Dragonfly Provision
At Cockton Hill Junior School, we have a bespoke provision for a small group of children with SEND needs. This is a teacher-led provision (staffed by a teacher and HLTA) which was first established in April 2022. Throughout this time, the SENDCo and teacher leading the provision have worked with a range of professionals (Cognition and Learning Team, Communication and Interaction Team and our link Educational Psychologist) to develop this provision in terms of the environment, structure of sessions and meeting the needs of individual learners. These professionals have recognised the strengths in this provision, as well as our School Leadership Advisor and Ofsted. Ofsted (2023) recognised, “Pupils who need extra help with English and mathematics get specialist teaching. This teaching accelerates the development of pupils’ literacy and numeracy.”
Children are identified to work in this bespoke provision for the morning (with a main focus on their English and Maths learning) and then access whole class learning with their year group peers on an afternoon. Children who access Dragonfly provision are currently from Years 4 to 6. Children have a range of identified needs but all children who access this provision are working significantly below their age-related expectations across the curriculum.
As a school, we work with parents and carers to discuss their child’s needs and why we are identifying they would benefit from support in Dragonfly provision. We then have a comprehensive transition programme into Dragonfly to support children with this move. Many of these children will have already completed targeted interventions with the staff who work in Dragonfly and therefore already built effective relationships.
The approach to Dragonfly is fluid and we do have some children who have accessed this for either Maths or English according to their needs. We constantly review the needs of the children who access this and some children have transitioned back into their mainstream class due to the significant progress they have made as a result of the high levels of adult support and bespoke curriculum. Again, this transition is well supported to ensure this is smooth and successful for the child.
Pre-teaching activities are completed to support children with their foundation subject learning on an afternoon. Dragonfly teacher works in close communication with class teachers to ensure effective continuity of support for these children.
Staff who lead on Dragonfly provision are trained in Nurture principles, Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA), motor skills and speech and language meaning they have a skill set which supports children to make progress across all four broad areas of need in line with individual needs, support plans and EHCPs.
The current provision in Dragonfly follows this timetable:
- 8:40 Soft landing - complete a fine motor task or an independent task linked to current learning. Teacher completes 1:1 reading time with children.
- 9:00-9:15 15-minute motor skills session focusing on proprioception and vestibular exercises.
- 9:15-10:00 English – A session broken into small chunks with regular opportunities for movement breaks.
- 10:00-10:05 Choice time (e.g. access to sensory room / Lego / play dough / colouring / group games)
- 10:05-10:30 Sounds Write session
- 10:45-11:00 Times table and basic skills focus
- 11:00-12:00 Maths lesson - A session broken into small chunks with regular opportunities for movement breaks. Focus on number formation and flashback learning at the beginning of every session.
- On Friday, children participate in Book Club. This runs on a two-week cycle. In Week 1, children visit the school library, choose a book, share books with each other and complete book reviews. In Week 2, they read a story in class and complete activities around the story (linked to ELSA e.g. growth mindset, strengths and self-esteem).
Dragonfly is a very special place to be. All of our visitors recognise the strengths of this environment and the positive impact it makes on supporting our children to make progress from their starting points.
