Local Offer

The Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENDCo) is responsible for:

• Coordinating all the support for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) and developing the school’s SEND Policy to make sure all children get a consistent, high quality response to meeting their needs in school.
• Ensuring that you are:
  – involved in supporting your child’s learning
  – kept informed about the support your child is getting
  – involved in reviewing how they are doing
• Liaising with all the other people who may be coming into school to help support your child’s learning e.g. Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychology etc…
• Updating the school’s SEND register (a system for ensuring all the SEND needs of pupils in this school are known) and making sure that there are excellent records of your child’s progress and needs.
• Providing specialist support for teachers and support staff in the school so they can help children with SEND in the school achieve the best progress possible.

The class/subject teacher is responsible for:

• Checking on the progress of your child and identifying, planning and delivering any additional help your child may need (this could be things like targeted work, additional support) and letting the SENDCo know as necessary.
• Writing One Page Profiles, and sharing and reviewing these with parents at least once each term and planning for the next term.
• Ensuring that all staff working with your child in school are helped to deliver the planned work/programme for your child, so they can achieve the best possible progress. This may involve the use of additional adults, outside specialist help and specially planned work and resources.
• Ensuring that the school’s SEND Policy is followed in their classroom and for all the pupils they teach with any SEND.

The Headteacher is responsible for:

• The day to day management of all aspects of the school, this includes the support for children with SEND.
• She will give responsibility to the SENCO and class teachers but is still responsible for ensuring that your child’s needs are met.
• She must make sure that the Governing Body is kept up to date about any issues in the school relating to SEND.

The SEND Governor is responsible for:

• Making sure that the necessary support is made for any child who attends the school who has SEND
• Support the SENDCo in their role by having termly meetings.

Class teacher input via excellent targeted classroom teaching also known as Quality First Teaching.

For your child this would mean:

• That the teacher has the highest possible expectations for your child and all pupils in their class.
• That all teaching is based on building on what your child already knows, can do and can understand.
• Different ways of teaching are in place so that your child is fully involved in learning in class. This may involve things like using more practical learning.
• Specific strategies (which may be suggested by the SENDCo or outside staff) are in place to support your child to learn.
• Your child’s teacher will have carefully checked on your child’s progress and will have decided that your child has a gap in their understanding/learning and needs some extra support to help them make the best possible progress.

All our pupils can expect this as a part of excellent classroom practice.

Specific group work with in a smaller group of children.

This group, often called Intervention groups by schools, may be

• Run in the classroom or outside.
• Run by a teacher or most often a Teaching assistant who has had training to run these groups.

One Page Profile

This means they have been identified by the class teacher as needing some extra support in school.

For your child this would mean:

• He/ She will engage in group sessions with specific targets to help him/her to make more progress.
• A teaching assistant or outside professional (like a Speech and Language Therapist) will run these small group sessions using the teacher’s plan

This type of support is available for any child who has specific gaps in their understanding of a subject/area of learning.

 Early Help

This means they have been identified by the class teacher/SENDCo as needing some extra specialist support in school from a professional outside the school. This may be from:

• Local Authority central services such as the Specialist  Advisory Teachers or a Speech and Language Therapist

For your child this would mean:

• Your child will have been identified by the class teacher/SENDCo (or you will have raised your worries) as needing more specialist input instead of or in addition to quality first teaching and intervention groups.
• You will be asked to come to a meeting to discuss your child’s progress and help plan possible ways forward.
• You may be asked to give your permission for the school to refer your child to a specialist professional e.g. a Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. This will help the school and yourself understand your child’s particular needs better and be able to support them better in school.
• The specialist professional will work with your child to understand their needs and make recommendations, which may include:
  – Making changes to the way your child is supported in class e.g. some individual support or changing some aspects of teaching to support them better
  – Support to set better targets which will include their specific expertise
  – A group run by school staff under the guidance of the outside professional e.g. a social skills group
  – A group or individual work with outside professional
• The school may suggest that your child needs some agree individual support in school. They will tell you how the support will be used and what strategies will be put in place.

This type of support is available for children with specific barriers to learning that cannot be overcome through Quality First Teaching and intervention groups.

Educational Healthcare Plan ( EHCP)

This means your child will have been identified by the class teacher/SENDCo as needing a particularly high level of individual or small group teaching which cannot be provided from the budget available to the school.

Usually your child will also need specialist support in school from a professional outside the school. This may be from:

• Local Authority central services such as the Specialist Teachers or Speech  and Language Therapist

For your child this would mean:

• The school (or you) can request that the Local Authority carry out a statutory assessment of your child’s needs. This is a legal process which sets out the amount of support that will be provided for your child.
• After the school have sent in the request to the Local Authority (with a lot of information about your child, including some from you), they will decide whether they think your child’s needs (as described in the paperwork provided), seem complex enough to need a statutory assessment. If this is the case they will ask you and all professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs. If they do not think your child needs this, they will ask the school to continue with the support .
• After the reports have all been sent in the Local Authority will decide if your child’s needs are severe, complex and lifelong and that require the level of support appropriate for an  EHC Plan. If this is the case they will write an EHC Plan. If this is not the case, they will ask the school to continue with the support and also set up a meeting in school to ensure a plan is in place to ensure your child makes as much progress as possible.
• The EHC Plan will outline the number of hours of individual/small group support your child will receive from the school together with the LA and how the support should be used and what strategies must be put in place. It will also have long and short term goals for your child.
• The additional adult may be used to support your child with whole class learning, run individual programmes or run small groups including your child

This type of support is available for children whose learning needs are severe, complex and lifelong.

• If you have concerns about your child’s progress you should speak to your child’s class teacher initially.
• If you are not happy that the concerns are being managed and that your child is still not making progress you should speak to the SENDCo or Headteacher.
• If you are still not happy you can speak to the school SEND Governor.

If your child is identified as not making progress the school will set up a meeting to discuss this with you in more detail and to:

• • listen to any concerns you may have
  • plan any additional support your child may receive
  • discuss with you any referrals to outside professionals to support your child’s learning

• The school budget, received from Cumbria LA, includes money for supporting children with SEND.
• The Head Teacher decides on the budget for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in consultation with the school governors, on the basis of needs in the school.
• The Head Teacher and the SENDCo discuss all the information they have about SEND in the school, including:
  – the children getting extra support already
  – the children needing extra support
  – the children who have been identified as not making as much progress as would be expected
  And decide what resources/training and support is needed.
• All resources/training and support are reviewed regularly and changes made as needed.

Directly funded by the school:

• SERIS Worker for Nurture Groups
• Lego Therapy
• Reading Intervention

Paid for centrally by the Local Authority but delivered in school:

• Educational Psychology Service
• Specialist Advisory Teacher

Provided and paid for by the Health Service but delivered in school:

• • Occupational Therapy
  • Physiotherapy
  • Speech and Language

• The SENDCo’s job is to support the class teacher in planning for children with SEND.
• The school has a training plan for all staff to improve the teaching and learning of children including those with SEND. This includes whole school training on SEND issues such as ASC and Speech and language difficulties.
• Individual teachers and support staff attend training courses run by outside agencies that are relevant to the needs of specific children in their class.

• Class Teachers plan lessons according to the specific needs of all groups of children in their class, and will ensure that your child’s needs are met.
• Specially trained support staff can adapt the teachers planning to support the needs of your child where necessary.
• Specific resources and strategies will be used to support your child individually and in groups.
• Planning and teaching will be adapted on a daily basis if needed to meet your child’s learning needs

• The class teacher is regularly available to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have and to share information about what is working well at home and school so similar strategies can be used.
• The SENDCo is available to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns/worries you may have.
• All information from outside professionals will be discussed with you with the person involved directly, or where this is not possible, in a report.
• One Page Profiles will be reviewed with your involvement each term.
• Homework will be adjusted as needed to your child’s individual needs.
• A home/school contact book may be used to support communication with you, when this has been agreed to be useful for you and your child.