You will receive termly reports from your child’s class teacher and are always welcome to make an appointment to see the class teacher, SENCO or Headteacher to discuss your child’s progress.

Class teachers act on information from:

I.   previous school setting

II.  concerns expressed by parents

III. concerns expressed by staff

to identify pupils who are not making sufficient progress or who have needs which are affecting their ability to engage in learning activities.

After discussions with parents, additional support can be put into place to provide targeted support to help overcome any difficulties. The views of the pupil him/herself will be given consideration.

In consultation with the SENCO and parents, actions can be agreed with the aim of reducing barriers to learning and ensuring that good progress is made. The intention is always to aim to reduce any attainment gap and ensure that each child is able to understand and apply good learning behaviour.

When external agencies are involved, their advice and recommendations are included in support programmes. Actions agreed take into account each pupil’s strengths as well as their difficulties. Support is deployed to ensure your child can engage in lessons and wider school activities and to facilitate independent learning to support transition to adulthood.

The impact of support offered is considered along with the progress towards targets set. Support arrangements will be updated and revised accordingly. If not involved already, this might include referral to external agencies.

If your child is continuing to have significant difficulties, further external expertise may be requested. If this additional support does not bring about an improvement, additional funding is available for children who meet the criteria. This can be accessed using the Local Authority process and the guidance in the Banded Funding Criteria. Where this is agreed, an Education, Health and Care Plan will be drawn up and implemented with other professionals where appropriate. Further details about this process will be explained in the LA Local Offer. Annual Reviews provide detailed information on how children who have a ‘Statement of Educational Need’ or an ‘Education, Health and Care Plan’ are progressing towards meeting their targets. This process involves the pupil at the core, parents, teachers, SENCo and professionals.

Test Access Arrangements

For some pupils additional arrangements and adjustments can be made to enable them to fully access tests. This might include additional time, rest breaks or the use of a scribe or word processor. Applications for all such arrangements need to be made by the school following a nationally applied process. The SENCO can inform you about eligibility for these arrangements.

Teachers are skilled at adapting teaching to meet the diverse range of needs in each class. Daily planning takes into account individual pupil’s needs and requirements. Differentiation is approached in a range of ways to support access and ensure that all pupils can experience success and challenge in their learning.

Grouping arrangements are organised flexibly with opportunities for both ability and mixed setting to maximise learning opportunities for all.

Additional adults are used flexibly to help groups and individual pupils with a long term goal of developing independent learning skills. Monitoring takes place to avoid pupils becoming over reliant and dependent on this adult support.

We regularly review our systems and processes through whole school monitoring and assessment. Teachers regularly discuss pupil progress with senior management and, if necessary, steps are swiftly taken to ensure that expertise, information and advice are shared accordingly with key staff (including SENCo) for the benefit of pupils.

• Use of individualised Care Plans
• Liaison with school nurse and/or other medical professionals such as:

1.Sensory Inclusion Services for Hearing and Visual impairments.

2.GP/hospital

3.Specialist Consultants

4.System for administration of medication

• Referrals to Sensory Inclusion Team: Sessions with Teacher of the Deaf/Sessions with Teacher for Visual Impairment.
• Referrals to CAMHS
• Referrals to paediatrician
• Risk Assessments on individual pupils
• Flexible arrangements with seating of pupil and teacher to minimise background noise
• Home school liaison
• Teachers to wear transmitter where appropriate
• All staff trained to use Makaton Sign Language
• Exam access arrangements

• Physical site adapted where necessary
• Flexible arrangements with seating of pupil to maximise clear view of board/teacher
• Written materials prepared in clear font with appropriate size
• Support for mobility during transition times where necessary
• Use of screen reader such as ‘Dragon Naturally’ where appropriate.
• Emotional support
• Running commentary where necessary and regular physical breaks to help recap the learning process.

For children with physical difficulties such as mobility and co-ordination issues:

• Advise from Occupational Therapist

• Access to fine motor skills activities, ‘Write from the Start’, 'Handies', ‘Toe-by-toe’ and ‘Speed Up’ Handwriting programmes delivered by trained staff.
• Activities to support co-ordination embedded into daily routines and P.E lessons.
• Support provided for self-esteem issues relating to physical difficulties
• Work space adapted to take account of difficulty, such as height of table, chair, door handles etc.
• Small intervention group ‘Mini Mac’ & ‘Cool Kids’ 'Cool Characters' to support intervention
• A range of writing implements to choose from and writing slopes.
• Disabled toilet and changing facilities available, staff following the ‘Intimate Care Policy’ available to assist.

For children with diabetes:

• Fully trained staff on site to support independence and attend to medical needs including administering injections as per advice detailed on care plan.
• Access to private area to allow for privacy.
• Very young children who are not aware of their signs or symptoms may have a ‘Key Person’ who will liaise with parents daily through a home/school diary.

For children with Asthma:

• Whole school Asthma training 
• We are an Asthma Friendly School. 
• Please see Asthma Policy under the websites Policy section.

For children with severe allergies:

• We are also trained in Managing Anaphylaxis in School

Please see the Supporting Children with Medical Conditions policy under the websites Policy section for further information. 

Access to strategies/programmes to support occupational /physiotherapy needs

• Advice of professionals disseminated and followed
• Use of any recommended equipment
• ‘Write From The Start’, ‘Cool Kids’ and ‘Mini Mac’ offered as appropriate

Access to modified equipment and IT (including sound-field systems, enlarged text; magnifiers). Where appropriate and in consultation with professionals:

• Specialist equipment as required on an individual basis to access the curriculum
• Software to support learning
• Laptops/i-pads as appropriate to age and need of child

The school works with a number of external agencies to seek advice, resources and support to ensure that the needs of all children are fully understood and met. These include:

• Inclusion Team
• Educational Psychology Service
• Spectra autism specialists
• Woodlands Outreach Services (Behaviour, Autism, Learning Support, Aspergers, transition support)
• Speech and Language Communication Team
• Local Authority SEND Team
• Sensory Inclusion Service
• Occupational Therapy Team
• Educational Welfare Officer
• School Nurse - Public Health Nursing Team
• BEEU Formally known as CAMHS
• Shropshire Parenting Team via Early Help Process
• Initial Contact Team and Child in Need Teams
• Autism West Midlands
• Youth Worker employed by the school
• On site Play Therapist

Additional intervention to support the learning of identified pupils may be provided through teachers and subject departments. However, where a pupil continues to make little or no progress over a sustained period, despite teacher or subject department support and interventions, we may consider involving specialists, including those secured by us or from outside agencies. Parents will always be involved in any decision to involve specialists.

We have robust systems in place for ensuring information about all of our children is shared to enable a smooth transition from class to class or between school settings. However, we recognise that children and young people with SEND can become particularly anxious about “moving on” so we seek to further enhance our transition procedures as follows.

When moving to another school:

We will contact the School SENCO and share information about special arrangements and support that has been made to help your child achieve their learning goals and ensure that all records are passed on as soon as possible

When moving classes within school:

An information sharing meeting will take place with the new teacher and the information passed on is formally recorded. We plan opportunities to visit the new class and staff with whom a child will be working.

In year 6-7 transition

The Headteacher and Year 6 class teacher meet with the head of Year 7 and SENCO to discuss specific needs of your child and the nature and level of support which has had the most impact. The SENCO from secondary school is invited to the final annual review meeting if this is appropriate. In some cases, additional multi-agency meetings may be arranged to create a more detailed “transition” plan which may include more visits to the new school and/or additional visits from the new school.

The school will be using the Nurture UK Transition Tool Box to support pupils needing extra help when moving into Secondary Education. 

An ongoing programme of training is in place to ensure that teachers and support staff have appropriate skills and knowledge in areas that will improve their teaching and support of children with SEN. Recent training has covered :

• NELI Early Years Speech and Language Intervention trainer
• Word Aware & Language for Thinking
• Using Visuals
• Colourful Semantics
• Talk Boost Early Years, KS1 and KS2
• Boxall Profile SEMH assessment and planning tool

Our SENCO and Senior Leaders actively engage with local opportunities to share best practice and keep abreast of current local and national initiatives and policy to support pupils with SEND. We are currently involved in finding solutions to a number of local issues and seek to employ shared services that we are currently finding increasing difficult to access via traditional routes.

The school also seeks advice and guidance from local special schools to review, evaluate and develop provision for pupils who have the most complex needs.

We also have staff with specialised expertise and qualifications in school including, specialist dyslexic support and Accredited Training for Pupils with Speech and Language Difficulties, Visually impaired Support Assistants, Handwriting and co-ordination specialist Teaching Assistants, Makaton trained staff.

We have been proactive in seeking additional funding from charities to support the employment of specialist staff with a range of skills to support SEND learners alongside their peers.

Further developments include:

• Nurture Group training - to be completed 2023
• Additional Mental Health Leads training - to be completed 2023
• ELSA training - to be completed 23-24