SEN&D

What are special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)?

Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) can affect a child or young person's ability to learn. They can affect their behaviour or ability to socialise, for example pupils with autism may struggle to make friends. They can affect academic learning, for example a child may have reading problems because they have dyslexia. They can affect their ability to understand things or their concentration levels, for example because they have ADHD. They may also affect their physical ability. The broad areas of special educational needs that we support at school are:

Cognition and Learning difficulties
Speech, language and communication difficulties
Social, emotional and mental health difficulties
Physical or sensory difficulties

Our aims for pupils with SEND

Our aim for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities are the same as for all of our pupils; to provide a broad and balanced curriculum and the highest quality of education. We have high ambitions for our SEND pupils and set targets that stretch them.

We are a very inclusive school and we will support pupils to ensure their integration and curriculum entitlement. We value personal and social development and this is central to our provision.

How do we involve, parents, carers and families?

We are a friendly and approachable school. We actively encourage partnerships with parents, for instance through meetings and drop-in sessions with our SENDCO and Emotional Literacy Teacher (ELT). Our aim is to inform and involve parents as much as possible in school decision making and provide them with support, advice and access to services. Our parents appreciate this approach.

Our view is that you are the expert on your child's needs and for that reason we will encourage you to take the lead when producing profiles for your child and setting outcomes.

How do pupils participate?

We listen to our pupils and enable them to be active participants in their learning. We encourage them to evaluate themselves as learners and express opinions and make choices. All of our SEND pupils have a pupil profile and one page profile that are produced in conjunction with the pupil and family. This enables them to identify their strengths and weaknesses, ways of learning best and what support they may need.
We have pupil centred reviews that allow us to capture the views of your child. These will often involve your child making contributions to their pupil progress meetings and are supported by the staff in school.

What is our approach to teaching?

We are a supportive and nurturing school, and we are lucky to have a very dedicated staff team, all of whom view themselves as teachers of all pupils with SEND. Our staff are always developing their skills to ensure quality provision for pupils with a range of learning needs.

We have a clear approach to training and developing teams, so that for each category of need we have staff with more in-depth expertise, staff with specific training and then all staff given training in a broad understanding of the difficulty. Our overall aim is to provide the highest quality of teaching for all pupils.
Weare inclusive and understand the need for adjustments and additional support in class for some pupils.

What school policies do we have?

The school has a policy for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities which explains how we identify pupils with SEND and what procedures we have in place.

Additional policies, including our mental health and wellbeing policy, and policy for supporting pupils with medical needs also outline how we aim to support pupils with additional needs and can be found on our policy section of the website.

We work closely alongside our agencies with expertise to produce our school offers on SEND areas. These are currently for Autism, Dyslexia, Speech and Language, ADHD and Mental Health and Wellbeing Support and can be found at the end of this booklet.

Our school procedures

Our procedures allow early identification of difficulties and close monitoring of progress in response to additional provision.

Identification - This could be from concerns raised by pupils, parents and families or teaching staff and other agencies. Lack of progress or low attainment as well as changes in behaviour or attitudes may also be identified.

The stages include:
Early Response Stage - Where your child's teacher will work with you to develop an understanding of your child's profile and potential additional needs. They will discuss what adjustments and provision can be made in class. Your child will have targets which will be reviewed with you termly.

SEND Support Stage - Where the school's SENDCO, ELT andclass teacher will work with you to provide a plan for your child and identify the category of need. We will look at the outcomes you and your child want and the additional support that can be put in place for them. Your child will continue to have targets that will be reviewed with you termly.

SEND Support Plan - At this stage, it maybe decided that more support is needed to enable progress. Where an outside agency is involved with your child, then often a support plan is put in place to help carry out the advice effectively.

Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) - If your child has complex and enduring needs, or remains significantly behind, thena request for 'statutory assessment' can be made. Ifan Education, Health and Care plan is agreed then your child is likely to have more specialist provision and additional adult support. You will also have person centred review meetings each year to talk about their achievements and progress, and what is working and isn't working well.

How do we assess and review progress?

Your child's progress will be reviewed with you at parents evening and their review meetings. These will take place each term. At the meeting we will review your child's progress based on the outcomes and targetsthatyou agreed together.Information will be shared with you on how theyare progressing in class. You may discuss their personalised support and the teacher will talk to you about the information from test results or assessments.

Measuring effectiveness
We track the progress of our SEND pupils, and evaluate their SEND provision, very carefully. We look at how well they are meeting objectives and how well support is meeting needs. We use test and assessment data to help us measure progress. Our inclusion manager works alongside school leaders toundertake purposeful, and connected, monitoring of all of our SEND procedures and provision to check its effectiveness. This includes observing lessons and looking at work in books.

Supporting pupils transferring

We understand that transitions can be especially difficult for children with special educational needs, and we work closely with other schools and agencies to ensure as smooth a process as possible.
We can arrange additional support for their high school transfer suchas extravisits. If your child is moving schools to a new primary school, or coming from another primary schoolthen we will always endeavour to talk to the relevant staff in person and ensure all support needs are in place.
We have close links with our feeder nurseries and our local high school. We will visit your childl in their nurserysetting to get to know their needs. Children with EHCP plans will have transfer review meetings for high school and nursery.

Help your child

Adapting the curriculum and learning environment is part of the support for pupils with Special Education Needs. Teachers differentiate and group children flexibly to allow your child to achieve in the areas they are able to, and to work with all members of the class. We will follow up any difficulties with pre- teaching or sessions post teaching on areas they need more support with. They may work in additional guided groups with a learning support assistant or teacher.

Additional support, equipment and facilities

If your child is on the SEND register, they will have some additional provision or intervention to help meet their needs. This could be extra maths, reading, writing, spelling or phonics groups. The level of support they get will depend on factors like their overall progress and attainment compared to their class or age-related expectations.

We will also look at barriers to learning and more specific difficulties. Your child may need additional adaptations and specialist equipment such as reading overlays, fiddle toys, sensory aids or adapted writing materials. Specialist intervention programmes may be provided such as 1 to 1 reading coaching, speech and language groups or physical therapy programmes. Some pupils may follow a more personalised curriculum and have additional 1 to 1 adult support.

Equal access for all

We aim to have pupils with SEND fully represented in all areas of school life. This includes to monitoring to ensure their inclusion inawards, school productions and as representatives on the school council. Our reward systems are based on attitudes to learning and character traits, allowing all children to feel a sense of achievement

We speak to our SEND pupils during their review meetings and see what support they suggest, and what they want to be involved in. We ensure they have access to extra-curricular clubs including sports teams and learning instruments.

We have an accessibility plan that includes aims, such as our
commitment to making adjustments for off site visits so that your child is given as much access as possible.

Responding to concerns and worries

We are a very approachable school, and all of our staff are easily available. You can chat to your child's teacher at the end of the day or arrange appointments through the school office or email a member of staff through the office if you prefer.

We will ensure an appointment is made with the SENDCO, ELT or the headteacher as soon as any concern is raised and then we will agree some actions together and arrange a time to review how it is going.
If you have an issue that you don't feel can been resolved in school, you can also approach our governing body. Our SEND governor, Bev Bamborough, has a wealth of experience in working with children and families and would be happy to help.