The SENCO role is facilitated by working closely with others (staff within settings and external agencies) and linking up with other SENCOs.

Locality partnerships provide opportunities for communities of good practice to develop, where expertise and experience can be shared across multiple settings. Bury SENCO Networks (half-termly) provide a valuable opportunity to connect with other SENCOs to share good practice, seek peer support and receive key updates from external agencies.

Bury SENCOs described following benefits of their locality SENCO Network Meetings:

• “…Being able to share good practice and keep up to date with new initiatives and training. It is also great for the dissemination of information from different teams.”

• “…each session had an impact and I always was able to take something useful and practical away.”

SENCOs have a key role in coordinating support and input from external agencies. Good SENCOs value maintaining links and regular contact with key professionals to help inform and shape provision at all levels. It is helpful for link professionals around a setting to be shared with staff and parents/carers, and for robust and effective information-sharing processes to be established (including strategies such as One Page Profiles). A template to identify key professionals working with schools or colleges can be downloaded via the 'related files' section.

Experienced SENCOs highlight the importance of sharing information with all staff regarding the role and remit of different agencies to support them to make appropriate referrals.

There is a range of teams within Bury Council who can support settings to meet the needs of children and young people with a wide range of SEND. These include:

• The Inclusion Service,

• Additional Needs Team (ANT)

• Sensory Needs (VI/HI) Team

• Education Welfare Service

• SEMH Partnership

As part of a graduated approach, it may be decided that specialist advice is required to meet the needs of children and young people, for example, Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT), Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (Bury CAMHS), Educational Psychology Service (EPS), Occupational Therapy (OT) and/or Physiotherapy.

Further information about these teams and how to access them is available on the Bury Directory. Referral forms for services who regularly work in schools can be found here.

A jargon-buster has been created, which explains key terms and job roles in SEND and can be printed and shared with parents/carers and young people. You can access the jargon-buster in the 'related files' section. The Best Practice guidance within the Parent/Carer and Children and Young People areas of the website are also helpful to signpost to.