High Incidence Needs Team (HINT)

The High Incidence Needs Team (HINT) is part of the Special Educational Needs Inclusion Team (SENIT) at Gateshead Council within the Education, Schools and Inclusion Directorate. The team provides advice, guidance and support to primary schools and secondary schools across Gateshead to meet the needs of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

HINT has four specialist teams:

• Complex Social Communication
• Speech Language Communication Needs
• Cognition and Learning (for Specific Learning Difficulties)
• Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs

For children and young people who have physical or sensory needs, such as vision impairment (VI), hearing impairment (HI), multi-sensory impairment (MSI) or physical disability, please refer to the Low Incidence Needs Team (LINT).

HINT's core values of partnerships and empowering define our work with settings, children and young people and serve as the guiding principles in all that we do. 

• Partnerships: We aim to develop reciprocal partnerships built upon respect, care and integrity to deliver positive outcomes for children and young people. 
• Empowering: We strive to facilitate positive change by recognising each child or young person's unique strengths and needs, encouraging adaptations, changing perceptions, building relationships and developing colleagues' professional practice to enable  children and young people to grow and maximise their ability to thrive in a culture of equity.

Most HINT services are funded via the High Needs funding block of the Dedicated Schools Grant from the Department for Education. This means that most of the services provided by HINT are free to schools in Gateshead. Each school receives an annual number of credits to spend on the service. The number of credits a state-funded mainstream school receives is determined by a formula using data from the school roll, the number of pupils on the SEND register and the income deprivation affecting children index for the locality of the school. Schools trade their credits for HINT services (although there is no actual monies exchanged). This means HINT services can be provided equitably across Gateshead schools.

HINT provide four levels of service:

1. Individual pupils - advice, guidance and support (through a surgery or individual pupil referral).
2. Individual pupils - intervention package (for pupils seen by the Complex Social Communication or Social, Emotional and Mental Health teams).
3. Training - provided centrally or direct into schools.
4. Whole school support.