Louise Witt and Lauren Langford are Learning Support Assistants within Solent Junior School, and also qualified Emotional Literacy Support Assistants (ELSA) supporting families with their pastoral needs.

The role of our ELSA’s is to support parents and carers to ensure that their children can learn positively and flourish during their time at Solent Junior School.

Everyone has times when they wish someone was there to offer help when they really need it. There can be times in a child’s life when things get in the way of their learning. A child might struggle for a variety of reasons e.g. they might be experiencing feelings of anxiety, anger or worry or loss.

Types of Support our ELSA’s can offer:

• Support and guidance – a chance to talk through concerns or problems.

• A link between home and school – by working together we can help your child to achieve in their learning.

• Guidance about things which have an effect on how your child gets on at school - behaviour, attendance and punctuality, routines and organisation, relationships.

• Help with concerns about starting school or moving to another school.

• Support and information about how to get further help when necessary.

• Support parents to develop and maintain a positive relationship with the school.

• Help families and children to access services, resources and local community information.

To contact the team you can click HERE or alternatively you can e-mail familysupport.junior@thesolentschools.org

Armed Forces Support

Point of Contact: Louise Witt (Solent Junior School ELSA)

An exciting part of the ELSA role is to support the Service families within our school.  As a military wife and mother of 2 children, Louise Witt has experience and knowledge that can be of benefit to you, so that you can work together to provide the best possible care for your family.

In order to provide the best support for our Armed Forces families it is important that we are aware of any planned deployments, house moves, school changes, changes in home circumstances etc so that we can plan and put in place the appropriate support for your children. We will of course take advice from you on what support you feel is suitable, as we appreciate every family is different. Communication between school and home is essential to ensure that your child is effectively supported during their time at Solent Junior School.

As a part of this role we can support you by:

• Providing deploying/absent parents a Solent Teddy which they can take with them and send us pictures and stories of their travels that we can share either at assembly or in class.

• Having regular “check-in” sessions with those children who need extra support during times of deployment etc.

• To be able to email deployed/absent parents some of their child’s work and any photos of them that have been taken at school during that time.

• If your child is moving to/from another school out with normal transition time, then we can also support you and your child in planning that move. Some ideas are to create a scrapbook of their time at Solent, also to liaise with their new school and find out more about their new class and teacher etc.

To keep school updated please complete the form HERE or alternatively you can e-mail familysupport.junior@thesolentschools.org