SEND

How we support children and families with SEND

Our job at Rodborough Community Primary is to help your child achieve the very best they can throughout their time here. In our school, all children are equally valued. Through our whole school vision and values, policies, practice and provision we strive to develop an environment where all children flourish and feel safe.

Within school we aim to provide teaching and learning experiences that enable all children to access a broad, balanced and appropriately differentiated curriculum. We believe that educational inclusion is for all and endeavour to create equal opportunities for all learners, irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, impairment, attainment and background.

Whilst your child is at school it may be that you or your child’s teacher feels they may need some additional help or support.   For some children this may be short term or informal support such as regular check ins from the teacher, signposting of resources or small learning adaptions. For other children this may be a formalized process where they are placed on the SEN register and receive bespoke adaptions through interventions, supportive resources, environment adaptions and differentiated tasks. Sometimes this may also involve referring to additional agencies and following guidance and suggestions within their reports. This will always be discussed and shared with parents throughout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who might help my child?

At Rodborough Community Primary School, we have a wonderful team of dedicated and experienced staff who support children with Special Educational Needs. Day to day this includes:

• SENCO
• Members of the Senior Leadership team
• Class Teachers
• Teaching Assistants
• Lunchtime Playworkers

We recognise that quality first teaching is of paramount importance to ensuring the best possible outcomes for pupils with SEND. We also have a range of specific interventions designed to meet the differing needs of pupils. Pupil progress is tracked and evaluated regularly as part of an ‘assess, plan, do review’ cycle.

At Rodborough Community Primary School, we recognise that children’s needs are most effectively met by working in collaboration with parents to secure the best outcomes for their child. This takes many forms. For example, individual review meetings, My Plan meetings, multi-agency meetings (TAC/TAF), or simply a quick telephone call or email.

In the first instance, if you have any questions about your child’s progress or needs then you should speak to your child’s class teacher. Following this, it may be appropriate to also arrange a meeting with the school SENCO which can be arranged via admin@rodborough.gloucs.sch.uk for the attention of the SENCO.

In some cases, it may be necessary to increase or change the level of support for your child to help them make progress. We are fortunate to have excellent relationships with many external agencies who can feed into further support for your child. This includes (but is not limited to):

· Advisory teachers service

· Educational psychologists

· Occupational therapist

· Speech and language therapist

· Play therapists, therapeutic animal interventions, sand therapists.

· Early Help and Inclusion

· Mentoring services

· School nurse

· Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)

· Children’s social communication and autism assessment team (SCAAS)

· Community pediatrics

Gifted and Talented SEN

Within school it is important to recognise the talents and skills of all children, including those with SEN. Recognising and encouraging gifts, talents and interests of pupils with SEN, whilst also supporting them in overcoming any potential barriers helps to improve their resilience and increase their opportunities to experience success. Through providing pupils with the opportunity to develop their strengths it helps to develop a positive image of who they are and a vision of who they might become.

We aim to achieve this by:

• Developing joint programmes of provision between home, school and the pupil which identify targets relating to both areas of need and stretching talents and skills.
• Celebrating pupil’s success both in and outside of school.
• Creating a safe and supportive environment which encourages children to develop their resilience and self-confidence.
• Open door policy between school and home when discussing ways to best support and stretch pupils with SEN.

Our SEND Policy is on the policies page of our website.

Current SEN overview within Rodborough

Attendance

Whole school: 94.1%

Pupils with SEN: 92.1%

Strengths QAR report February 2024 - We were awarded a developing area of excellence for planning and provision for pupils with SEN.

Please see below for some statements linked to this: All pupils, including those with SEND, made significant gains with their learning. Targeted interventions for Fizzy, NELI, touch typing, sensory circuits, R.E.S.T (Resilience by Jigsaw) support disadvantaged pupils, as well as pupils with SEND. The leadership of SEND is strong. The provision is well resourced and these resources are deployed very effectively by the SENCO. The leader has an exceptional knowledge of pupils’ needs and how outside agencies can support them. This enables pupils to make positive progress from their individual starting points.  The SENCO has redesigned all the SEND paperwork alongside staff to ensure clear targeting and support for pupils. This includes provision maps, my plans and SEND non-negotiables for quality first teaching. This paperwork is reviewed annually to ensure consistent suitability. All staff receive a termly breakdown of the SEND needs of their pupils and the recommended intervention focus areas and resources. Leaders use the ‘Windscreen’ diagram to illustrate the continuum of need and to guide the level of intervention required for individual pupils. Pupils with SEND make strong progress from their individual starting points. Data drops precede pupil progress meetings and provision mapping meetings to inform the focus for each term when supporting pupils with SEND Areas of need and skills are considered across each phase as opposed to year group specific support to ensure that teaching assistants’ expertise is utilised effectively.

Ofsted report 2022-2023 Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive the support they need to learn the curriculum successfully.

Glossary

Graduated pathway: The Graduated Pathway of Early Help and Targeted Support is Gloucester’s early help assessment and planning process, which applies to the whole range of needs including:

• learning and development;
• social, emotional, health (physical and mental) and / or disability; and
• wider family and environment.

A child can move up or down the graduated pathway in their lives depending on how their needs change over time.  Find more information linked to the graduated pathway here.

My plan: This will detail what additional support your child receives for the term ahead. It will be reviewed and shared with families 3x a year. 

• My plan+: for pupils with more complex SEN which require multi agency assessment of need. This then follows the same process as a my plan but with additional agency input. 
• My Assessment : designed as a document where a holistic approach is taken to understand the strengths and barriers for a child from birth to the current picture. This document then determine if a child will remain at my plan level or escalate up to my plan+.
•  A Team Around the Family (TAF) meeting should take place when a concern identifies the need for a multi-agency response. It provides the opportunity to discuss how additional needs can be met.

EHCP: stands for Education, Health and Care Plan. It outlines any special educational needs a child has, and the provision a local authority must put in place to help them. Most children and young people with additional needs don't need an EHCP. EHC plans are for children whose special educational needs require more help than would normally be provided in a mainstream education setting. An EHCP is a legal document, written by the Local Authority that describes a child’s special educational needs (SEN) and the help (special educational provision) they will get to meet them.

SENCO: A SENCO is a qualified teacher who has responsibility for co-ordinating whole school SEN provision. The SENCO will also support colleagues and parents/guardians through providing professional guidance.

SEN Special Educational Needs is a legal term. It describes the needs of a child who has a difficulty or disability which makes learning harder for them than for other children their age. Around one in five children has SEN at some point during their school years.

FAQs

• What is the SEN register?

Some children may have difficulty in different areas of their learning/interactions and usually intervention can overcome these barriers. These children will be considered to have ‘additional needs’ that are classified as SEN.

When this is the case a child will be put on the ‘SEN register’. This does not necessarily mean that they have ‘special educational needs’, but that they have been identified as needing additional support and will be monitored closely to ensure that their needs are met and that any gaps in learning are closing. 

• What are interventions/SEN adaptions?

Interventions are delivered 1:1 or in small groups depending on the needs of the child and cohort. They will focus on helping children within their area of need with the aim to build up key skills. SEN adaptions can include access to sensory resources, adjusting the classroom environment and adapting learning tasks to enable access to the hidden curriculum and their academic learning.

Links and Support