Specific Needs and working with external agencies
School staff regularly review all children’s progress and monitor children who they have any concerns about, either academic or regarding their wider well being.
Specific Needs
Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Procedures
Those children with ongoing concerns may be referred to an appropriate agency with the permission of parents.
Where children have additional needs they will be supported in accessing the full, broad and balanced curriculum.
Individual risk assessments may be carried out, where necessary, to ensure the safety of children with additional needs.
If concerns remain once the intervention has been completed and support has been in place, the school will request statutory assessment towards an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) by the local authority.
Examples of these Specific Needs may include
- Speech and Language difficulties and/or delay.
- Specific literacy difficulties – affecting reading, writing and maths.
- Autistic Spectrum Difficulties
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
- Social, emotional and mental health difficulties
- Hearing Impairment
- Visual Impairment
- Physical Needs
- Medical Conditions
To identify additional needs we use a range of indicators including:
- Analysis of data including Foundation Stage profiles, SAT’s, reading ages, termly assessments by teachers, progress tracking grids, strengths and difficulties questionnaires and ongoing teacher assessments.
- The use of criterion-referenced checklists related to phonics and high frequency words and reading tests.
- Parental concerns and information shared with us.
- Information from previous schools and pre-school settings.
- Information from other services e.g. Health, Speech and Language, Occupational Therapists.
If a child is not making expected progress, the class teacher may consult with the Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator (SENDCo) and parents to see if additional/different provision is necessary.
If so the interventions to support progress will be documented on an Individual Education Plan (IEP) and the child will be added to the school’s Special Educational Needs register so that the support can be monitored.
The IEP will detail the strengths of the child, the areas they are finding most tricky, specific challenging but achievable targets to work on (no more than 3 per term) and what will be put in place to support them in achieving this including details on who will be supporting them and when.
The IEP is written in child friendly language and is a shared document between school, parents and child.
Specific Agency Support
As a school we can access support and advice from specialist services such as:
- Speech and Language Therapists
- Occupational Therapists
- School Health
- Hearing and Vision Support
- Specialist Teaching Service
- Educational Psychology Service (this is for a set number of sessions across the year)
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing Services (now called RISE)