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.
Early Identification of Need
In our school, a child is regarded as having a special educational need or disability (SEND) when they require extra input above and beyond the usual differentiation and support provided by the class teacher and teaching assistants in order to make adequate progress.
Difficulty in one of these key areas may be recognised by the class teacher or parents, highlighted during an assessment or indicated by an outside professional such as an occupational therapist or educational psychologist. These initial concerns are discussed with parents and recorded on a ‘Short Note’ form.
Concerns are shared with the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENDCo) who may suggest strategies to implement within class or arrange for in-class support or a specific intervention to be put in place. These children are added to the SENDCo’s ‘Short Note’ record and are closely monitored over the term.
Monitoring involves observations in lessons, and the analysis of work carried out in books as well as performance in assessments. Sometimes standardised assessment tools will be used to gather data, for example reading age.
In some cases it is necessary for a referral to be made to an outside agency such as the Educational Psychology Service, Cognition and Learning Team, Speech and Language, Occupational Therapy or the Movement Difficulties Service (for which parental consent is required) in order to gain a better understanding of a child’s needs and what can be put in place to support them.
SEND Support
Where a pupil is identified as having a special educational need we follow a graduated approach which takes the form of cycles of “Assess, Plan, Do, Review”.
This means that we will:
- Assess a child’s special educational needs
- Plan the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes
- Do put the provision in place to meet those outcomes
- Review the support and progress
As part of this approach every child with SEND will have an individualised SEND Support Plan that describes the child’s needs, outcomes & provision to meet those needs. Parents/carers and child (where appropriate) views are integral to the this process.
SEND Support Plans
As well as Quality First Teaching, the teacher may also work in partnership with the SENDCO to find ways to support your child, including offering ideas on how parents can help to support children at home.
For children with a more complex special educational need, the level of support may require more intensive or specialised support. The school may need to liaise with external agencies in order to seek advice or specialist support for the pupil. A support timetable may be required to ensure all needs are being met across the week. Support may include:
- Continuation of all help your child receives during Quality First Teaching.
- Small group interventions
- One to one support in class and interventions
- Movement breaks and sensory diets
- Deployment of additional resources and equipment
Teachers, teaching assistants and the SENCO will continue to work together to find ways to support your child in school
The school should seek additional advice from outside specialists such as health professionals, specialist teachers or educational psychologists who would:
- Carry out further assessment of your child’s needs
- Provide advice to schools on how to best support your child
- Suggest resources that would help your child make progress
Parents receive copies of SEND support plans and are invited to review meetings where the outcomes are reviewed and updated.
Education and Health Care Plans (EHC plans)
There will be a very small number of children whose needs are so complex, life long and severe that they require the LA to undertake a Statutory Assessment for an Education Health and Care Plan.
This is a very detailed assessment of your 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 EHCP for your child. As a parent/carer you also have the right to ask the Local Authority to carry out this assessment although it is usually best if you do this with the support of the school.
For more detailed information see the Local Offer
Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEND
To gain a clear picture of the strengths and needs of a child with SEND, it is important for us to carry out formal assessments, both within school and via outside agencies. When your child enters our school, their current attainment is assessed to give us a ‘baseline’ from where they will progress. In addition to the assessments that all children take part in and depending upon their needs, other assessments may be needed. These could include:
Communication and interaction (SLCN, ASC)
- Speech and Language Link Assessment
- Speech Therapy Assessments – which may focus on sound production, language understanding, or other relevant assessments of your child’s needs
Cognition and learning (MLD, PMLD, SLD, SpLD)
- Subject specific assessment e.g. SALFORD reading test to give a reading age
- Cognition and Learning Team assessments
- Education Psychology Assessments – which may include memory, understanding, reasoning, logic, and general skills assessment.
Social, Emotional and Health Difficulties
- Talkabout Programme assessment tool by Alex Kelly
- CAMHS assessments
- Assess through observations of pupils
Sensory and/or Physical Difficulties
- Occupational Therapy assessments.
- Handwriting and copying skills baseline assessment
Your child will be assessed against age related expectations for children who are working on the National Curriculum (i.e. the same as the majority of other children in their year group), or they may be assessed against other measures for children who are not ready to work on National Curriculum Levels (i.e. the steps before the National Curriculum). Aspirational targets are set for all children to ensure that all children make good progress, including those not ready to access the National Curriculum.
The outcomes of all assessments are shared with parents and carers at our Parent Evenings and a child’s School Report. If other agencies are invited to work with your child, you will be invited to attend a meeting where the outcomes of these assessments and their next steps will be shared with you. If parents have any concerns then these can be shared with the class teacher and or SENCo who will arrange a meeting to discuss and resolve any difficulties.
Tailoring SEND support to individual needs:
The class teacher alongside the SENDCo will discuss the child’s needs and what support would be appropriate.
There are termly staff meetings with a focus on SEND where all staff can share any concerns regarding the children they work with. In addition, they can speak to the SENDCo at any time.
Teachers use assessments and observations of children to identify, review and evaluate their needs and gaps in their learning. We look at what we can provide to meet the child’s needs and we discuss and measure the effectiveness of the interventions the children have undertaken that term. The results of pre and post-learning assessments are recorded on outcome sheets. At the end of each term, the SEND children receiving additional support are reviewed. Interventions are tweaked and adjusted as necessary to meet the current needs of the SEND children across year groups. Children on the ‘short note’ list may also form part of these intervention groups.
Different children will require different levels of support in order to bridge the gap to achieve age-related expectations which could be on a one to one basis, with a group, run by a teacher or teaching assistant in or out of class. Throughout the process, we keep an on-going dialogue with parents.
At St Michael’s Catholic Primary School, we currently have children with a variety of needs in school and provide the following interventions to meet the needs of our children:
Support for children with physical needs:
- Quality First Teaching, accessing a broad and balanced curriculum
- Gross Motor Skills interventions.
- Fine Motor Skills interventions.
- Specialist group support from outside agencies e.g. Occupational Health; Hearing Impaired team
- Resources such as laptops/iPads, reading rulers, coloured paper, fiddle toys, writing slopes, chews toys, sensory room, wobble cushions etc.
Support for children with speech, language and communication needs:
- Quality First Teaching, accessing a broad and balanced curriculum
- Speech and Language interventions e.g. NELI
- Specialist group support from outside agencies e.g. Speech and Language Therapy; Speech and Language Support Programme (SALSP)
Support for children with social, emotional and mental health difficulties:
- Quality First Teaching, accessing a broad and balanced curriculum
- Friendship groups such as Getting Along and Lego Therapy
- 1:1 intervention programmes such as Anxiety Gremlins and Anger Gremlins
- Specialist group support from outside agencies e.g. CAMHs Mentoring and Counselling;
Support for children with cognition and learning needs:
- Quality First Teaching, accessing a broad and balanced curriculum
- Maths and English specific group interventions
- Specific individual support for children whose learning needs are severe, complex and lifelong
- Range of teaching and learning styles
- 1:1 or small group support in lessons
- Dyslexia friendly approaches in all classes i.e. coloured background on interactive whiteboard, dyslexia friendly fonts, breaking down of instructions, reduction of information to be copied
Parental Concerns
Should parents have any concerns regarding their children who have not as yet been identified as SEND, they are invited to meet with the class teacher and SENDCo. During the meeting, the concerns will be discussed and actions, if necessary, will be put in place with a timescale. These concerns and actions are recorded on a parent meeting form as well as a short note.
For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found in the School Policies section of our website.
