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

Our school is committed to the early identification of pupils with SEND. In deciding whether to make special education provision to support educational, social, physical or emotional needs, we listen carefully to the views of parents, staff and the child themselves. School staff may initially identify a concern. If this is the case, staff liaise with the parents and the school SENDCo to clearly identify the child’s strengths and any areas of difficulty.  These will be documented on a Short Note, shared with parents, and some next step actions will be agreed by all involved.  School may use different assessment tools and materials to help identify specific gaps or needs.  It is possible that these actions may also include the need for further specialist assessments from external agencies eg. Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychologist, Occupational Therapy, CAMHS, the Local Authority SEND Advisory teams. With the consent of parents, the SENDCo will make a referral to the necessary agency for further assessment or support. It is important to understand that the involvement of professionals does not always seek to ‘label’ or ‘diagnose’ children but to seek advice or strategies to help them to reach their full potential.

The Short Note will be reviewed according to need but this will be within a school term. A decision will then be made collaboratively on whether to:

• continue with a Short Note to identify and monitor progress towards outcomes or
• to move to a SEND Support plan with a more detailed approach identifying the child’s needs, outcomes and the provision necessary to meet those needs. At this stage, the child’s name will be added to the school’s SEND register.

At other times, children may join Willington Primary School with parents having a clear understanding of their child’s needs and as a school, we work with parents in partnership to support their child in school. This may be through reasonable adjustments within the classroom, targeted interventions or accessing specialist advice.

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 – through discussions with parents, formal and informal in school assessments, observations, use of specialist and specific assessment materials, advice sought from specialist professionals.
•  Plan the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes – This may include targeted intervention based on advice from professionals or needs identified by in school staff, access to specific ICT equipment or programs, different learning activities, specialist or adapted resources, additional adult support.
• Do put the provision in place to meet those outcomes – each child’s support plan will identify the provision required.
• Review the support and progress – support plans are reviewed at least termly and new targets, where necessary, will be made.

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 (where appropriate) views are integral to this process. When the child’s Support Plan is reviewed comments are made against each target to show what progress the child has made. If the child has not met the target, the reasons for this will be discussed, then the target may be adapted into smaller steps or a different approach may be tried to ensure the child does make progress.

Throughout the SEN support process, we also invite advice and opinion from any outside agencies that are also in contact with the child. If parents and professionals involved with a child feel that further support is needed to meet the needs of a child currently on a Support plan, it may be felt that an EHC assessment is required. Professional and parents will work very closely together at this stage to ensure that any relevant interventions and targeted support is used effectively to help to meet their needs.

Only 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. An education, health and care (EHC) plan is for children and young people aged up to 25 who need more support than is available through special educational needs support. EHC plans identify educational, health and social needs and set out the additional support needed to meet those needs. Children at this level have their plans initiated and ceased by the Local Authority but reviewed and monitored by the school and parents at least annually.

If a child has an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) parents will also attend an additional parent’s meeting each year. This is a child centred ‘Annual Review’ for all pupils with an Educational Health and care Plan.

For more detailed information see the Local Offer

Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEN

As a school we measure children’s progress in learning against National expectations and age related expectations. The class teacher continually assesses each child to identify areas where they are improving and where further support is needed. We formally assess the children each term in their reading, grammar and punctuation, writing and mathematics. As a school, we track children’s progress every term from Reception through to Year 6 to ensure that we can carefully monitor progress and attainment. Pupil progress meetings take place each term between class teachers and SLT to discuss these assessments. Children who are not making expected progress are identified and a discussion takes place concerning why individual children are experiencing difficulty and what further support can be given to aid their progression.   The outcomes of assessments are shared with parents and carers at our Parent Evenings and in the child’s School Report at the end of each academic year. 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 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 or through peer support and in or out of class.

How do we assess and review progress?

SEND policy, plans and procedures are monitored and reviewed by the SENDCo and Senior Leadership Team and SEND provision is monitored by the Governing Body.  This includes observation, work scrutiny, review of assessment evidence and outcomes for SEND pupils to assess the impact of plans and interventions. The SENCO will also routinely collect in the teacher’s SEN file to monitor the efficacy of Support Plans.

For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found in the School Policies section of our website.