SEND - How does the school know if a child needs extra help? |
The four areas that can affect a child's ability to learn are categorised as:
- Communication and interaction
- Cognition and learning
- Social, emotional and mental health difficulties
- Sensory and/or physical needs
Some children may enter school with a complex physical or medical need identified by the local authority. These children will have an Education Health Care Plan.
For all children we use our ongoing assessment for learning strategies and termly pupil progress meetings to discuss and monitor each individual pupil's progress and attainment.
All assessments seek to identify pupils making less than expected progress given their age and individual circumstances. This can be characterised by progress which:
- is significantly slower than that of their peers starting from the same baseline
- fails to match or better the child's previous rate of progress
- fails to close the attainment gap between the child and their peers
- widens the attainment gap
- It can include progress in areas other than attainment
Children will be given support according to their need. It will be characterised by some children needing 'some support'; 'lots of support': or 'extensive support'. Parents/ carers will be informed about any support your child receives (this will be at parents evening)
All support will follow a cycle of Assess-Plan-Do-Review and will provide information about your child and their barriers to learning. Where interventions or booster sessions have not had significant impact, children may require ongoing level of 'some support' or to progress onto 'lots of' or 'extensive support'. This will be decided upon by using assessments will be made to decipher, what are the barriers to learning and agencies may be called upon.
A Individual Education Plan (IEP) will be completed with the SENCo, class teacher and parent/carer, to set SMART targets to enable an evaluation of your child's needs and the best support needed. It is important that you attend meetings around the IEP as your input is valuable on meeting the needs of the child.
At Holy Family, social and emotional mental health (SEMH) is extremely important for all our children. Concerns from teachers and / or parents related to SEMH needs, can be raised with the class teacher, SENCo or the Headteacher. Some children may access the learning mentor for sessions to work on self-esteem, friendships, anger management and attachment issues. Referrals for counselling and other agency support can be accessed for those with severe mental health issues.
Children will be identified as having a SEN using the Code of Practice (2014), where their learning difficulty or disability is severe and calls for special educational provision, namely provision different from or additional to that normally available to pupils of the same age, requiring 'lots of support'. This will mean that your child is placed on the schools SEN register.