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mentoring, support, PSHE
Home > Academic > Learning Support

Learning Support

Learning Support at King's is about encouraging pupils with specific learning difficulties to adopt good working practice and become independent learners.  We support pupils in all subjects across the curriculum starting in the 3rd form, through GCSE and A Level as required.

Our primary goal is to encourage pupils to become effective independent learners by understanding their difficulties, finding strategies to overcome these, and building on their strengths to raise self-esteem.

The main educational and developmental objectives of support lessons are:

  • to provide excellent educational and pastoral support across the curriculum
  • to improve personal and academic organisation skills
  • to explore strategies to enable better recall of information
  • to explore methods of improving structure, depth and quality of written responses
  • to develop more effective and fluent reading skills
  • to develop language and communication skills
  • to improve accuracy of spelling, punctuation and grammar
  • to develop good listening skills
  • to improve revision and examination technique


Essentially we aim to provide a secure foundation on which pupils with difficulties can build self-esteem and independence, so they are able to approach both academic work and peer relationships with greater confidence.

Lessons are always taught one-to-one and at a time that best suits each individual so as not to compromise other work.  Sometimes we advise pupils to opt for one less subject, especially at GCSE, in order to relieve academic pressure.  This provides:

a regular slot for specialist tuition
additional study periods for catching up, re-organising notes, extended reading, editing, etc
a window for other tuition, e.g. music lessons
invaluable time for preparing exam coursework

From time to time any pupil may require a guiding hand to help improve memory, essay writing, or exam technique.  With this in mind, there is a learning support service for occasional advice or assessment.  This has proved to be popular across the age and ability range.

In addition to these specialist lessons, our Learning Strategies programme features a series of presentations introducing key study skills, e.g. organisation, revision, note-taking, as appropriate to each year group.  This is supplemented by specially written publications and further discussion in focused tutorials which ensure that all pupils understand how to enhance their learning.  

Our core strength lies in a well-qualified specialist and dedicated group of teachers with a wealth of varied experience.  The 2009 Inspection Report states:

"The school has an exceptionally strong system of support for pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities (LDD) and for those for whom English is an additional language (EAL).  This care is based on careful assessment of need on entry to Year 9 and extends to well-targeted support for those who might require it at any stage in the school.

"Those pupils with LDD and with EAL make good progress under the guidance of an outstanding learning support department which provides staff with a range of strategies to help them support pupils across the curriculum.

"Much of the teaching shows a good understanding of the aptitudes, needs and prior attainment of pupils, and a large amount of data and advice provided by the learning support department offers help for teachers to assist pupils with specific needs or with EAL. Individual learning plans for pupils with LDD identify the learning difficulties of these pupils and the one-to-one support for pupils for whom English is not their first language is well structured and meets their requirements."

Staff profiles

Karen Cole (BA English, RSA Dip SpLD)     as Head of Learning Support (and Learning Strategies) organises and co-ordinates the assessment and teaching of all EAL and SpLD pupils.  She is also responsible for specialist teaching of dyslexic pupils.  She is experienced in supporting pupils in a range of subjects across the curriculum, including science to GCSE plus English, drama, art, history, economics and business studies to A Level.

Kate Mulligan (BA English, RSA Dip SpLD) is responsible for teaching SpLD students across the age and ability range, especially those with moderate to severe dyslexic or dyspraxic difficulties.

Paula Corke (BSc, KUMON) is our maths specialist who teaches any individual pupils whose difficulties lie in mathematics.

Alison Roberts (BA Geog, PGCE, Trinity TESOL Cert.) is responsible for teaching study skills to individual pupils with SpLD and EAL. She helps individuals achieve success across the curriculum but, with recent experience of working abroad, has a particular interest in geography, languages and science.