Most children and young people in mainstream schools will have their special educational needs met through good classroom practice. This is called Quality First Teaching.
Quality First Teaching
- Ensures that the teacher has the highest possible expectations for each child in their class.
- Ensures all teaching is based on what your child already knows, can do and understands in order to help them progress.
- Involves various teaching styles so that your child is fully involved in the learning taking place in class.
- Requires constant assessment and planning from assessment, so progress is made and the needs of each child are met.
Early Identification of Need
In deciding whether to make special education provision to support educational, social, physical or emotional needs, we:
- Work in partnership with parents/carers and pupils to discuss the strengths and needs of the child and keep them up-to-date with their child’s progress.
- Consult with relevant external agencies that will give support and advice to meet the needs of the child.
- Use assessment tools & materials to make smart outcomes for the child to work on.
- Use observations to track the progress of the child and impact of the support and advice.
- Use Short Notes as evidence of discussions and to track what strategies have had an impact.
- Regularly discuss the needs and progress of children with SEN to ensure that the support they are receiving is having an impact.
SEN Support
Where a pupil is identified as having a special educational need we follow a graduated approach which takes the form of the cycle of “Assess, Plan, Do, Review”.
This means that we will:
Assess a child’s special educational needs
- Discussion takes place with the parents and class teacher to understand the child’s strengths and needs at home and at school.
- Where necessary, and with permission of parents, referrals are made to appropriate outside agencies.
Plan the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes
- Through discussion with parents and using reports from outside agencies, a support plan is arranged to meet the needs of your child.
- The provision needed to meet your child’s needs is arrange through interventions and additional support.
Do put the provision in place to meet those outcomes
- Regular intervention sessions are carried out and the progress of your child is tracked.
Review the support and progress
- Half termly, the support plan will be reviewed with the parents. The impact of the support and the progress of your child will be discussed.
- If a new plan is needed it is discussed and arranged and the cycle of Assess, Plan, Do, Review is repeated
As part of this approach every child with SEN will have an individualised SEN Support Plan that describes the child’s needs, outcomes & provision to meet those needs. Parents/carers and child/YP (where appropriate) views are integral to the this process.
A small percentage of children and young people with significant and/or complex needs may require an assessment that could lead to an Education, Health and Care Plan.
If a child’s needs are very complex we may ask the Local Authority to carry out an Education, Health and Care Assessment. This is a very detailed assessment of a child’s needs. Parents or carers, the school and a range of professionals will all be asked to provide written reports. At the end of the assessment phase the Local Authority will consider these reports to help decide whether or not to issue an Education, Health and Care Plan for the child.
Currently we do not have any children on an EHC Plan.
For more detailed information see the Local Offer
Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEN
If there is an identification of need then we will discuss this with the parents / carers and, if needed, provide a Short Note. This is a record of the discussion and the identification of the need required. From this point, adjustments within the classroom and through quality first teaching are made and observations will take place or a referral to a relevant outside agency will be made.
If a referral is made to an outside agency the discussions and report that comes from that agency will be used to support the child’s needs. The report is shared with the parents / carers and they will be involved with setting up a SEN Support Plan to record the SEN needs of their child. Appropriate support and interventions will be planned and set up and tracked to ensure progress is being made.
Regular meetings with parents / carers are arranged to discuss the progress of their child and the support that is being given. This ensures that the cycle of ‘assess, plan, do, review’ takes place and that the needs of the child are being met. The parents’ and child’s voice are very important throughout this process as they all need to be involved in understanding and supporting the child’s special education need.
Planning for learners with SEN depends on the type of need. Different children will require different levels of support in order to meet their needs and bridge the gap to achieve their age expectations. This could be on a one to one basis, with a group, run by a teacher or teaching assistant or through peer support and in or out of class.
Progress is measured by using the national curriculum outcomes but these maybe broken down into smaller steps so that individuals can make manageable progress and so that it can be tracked effectively to show the impact.
Regular discussions between all the staff are held to ensure that everyone is kept up-to-date with the SEN needs of the pupils in school. This is vital so that children’s needs are can be met appropriately and consistently across the school.
For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found in the School Policies section of our website.
