Complex Needs & Dyslexia Service
Who are we:
The Complex Needs and Dyslexia Service (CNDS) is a team of specialist teachers and Early Years SEND Practitioners who work with universal providers such as children’s centres, early years’ settings and schools and support transition to Post-16 settings.
We provide a specialist service to support children and young people with learning difficulties and physical disabilities. We work with families, schools and settings to support and develop provision for children with significant learning or physical disabilities such as:
- profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD)
- severe learning difficulties (SLD)
- moderate learning difficulties (MLD)
- specific learning difficulties (SpLD) i.e. specific numeracy and literacy difficulties including dyslexia.
This is a Local Authority service which also works closely with Newham Social Care and East London Foundation Trust (ELFT) and other external children’s services.
What we offer:
The Early Years team consists of a senior teacher and special education needs Early Years Practitioners. We support children with complex needs and physical /medical needs and their families at weekly targeted playgroups and interventions, nursery settings, child minders and at home.
The service offers observations and strategies to support children in nurseries and if known to the service before starting, will offer an Early Years support plan with targets agreed with parents.
The service can offer a range of training and support for early years’ settings including private or school nurseries, childminders or maintained nursery schools, and works with services such as MENCAP, Area SENCOs and health services.
The School Age team (Complex Learning Needs) provide a range of inputs to support children and young people with severe and profound learning difficulties their schools and families.
This input includes direct work with children, working alongside school staff to develop knowledge and skills, sharing specialist strategies, interventions and programmes.
The Professional Dyslexia and Dyscalculia Service (PDDS) is a traded service who provide packages of support to schools and colleges (Post 16) to support children and young people with moderate learning difficulties (MLD) and specific learning difficulties, including dyslexia. The packages are available to schools to purchase and may include:
- Full dyslexia assessment and reports for identification
- Next steps literacy, maths and MLD reports This targets difficulties and provides strategies to support and a programme for intervention where appropriate.
- Workshops for schools: Workshop 1 – carrying out standardised assessments; Workshop 2 – training on the use of strategies required for intervention programmes.
- Exam access arrangements: Form 8 assessments and training
- Remote training for MLD and Dyslexia Awareness in the classroom.
Please subcribe to our youtube channel Newham Support for SEND - Youtube
Referral
A referral is required to access all parts of the service.
Early Years:
For nursery age children, 3 months and above:
Schools or health services can refer to the service with parental permission via the council’s Early Notification Panel.
Early Years settings including private or school nurseries, child-minders or other agencies involved with the child can also refer through this panel with parental permission.
School Age children (Complex Learning Needs):
For children with complex learning needs i.e. profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), severe learning difficulties (SLD):
For children / young person from Reception to Year 11 schools or any other agency involved can refer, with parental consent, using the CNDS referral forms.
Parents can request that a school make a referral to the service if appropriate.
Once a referral has been received, the level of and type of support offered by our service will vary depending on a range of factors.
For children with moderate learning difficulties (MLD) and specific learning difficulties (SpLD) i.e. specific numeracy and literacy difficulties including dyslexia, from Year 3 to Post 16:
The Professional Dyslexia and Dyscalculia Service (PDDS):
The Professional Dyslexia and Dyscalculia Service (PDDS) is a traded service which provides packages of support to schools and colleges (Post 16) to purchase.
Schools and colleges who have purchased a package of support can make a referral using the Professional Dyslexia and Dyscalculia Service. (PDDS).
The school will be expected to complete a referral form indicating their concerns and evidence of attendance and intervention etc.
Parent/carer consent must be given before any of the work is carried out and consent must be seen on the referral form. Once the allocated teacher has received the referral, there will be a meeting with the school to discuss concerns and to establish dates for assessment visits.
Pupil and Parent questionnaires are required to be completed to obtain pupil voice and to understand parent/carer concerns.
CNDS Referral forms
Complex Needs & Dyslexia Form A - Training Request
Complex Needs & Dyslexia Form B - Intervention Request for whole school or groups of pupils
Complex Needs & Dyslexia Form C - Pupil Referral
Complex Needs & Dyslexia Form D - Follow up visit for pupil/s with moderate learning difficulties (MLD) - -Traded Work
Complex Needs & Dyslexia Form E - Pupil Reactivation - For use within 2 years of last input
Complex Needs & Dyslexia Form F - Request for Moving and Handling
Resources for home
Resources for pre-school children
- CNDS Cloudy play dough - YouTube - Instructions for making cloudy dough at home.
- CNDS: Making a privacy board - YouTube - How to make a home-made privacy board to help concentration
- CNDS: Basic home signs - YouTube - Signalong signs to use at home. Signalong is a key word signing system based on British Sign Language (BSL). Signalong uses signing, spoken words, body language, facial expression, voice tone and context to help children and adults with communication difficulties associated with learning disabilities.
- CNDS Signalong - YouTube More Signalong signs to use at home - Signalong signs to use at home. Signalong is a key word signing system based on British Sign Language (BSL). Signalong uses signing, spoken words, body language, facial expression, voice tone and context to help children and adults with communication difficulties associated with learning disabilities.
- CNDS: Bedtime story Dear Zoo - YouTube - A story with Signalong signs to share at home.
Resources for school- age children
- BusyHands Box - YouTube- A BusyHands box is a simple, quick and easy tool to source. It has been proven to be an effective tool in supporting your child to develop their Fine Motor Skills. This introductory video covers the basics in setting up your own personalised BusyHands Box for your child.
- Whole Word Learning - YouTube -- This video helps define how to use a Whole Word Matching approach to help your child develop their reading vocabulary, especially if they have phonological difficulties
- Threading - Developing Fine Motor Skills - YouTube - This video explores homemade and commercial resources that can be used to develop your child’s hand and finger skills.
CLN Advice sheets
Resources for children and young people with moderate learning difficulties (MLD) or specific learning difficulties (SpLD) including dyslexia
- PDDS Precision Probes - YouTube - This video explains how to help your child to read words automatically without sounding out and blending. Many struggling readers find it difficult to recognise words automatically. With this activity you will be able to help your child improve their fluency of reading.
- PDDS Stile Tiles - YouTube – Stile Tiles is an activity that promotes independence in learning and teaches self-correction. It is a fun and challenging way to reinforce reading skills. The Stile Tray is the key to self-checking activities. Pupils answer the questions by matching the tiles directly over the answers in the clear lid of the tray. They then close the tray, turn it over, and re-open it to reveal a geometric pattern, which should match the one printed at the top of the exercise. A highly motivating way to learn!
- PDDS Blending Game - YouTube – This short video demonstrates how to teach blending to your child. After your child learnt all their sounds, the next step in reading acquisition is to blend the sounds to form words. This game is a simple way to do this in an interactive and stress-free way.
- PDDS Phoneme Manipulation - YouTube – This short video demonstrates how to teach phoneme manipulation in an interactive way. Phoneme manipulation is the ability to isolate and change sounds in words to form new words and it is a very important skill in reading.
- PDDS SOS Spelling - YouTube - This short video demonstrates how to teach spelling in a multisensory way.
General Advice for SENCo
Physical Disabilities, general advice for SENCo, please consider accessing training alongside advice:
Using Playdough for activities
Early Years: Developing Gross motor skills
School room access – checklist
Whole setting access - checklist
The Role of the Teacher working with Pupils with Physical Disabilities
The Role of the LSA working with Pupils with Physical Disabilities
Top Tips –Supporting pupils with physical disabilities to organise learning task
Related Information
Actions
Rate this page
