SEND and Inclusion at St Peter's Infant School
St Peter’s Infant School adopts an inclusive approach. Whilst the curriculum offered at St. Peter’s is differentiated to take account of children’s differing abilities and experiences, there are still some children that have additional interventions in terms of learning, communication difficulties, physical restrictions, emotional and social difficulties. These children are identified according to LA guidelines and in compliance with the Government Code of Practice under the heading of 'Special Educational Needs and Disabilities' (SEND). We aim to identify these children as early on in their school life as we can in order to give them the appropriate support.
Miss Newton, our SENDCO (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Co-ordinator) and Inclusions Manager, oversees all children with special educational needs and disabilities. Class teachers are responsible for providing support to children who are on our Special Needs and Disabilities Register, supported by our TAs (Teaching Assistants). Children with an Educational Health Care Plan are often given individual support. Please speak to your child’s Class Teacher if your child if you have any concerns or would like to speak further about any identified additional needs so that home and school work together to the benefit of your child.
There is a Governor with specific responsibility for SEND. The Governing Body are very proactive concerning the needs of our children, agreeing funding expenditure on resources and additional hours for support staff as appropriate.
ELSA time, ‘Draw and Talk’, Play Therapy and Lego Therapy are provided for children who may benefit from some additional social and/or emotional support. Outside agencies (e.g. Educational Psychologist, Behaviour Support, Speech and Language and Occupational Therapist) may be approached where children are thought to require more help than the school can provide or further investigation is being sought.
Arrangements for pupils with a disability
At times, a few children at St Peter’s Infant School may have disabilities and need additional resources or adaptations made. The school is committed to providing a learning environment that allows these children as full access as possible to all areas. Parents of children with disabilities are asked to provide the Headteacher with details of the disability as soon as a school place is offered. A meeting will then be arranged between the Headteacher, SENDCO and parents to discuss the difficulties the child’s disability might face within the life of the school and how these can be overcome. Advice and assistance from the Education Office or specialist agencies may be sought in assessing the necessary alterations / adaptations that may be required to accommodate the needs of the child. Arrangements and any reasonable adjustments necessary that can be made to enable the child to participate fully in all lessons and activities will then be made and implemented. This may include briefing staff, employing support staff, acquiring special equipment, rearranging furniture and making minor adaptations to the building and may take time to put into place ready for the child to begin at St Peter’s. The school’s accommodation has been improved recently - there is access to all classrooms via ramps from the outside and an adult toilet for the disabled has been installed which can also be accessed by children.
Further information can be found here:
SEND Information Report and SEND Information
The aim at St Peter's Infant School is that all children will achieve their full potential both academically and socially.
Quality first teaching is paramount to ensure we fulfil this aim for our children. We have been judged as GOOD for the past 5 consecutive OFSTEDs.
For some children, however, it is necessary to provide additional support and/or resources to enable them to achieve their targets in school.
This information has been produced to answer questions you may have about the Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND) support that is being provided to help your child in school.
The SEND Team – Roles & Responsibilities:
Miss Mandy Newton – Inclusion Manager/SENDCO (newtm033@stpeters.medway.sch.uk)
I am responsible for the co-ordination of Special Educational Needs & Disabilities throughout the School. It is my job to ensure that, as a school, we are following the Code of Practice https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25 as well as ensuring all practice in school is in line with our Special Educational Needs & Disabilities Policy. I also liaise regularly with staff to ensure that children are given the most appropriate support/resources for their individual needs. A large part of my role is to work closely with external agencies (see section below) to gain specialist advice and support for individual children. I work to support children in school identified as benefitting from the support of the ‘Draw and Talk’ programme for children who may be facing difficult situations. I also ensure that any requests for information on individual children are passed onto the relevant agencies and that parents are kept fully informed of this.
Miss Keely Mason - Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (masok035@stpeters.medway.sch.uk)
Miss Mason works in a supportive role with families experiencing difficulties. This includes Child Protection issues, attendance issues, deprivation issues and parents who may wish to discuss personal family concerns confidentially/privately. Miss Mason also works to support children in school identified as benefitting from the support of 'Draw and Talk' and Lego Therapy for those children who may be facing difficult situations as well as providing emotional support to improve children's mental health.
Speech and Language Therapist The school buys into Medway's Speech and Language Service to support children with specific needs in this area.
Occupational Health Therapist The school buys into Medway's Occupational Health Service to support children who may have a sensory or physical need.
One of the biggest barriers to working together is how we communicate.
There are many SEND terms that are abbreviated which can lead to confusion (even for us!).
GLOSSARY OF MOST USED SEND TERMS |
|||
AAP |
Attendance Advisory Practitioner |
FSM |
Free School Meals |
ADD |
Attention Deficit Disorder |
HI |
Hearing Impairment |
ADHD |
Attention Deficit & Hyperactivity Disorder |
ICSS |
Individual Children’s Support Service (Pre-school) |
AOS |
Autism Outreach service |
ISR |
In School Review |
ASD |
Autistic Spectrum Disorder |
KS |
Key Stage |
BESD |
Behavioural Emotional & Social Difficulties |
LA |
Local Authority |
BSS |
Behaviour support |
MLD |
Moderate Learning Difficulty |
CAF |
Common Assessment Framework |
NC |
National Curriculum |
CAMHS |
Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service |
OT |
Occupational Therapist |
CAST |
Child and Adolescent Support Team |
PSP |
Pastoral Support Programme |
CLA |
Child Looked After |
SLT |
Speech and Language Therapist |
COP |
Code of Practice |
SaLT |
Speech & Language Therapy |
CP |
Child Protection |
SEMH |
Social, Emotional and Mental Health |
DCD |
Developmental Co-ordination Disorder |
SEN |
Special Educational Needs |
EAL |
English as an Additional Language |
SEND |
Special Educational Needs & Disability |
EH |
Early Help |
SENCO |
Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator |
EP |
Educational Psychologist |
SpLD |
Specific Learning Difficulty |
FS |
Foundation Stage |
VI |
Visual Impairment |
Children & Families Bill 2014
The Children & Families Act details commitments to improve services for vulnerable children and support families. It underpins wider reforms to ensure that all children and young people can succeed, no matter what their background. The Act reforms the systems for adoption, looked after children, family justice and special educational needs.
The Government has transformed the system for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), including those who are disabled, so that services consistently support the best outcomes for them. The Act extends the SEND system from birth to 25, giving children, young people and their parents/carers greater control and choice in decisions and ensuring needs are properly met.
It takes forward the reform programme set out in ‘Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability: Progress and next steps’ by:
- replacing statements and learning difficulty assessments with a new birth-to-25 Education, Health and Care Plan, extending rights and protections to young people in further education and training and offering families personal budgets so that they have more control over the support they need;
- improving cooperation between all the services that support children and their families and particularly requiring local authorities and health authorities to work together;
- requiring local authorities to involve children, young people and parents in reviewing and developing provision for those with special educational needs and to publish a ‘local offer’ of support.
What is The SEND Information Report?
The SEND Information Report (previously known as the Local Offer) was first introduced in the Green Paper (March 2011) “as a local offer of all services available to support disabled children and children with SEND and their families. This easy to understand information will set out what is normally available in schools to help children with lower-level SEND as well as the options available to support families who need additional help to care for their child.”
What will it do?
The Medway framework will allow the SEND Information Report to provide parents/carers with information about how to access services in their area, and what they can expect from those services. With regard to Education, it will let parents/carers and young people know how school and colleges will support them, and what they can expect across the local settings.
The link to Medway's Local Offer Website is https://www.medway.gov.uk/info/200307/local_offer
The Local Offer Steering Group has developed questions for schools, and trialled them with a small number of settings. There are 14 questions, devised in consultation with parents/carers and other agencies, which reflect their concerns and interests. These will be answered by agencies, schools and colleges to provide information to parents and carers to enable them to make decisions about how to best support their child’s needs.
Below are St Peter's Infant School's responses to these 14 questions:
Current SEND Updates
What is Pupil Premium?
The Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) was introduced in April 2011 and is allocated to schools to work with pupils who have been registered for Free School Meals (known as FSM) at any point in the last six years. Schools also receive funding for children who have been Looked After continuously for more than six months, and children of service personnel.
Why has it been introduced?
The Government believes that the Pupil Premium Grant, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) and their peers.
Who decides on how the money is spent?
In most cases the Pupil Premium Grant is paid directly to schools, allocated to them for every pupil who receives Free School Meals. Schools decide how to use the funding, as they are best placed to assess what their pupils need.
How are schools accountable for the spending of Pupil Premium?
They are held accountable for the decisions they make through:
- the performance tables which show the performance of FSM pupils compared with their peers.
- the Ofsted inspection framework, under which inspectors focus on the attainment of pupil groups, for example those who are eligible to receive the Pupil Premium.