Meet the team
Who we are and what we do
Learning Support Manager
Yvonne McAdam
Additional Learning Support Coaches
Rob Kershaw, Sam Burton, Gervais Meacham
Our dedicated ALS team has a wealth of experience of supporting learners. All with a background in teaching, learning, apprenticeships and specialist support provision, the team provide an initial assessment of learners needs to create a support plan recommending strategies to remove any barriers to learning.
Additional Learning Support
How do we help?
Our Additional Learning Support (ALS) team aim to support learners who have disclosed a disability, learning difficulty or medical condition by ensuring the key principles of the Equality Act 2010 and the SEND Code of Practise 2015 are followed.Any learner disclosing an additional learning need or disability will be allocated to a specialist ALS Coach for the sector area their apprenticeship is aligned to.
An initial needs assessment will be carried out to understand the learners support needs, what previous support they may have had in other education, training or employment provisions and what support they feel they would need in their apprenticeship with Babington. The ALS coach will then create a support plan based on these needs and 1:2:1 support can be provided by the skills coach and ALS Coach where required.
Support is reviewed monthly to ensure it is still required and of an appropriate level. This can be adjusted at any time to ensure all learners have equal access to our apprenticeship programme content, resources and support here at Babington.
Many ways to help
What can our support cover?
We provide different types of support tailored to the situation and the individual involved. These can incude:
- Supported enrolment with an ALS Coach – to ensure all reasonable adjustments required are in place during your apprenticeship
- Supported programme launch – to ensure programme contents are accessible and any barriers to learning are removed
- Receiving programme resources in advance of sessions and workshops – to enable familiarisation with course content prior to the scheduled session
- Assistive technology training and guidance
- 1:2:1 support sessions covering study and revision techniques, planning and prioritising workload, proof reading, strategies for overcoming barriers to learning
- Agreeing reasonable adjustments on programme and at EPAO in line with needs and evidence such as: extra time, assistive technology, reader, scribe, support worker, timed rest breaks, prompter, BSL interpreter, flexible work and assessment times and location – please note this is an example only – requests need to be made on a case by case basis
- Exam access arrangements in line with EPAO and AO policies and procedures
- Supporting conversations with your employer to enable reasonable adjustments in the workplace
- Advice and guidance on how to get a formally recognised diagnosis for a learning difficulty or disability if you don’t have one already or have lost your evidence of diagnosis
- Attending EHCP reviews, where required
- Referrals and sign posting to external support organisations and our internal safe and sound team for wellbeing support
