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 deciding whether to make special education provision to support educational, social, physical or emotional needs we aim for early identification of any special educational needs and disabilities, and this process starts from the first day children enter our school. If a child is attaining lower than age-related expectation or progress is slower than expected/usual for the child, but it is felt that the child doesn’t have a SEND, then the child in placed on the ‘Cause for Concern’ register, appropriate intervention is planned for and the child’s progress is carefully monitored. Interventions are carried out by our skilled learning support assistants and evaluated after each session. These interventions are then monitored by Mrs Sim or another member of our Senior Leadership Team to ensure that they are of a high quality.
If we suspect a child might have SEND, then we talk to the people who know the child best-the child and their parents/carers. In that initial assessment meeting, the child, their parents and their class teacher are invited to share their opinions and discuss the child’s strengths, areas of difficult and hopes for the future. This is recorded on a ‘short note’ form and forms the starting point for future support planning. We may also consult relevant external agencies such as an Educational Psychologist or an Advisory teacher from one of the teams at our Local Authority.
SEN 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
We track pupil progress through:
- Every day formative assessments, monitoring pupil progress against the National Curriculum age-related expectations for their age group
- Analysing pupil progress data and setting appropriate targets
- Using national curriculum testing
- Using tests such as the year 1 phonics test, PUMA AND GAPS assessments and Times Table Rockstar scores
- Gathering information from the child, parents, carers and professional from other agencies
With the permission of parents we may seek additional advice from outside specialists such as health professionals, specialist teachers or educational psychologists who would:
- Carry out further assessment of the child’s needs
- Provide advice to schools on how to best support the child
- Suggest resources that would help the child make progress
Plan the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes
Every teacher produces termly English, Maths and Foundation subject planning. This outlines the Quality First Teaching that will be taking place in class and also additional enhanced provision for any children with a SEND. Provision is organised into ‘waves’ of support. Interventions are identified by Key Stage leaders in discussion with class teachers. Interventions are recorded on our whole-school provision map. Teachers or Assistants carry out a baseline assessment on each pupil and then an end of intervention assessment to measure impact.
Do put the provision in place to meet those outcomes
In class, each child’s teacher will be finding ways to support your child to achieve these targets, such as:
- Changing the way activities are planned and delivered
- Matching activities to the ability / need of each child (differentiation)
- Adapting learning materials such as equipment and activities to suit each child’s needs. This might include providing visual prompts, a talking tin, a writing slope board, a box of fidget toys or a timer to help keep children on track.
- Carefully assigning additional adults (Although we do advocate for children to work as independently as possible)
- Where necessary, we adapt materials (for example, enlarging text for children with visual impairment) or adapted National Test papers, and apply for additional test time
- Adapting our behaviour policy and creating individual personalised behaviour plans
- Carrying out risk assessments to remove barriers to learning and ensure full pupil participation in all activities.
If extra intervention and support is required, then your child will be assigned to one of our skilled Teaching assistants. They will work closely with the class teacher to plan a programme of intervention.
Review the support and progress
We review provision for all children in the following ways:
- Support plan outcomes are reviewed at least once a term between a child, their parents and class teacher. New outcomes are written in partnership.
- Daily reflections on lessons throughout the week. Plans are then adapted following these reflections
- Weekly discussions between teachers and teaching assistants regarding children’s progress and the effectiveness of interventions/ additional support
- All SEND based interventions are evaluated after completion and next steps are planned
- Teachers meet with Mrs Sim (Head Teacher and SENCO) for pupil progress meetings.
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.
This is a very detailed assessment of each 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.
Parents/carers also have the right to ask the Local Authority to carry out this assessment although it is usually best if you can do this with the support of the school.
Education, Health and Care Assessment is only appropriate for a small number of children. Your school SENCO or the Parent Partnership Service will be able to advise you about this.
For more detailed information see the Local Offer
Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEN
As stated above, we aim for early identification of special educational needs and disabilities, so our assessment process starts as soon as a child starts our school.
Early identification takes place by:
- Assessing Reception children’s on-entry data from Nursery or from our own in the Early Years Foundation Stage and identifying any areas of concerns
- Discussion with parents regarding parental concerns
- Initial assessments when a child transfers to our school and discussions with previous their previous school
- Ongoing monitoring and tests throughout the year. We use previous National tests, White Rose end-of-topic assessments and mental maths and spelling tests. We also use GAPS and PUMA testing and TT Rock stars (Times Tables Rock stars)
- Pupil progress reviews between the head teacher and class teacher, where teachers are held accountable for the amount of progress the children in their class are making
- Special Education Need and Disability reviews between Mrs Sim and a class teacher, where teachers are held accountable for the amount of progress children with special educational needs and disabilities are making
- Ongoing formative assessments during day-to-day activities
We have created our set of ‘end-of-year expectation documents’ to monitor pupil progress against National Curriculum objectives. Where a child may be struggling or have an identified SEND, we use objectives from previous year groups or the Pre-Key Stage standards to help ensure accurate assessments are made. We also use formative, day-to-day assessments and tests such as previous National tests to help inform our judgements.
We moderate learning regularly to ensure our judgements are accurate. We do this in staff meetings, in Key Stage meetings and attended cluster group moderation meetings with local primary schools and Local Authority moderation meetings.
We want to ensure that every child samples success so we use the Lancashire County Council’s PIVATS system alongside the Pre-Key Stage Standards for some children too. This system breaks down each year groups objectives into really small steps, allowing us to plan and track even the smallest amount of progress.
Aspirational outcomes 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 in your 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.
How is the decision made about what type and how much support my child will receive?
The class teacher alongside the SENCo and Key Stage leader will discuss the child’s needs and what support would be appropriate. Teacher’s 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. Different children will require different levels of support in order to bridge the gap to achieve age expectations which could be on a one to one basis, with a group, run by a teacher or teaching assistant and in or out of class.
At Sunnybrow 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
- Daily Gross Motor Skills interventions.
- Weekly Fine Motor Skills interventions
- Specialist support from outside agencies e.g. Occupational Health, Movement Difficulties Service
Support for children with speech, language and communication needs:
- Quality First Teaching, accessing a broad and balanced curriculum
- Targeted Speech and Language interventions carried out by a Teaching Assistant
- Specialist support from outside agencies e.g. Speech and Language Therapy from the NHS and Mable Therapy which is a web-based therapy programme
Support for children with social, emotional and mental health difficulties:
- Quality First Teaching, accessing a broad and balanced curriculum
- Weekly PSHE and resilience lessons
- Academic resilience plans in place for ‘high risk’ pupils, with a key adult
- Access to 1:1 and group interventions such as Nurture Group, Listening Matters, Getting Along, Time to talk and Therapeutic writing
- 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 interventions
- Academic Nurture provision
- Specialist support from outside agencies e.g. Educational Psychology Service, Cognition and Learning service
- Specific individual support for children whose learning needs are severe, complex and lifelong and what this means for your child e.g. Dyslexia, Dyspraxia
- Range of teaching and learning styles;
- A broad range of extra-curricular activities, including After-School
- Differentiation
How do we evaluate the effectiveness of SEN provision?
- At Sunnybrow Primary School, we evaluate the effectiveness of SEN provision to ensure that pupils receive the best support to meet their needs and as part of the Graduated Approach of Assess, Plan, Do and Review. We currently evaluate the effectiveness of SEN across the four broad areas of SEN provision in the following ways:
Communication and interaction (SLCN, ASC)
- We use Speech and Language Link Assessment to assess before and after any intervention to evaluate the impact of provision.
- We use supporting evidence from Speech and Language Therapists to help track progress and evaluate impact.
Cognition and learning (MLD, PMLD, SLD, SpLD)
- We use the assessment data provided by teaching and support staff to assess before and after any intervention to evaluate the impact of provision.
Social, Emotional and Health Difficulties
- We use Strength Difficulty Questionnaires (SDQs) and Boxall profiles to assess before and after any intervention to evaluate the impact of provision. We also use any multi-agency professional reports help us to assess before and after any intervention to evaluate the impact of provision. We can also assess through observations of pupils throughout the school day over a period of time.
Sensory and/or Physical Difficulties
- We use the Movement Programme to assess before and after any intervention to evaluate the impact of provision with Gross Motor Skills. In Fine Motor Skills we use developmental checklists and handwriting evidence from before and after interventions to evaluate the impact of provision.
How are resources made available to support children with SEND?
The resources we use to support children with SEN depend upon their needs and they are allocated on an individual basis. Once your child has been identified as SEN, their needs will be assessed and targets and outcomes will be identified. It is the responsibility of the SENCO to ensure that the resources that are required are made available and that staff are aware of their individual needs. We are very flexible in our approach and we constantly monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of our interventions and the provision that we provide. Our staff go to relevant training across the year. Training will vary each year depending upon the needs of the children.
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.
For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found in the School Policies section of our website.