these referrals.

There has been an increase in the number of referrals both in our local area and nationally, and this is reflected in waiting times for referrals and assessments. It is worth thinking about the following before requesting any referral.

We can support young people in school without a diagnosis. Some of the things we can support with are listed below.

• Home learning
• Friendships
• Sensory difficulties
• Difficulties with exams
• Feeling anxious or worried
• Difficulties attending school

This support may come from your child’s class teachers, form tutor, pastoral team or SEND department.

A diagnosis does not mean your child will necessarily need or receive specific support.

Most young people with a diagnosis of ADHD or ASD have their needs met within universal classroom provision.

Please note that in order for a referral to be accepted, we need to be able to show evidence of all the following.

1. The difficulties the young person is having significantly impact their daily life.
2. Difficulties are present at both home and school.
3. The young person has already needed and received support for these difficulties.

We are conscious that many parents are concerned about the impact that multiple lockdowns had on their child's progress and education. 

At Backwell school, we have designed our curriculum with regular assessments to allow teachers to identify which areas of student understanding have been impacted by lockdowns and school closures.

Using the data from these assessments, class teachers and curriculum leaders can modify what students are being taught to concentrate learning on the students specific areas of weakness.

This area has been made a whole school priority to support and encourage its leadership at all levels across the school.

Click here to visit our dedicated webpage on support for Pupil Premium students at the school.

Click here to visit our dedicated webpage on financial support for students at the school.