Arrangements to meet the needs of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Cosgrove Village Primary School values the abilities and achievements of all its pupils and is committed to providing for each child, the best possible environment for learning.
We are a safe and caring school where children are happy, confident, well-motivated and love to learn. They will be challenged and supported to achieve high standards through a fun and creative curriculum. We are a learning community where all stakeholders enjoy equal access to opportunities to develop and learn together.
We do this best when we work together with you to support your child.
How does the school know if my child has Special Educational Needs (SEN) and what should I do if I think my child has SEN?
If your child has already been to a pre-school setting, you may already know or suspect that your child has SEN and you may even have been given individual targets for them to work towards. Some children may have special needs that are not picked up by pre-school settings, but are identified by the class teacher when they start primary school. Every child is different and the expectations in a primary school classroom are very different to a pre-school setting. All children will need time to settle in to school and teachers recognise this when they assess all of the children very carefully in their first few weeks with us. If we think that your child has SEN and may need some extra help with their learning, your child’s class teacher will chat through any concerns with you.
If you think your child may have SEN, then talk to your child’s teacher and share any worries that you have, we can only help if we know that you have concerns and you tell us what they are. Chat to your child’s class teacher at the end of the day, pick up the telephone and give us a call or send the office and email requesting a meeting. We will always respond as soon as we can.
My child has Special Educational Needs, what happens next?
- We will identify how much support your child needs in order to make good progress with their learning and who can help with this.
- We will give your child some targets, which we will discuss with you.
- We will tell you how we will support your child at school so that they can meet their targets as quickly as possible.
- We will ask you to help your child at home and we will give you some ideas of how to do this.
- We put your child’s name on our SEN register in school so that we can monitor their progress very carefully. We have to do this by law.
How will my child be supported in school?
We will work together to support your child. After discussions with you, the class teacher will decide on the support that your child needs and the teaching assistant will work with the class teacher to put that support in place. The class teacher and the teaching assistant will also work with the Special Educational Needs Coordinator, who is the person who has responsibility for SEN provision across the school. Together they will ensure that your child gets a range of support which may include small group work, 1:1 working with an adult, support in the classroom during whole class teaching time and very specific teaching, for example speech and language support where it is needed. Every child is different so the support they get will be specific to them. Your child will have an Individual Provision Map that sets out all detail of their support and you will be asked to contribute to this, chat through the suggested targets and to support your child by working on their targets at home.
How can I be sure my child will access the curriculum?
All of our teachers are skilled and supported to adapt teaching to meet the diverse range of needs in each class. They plan lessons so that the school curriculum is differentiated and daily planning takes into account individual pupils needs and requirements.
Classroom adaptations are approached in a range of ways to support access and ensure all pupils can experience success and challenge in their learning. Some children may just need a bit of extra support or where necessary, children will have individual practise of crucial basic skills but also have support to participate in whole class lessons at their own level. A child may have individual resources provided to enable them to access a specific task or help them to manage within the classroom environment.
Children may work with an adult 1:1, in small groups or work as part of the whole class. Grouping arrangements are organised flexibly with opportunities for both ability and mixed ability setting to maximise learning opportunities for all. Additional adults are used flexibly to help groups and individual pupils, but our long term goal is for all learners to have independent learning skills.
Details of the additional support offered to your child will be indicated on their Individual Provision Map. Further details of all intervention and group work offered can be seen on the school’s SEN provision maps.
Who else might be involved in supporting my child?
At Cosgrove Village Primary School we have a team of staff to support your child at school:
These include:
Your child’s class teacher
Teaching assistants
The Special Needs Coordinator
The School Nursing team
What relevant training have the staff had to support my child?
All staff undertake on-going professional development and this has recently included:
Individual and class provision mapping
Catch-up literacy
Catch-up numeracy
Drawing and talking therapy
Protective behaviours training
Speech and Language
Scheduling for ASD pupils
How will Cosgrove Village Primary School prepare and support my child in transferring to a new school or setting?
When a child is due to transfer to another school, the SENCo/Head Teacher will liaise with the receiving school to ensure that they have all necessary information they need about your child so that they are ready to support by the time they make the transition. Where necessary, meetings will be arranged and these meetings may involve families or professionals and may happen on a regular basis in the run up to transition. Where appropriate, the child will receive transition opportunities e.g. visits, photographs, discussions, visual timetables, calendars etc
What if my child still needs more help?
Sometimes, despite all the support children get in school, they still do not make enough progress and we need to get the expertise of colleagues who do not work in school. We may invite them in to work with your child or refer your child on to them.
These could include:
Speech and Language therapist
Educational Psychologist
Behaviour Support
Hearing Support
Visual Support
Virtual school for children who are looked after
Occupational Therapist
Health visitor/school nurse
Paediatricians
CAMHS – Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Physiotherapist
Specialist Teacher for children with physical difficulties
Specific difficulties team – dyslexia and dyscalculia
We would always get your permission before involving outside agencies like these.
SEN Support Review
How can I find out about how well my child is doing?
Teachers assess children constantly. Where there are concerns that a pupil is not making progress there will be discussions with key staff to plan for additional support to be in place and the outcomes expected from this support. You will be invited to come in and discuss these with the class teacher and if appropriate your child will be involved too.
Formal progress meetings are held between teachers and the Head Teacher each term to look at the progress of all SEN pupils, but informal discussions are on-going and teachers and the Head Teacher/SENCo will often talk about how to support individual children more effectively.
The impact of this additional support will be reviewed regularly and you will be invited to come in to school to review your child’s Individual Provision Map each term. There are many other opportunities for all parents to discuss their child’s progress too. Teachers are available after school each day and an appointment can be made to see them for a chat at any point in the term.
Tests and Examinations: Access arrangements
For some pupils in key stage 2, additional arrangements and adjustments can be made to enable them to fully access statutory tests. This might include additional time, rest breaks or use of a scribe or reader.
The SENCo or class teacher will talk to you if they feel that your child would benefit from these arrangements.
How accessible is the school setting?
The school is a one level; Edwardian building that has a disabled toilet within the school hall area (which is a later addition in 2011). Doorways are accessible by wheelchairs, including the front door which has a ramp. Corridors are kept free of obstructions and are easy to navigate around.
How will my child be included in activities outside the classroom including school trips?
All reasonable steps will be taken to ensure that all children access all opportunities both in and beyond the classroom. Parents will be invited to discuss how these opportunities will be supported and protocols may be drawn up to involve everybody in the planning phase.
How are the schools’ resources allocated and matched to children’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities?
The budget for individual SEND is based on required or statutory support. This will be dependent on how much support is required for individual children to ensure that the child’s needs are appropriately met in a way that takes account of the needs of other children within the classroom.
Common questions…
What is an Individual Provision Map?
An IPM or Individual Provision Map is the planned provision for your child in order for them to meet the targets set by the class teacher. These are agreed between the class teacher, SENCo, parents/carers and where applicable the child. We really value you thoughts and ideas about your child’s IPM. We will also talk with you about how you can support your child at home in order to further help them meet their targets.
What is ‘intervention’?
Intervention is what we call the support that children may be involved in to help them meet their targets. For example, your child may be involved with a fine motor skills development intervention group or perhaps they would have 1:1 reading intervention twice a week. The type of intervention and the frequency will vary from child to child. It is worth noting that ALL children in the school go out in small groups throughout the day for a range of reasons and so children receiving targeted intervention for SEN will not miss out on any teaching or be identified by their peers as having special needs.
What is the SEN register?
If a child is identified as having a special need, the school is required to keep a note of this and to keep records of the support that we put in place, this is the SEN register. It remains in school and from time to time the local authority will ask us how many children we have on the register. This is to make sure that we can monitor the progress of your child and all of the children with SEN to ensure they get the best provision. The government also gives the school and amount of money for some of the children on the SEN register to help us provide the resources that children may need.
I have heard term like School Action and Statement, what do they mean?
The government has recently changed the law about SEN and we no longer have the categories of School Action and School Action Plus. All children who need to be on the SEN register will be known as needing SEN support. All this means is that your child has been identified as having an additional need that requires action from the school. We will then set out in an IPM which states what their needs are and how we will meet them together.
If we find that your child is not making sufficient progress on the SEN support, we will talk to you about calling on the expertise of outside agencies, like Educational Psychologist for example, to help us support your child more effectively. As teachers we will never diagnose children’s difficulties, this is not our role, we would need to refer children on to another agency if we felt a diagnosis was needed or we needed to know more about their needs. We would always ask your permission to do this!
If your child is still not making progress or their needs are complex and long term, then we would discuss with you whether we take things a step further and apply for an Educational Health Care Plan. This is similar to what used to be called a Statement of Special Educational Needs.
What is an Educational Health Care Plan?
There are times when being on the SEN support does not give a child enough help, for example, if they need 1:1 adult support throughout the day. In this case the school will apply to the local authority for an Educational Health Care Plan (EHC). This is a document that will support children and young people from 0-25 years of age as needed. The local authority looks at a range of evidence about the child’s needs and will then decide whether the child’s needs meet the criteria for an EHC. If they do, they will allocate resources for the specific needs that are identified by the school and all the professionals involved. For example, this may mean they will pay for a few hours a week of additional adult support. The EHC will be reviewed with you every year.
The full range of local support available to support your child both within and outside of the school can be found in the Northamptonshire Local Offer for pupils with SEND: http://www.westnorthants.gov.uk/local-offer
We are flexible in our arrangements for SEND in order to best meet the needs of all individuals. We therefore review and update our arrangements for supporting pupils on a regular basis.
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Follow this link to find out more about the West Northamptonshire Council Local Offer. This details the services for children and young people in Northamptonshire (aged 0-25) with special educational needs and disabilities