Specialist Teaching Team

The physical and health needs teaching provision is part of the City’s Specialist Teaching Team (STT). The STT provide high quality, personalised support and services to children and young people (CYP), their families and educational settings. We work in collaboration with other support services to enable CYP to achieve the best learning outcomes for a happy, fulfilling, purposeful, positive and independent adult life. The aim is always to make sure that children and young people aspire, achieve, feel valued and are happy. The government has issued guidance for ensuring a good education for children who cannot attend school because of health needs.

You can also read York's policy. Any CYP who is away from school for more than 15 days, is entitled to some education provided by the local authority. We work in liaison with schools to provide work to ease the transition back to school. In addition, we work with many CYP who are working with CAMHS who, for a range of reasons, are currently not able to attend full time school.

What to expect

Schools make a referral to the team which is accompanied by a letter from health stating that CYP is unable to attend school.

An initial meeting is then arranged by school for parent carers with the staff in school who know you best and the STT. This meeting can be held at home or in school - we would love the CYP to attend the meeting but are aware this is sometimes challenging. A short and longer term plan is agreed at this meeting.

Usually we start a period of home tuition with a variety different tutors. When working at home we need the parent carer or responsible adult to be present throughout the teaching session. It may be distracting for the CYP to have their parent in the same room when working with the teacher, however we expect that the adult will be close by should they be needed. If the parent carer or responsible adult cannot be present for a home teaching session it will be necessary to cancel the visit. This period of home tuition is then often extended to include some tuition in an agreed other venue or in some very small groups. We have regular reviews to evaluate progress towards returning to school. Although we don’t expect children to wear their school uniform during tuition, they should be dressed in appropriate ‘day wear’.

When visiting schools, settings or homes, the team will always wear a City of York staff badge with photograph. All members of the STT have an enhanced DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check and attend regular safeguarding training.

We regularly liaise with Health colleagues including CAMHS to discuss progress with both the reintegration plan to school and their therapy programmes. We also work closely with the Local Area Teams (Childrens Social Care Early Support Service) to ensure support for families where young people are unable to attend school

If you have any questions, contact the Interim Specialist Teaching Team Manager, Emma Parkin by email: [email protected].