Our Partnerships

Parents, carers and families

We value very highly our relationship with parents, carers and families and actively encourage dialogue, feedback and working collaboratively to support every child and young person’s learning journey. We see parents and carers as experts when it comes to your own children and therefore see you as key partners in the education process.

We welcome parents and carers into the school and are always happy to meet with you at short notice; however it is often advisable to make an appointment with the Headteacher or specific member of staff beforehand if you want to discuss any specific issues, ideas or any concerns that you may have. We are also happy to speak on the phone – whatever works for you. Our staff team are friendly, flexible and always keen to help and assist with any query you may have.

All pupils have a home-school diary for the regular exchange of information between home and school, and classroom staff can be contacted by phone (outside lesson times if possible) if you have any questions or if you want to discuss anything to do with your child’s progress or welfare. E-mail is also a useful way of contacting the school – admin@thomasbewick.newcastle.sch.uk – and if you do, our helpful admin team will ensure that your message gets passed onto the appropriate person.

Parents and carers are invited to termly meetings with class teachers to discuss your child’s progress and to discuss the targets that form their Individual Progress Plan (IPP). The annual review of your child’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) also gives you a more formal opportunity to review your child’s progress against the outcomes identified in their EHCP.

Parents, carers, families and friends of the school are also invited to special events and celebrations at the school, and we like to organise regular informal coffee mornings in school where you can meet and network with other parents, carers, staff and supporters of the school. We also offer a range of workshops and training events for parents, carers and family members across the year, usually facilitated by school staff or our therapy team.

Professionals / Multi-agency working

The school works closely with a variety of multi-agency professionals from the range of education, health and social care services involved with our pupils and their families.

Communication and information sharing between services and agencies is particularly important when there is a team of people working around a child and their family. This is a crucial part of our commitment to ‘getting it right’ for all of our pupils.

Some of the services and agencies we work closely with are:

• Children’s Social Care (CSC)
• Adult’s social Care
• Northumbria Police
• Children with Disabilities Team (CWDT)
• Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NUTH) – Speech and Language Therapy/Occupational Therapy
• Community Team Learning Disability (CTLD)
• Educational Psychology
• Children and Young People’s Services (CYPS)
• Bedeburn/Castle Dene Short Break Services
• Newcastle SEN Caseworkers

Schools, colleges and education providers

We work very closely with other schools, colleges and pre / post-school providers in Newcastle and across the north east region. As part of Prosper Learning Trust, we naturally have strong links with Newcastle Bridges School, Mary Astell Academy and Harry Watts Academy, the specialist Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) provision in Sunderland, which all provide fantastic opportunities for sharing expertise and good practice.

We also work closely with the other specialist schools in Newcastle – Hadrian School, Sir Charles Parsons School, Trinity Academy and Talbot House – and the Headteachers from each school meet regularly to ensure that we keep abreast of strategic developments within the specialist education sector. We are also commissioned by Newcastle Local Authority to work with the SEND Outreach Service, and this work involves supporting children and staff in mainstream schools across Newcastle.

Starting and leaving school can be a daunting prospect for many children, young people and their families, so we also work closely with the Early Education

Additional Support Team (EEAST), local colleges and other post-school providers to ensure that transitions in and out of our school are well planned and carefully managed.

International links

We have coordinated a number of multi-national projects through the Erasmus+ and Comenius programmes which has enabled us to form strong and lasting friendships and partnerships with schools in many countries across Europe including Ireland, Finland, Spain, Poland and The Netherlands. These projects have been a fantastic way of bringing the wider world into our school, and have given many pupils and staff the opportunity to travel abroad. We are keen to build upon our existing international partnerships and create new ones, to ensure that Thomas Bewick School can continue this exciting work.