Question 4
How is a child identified as having Special Educational Needs?
Parents may raise concerns about their child via the class teacher, or class teachers themselves may identify a concern.
Class teachers and year groups will ensure that relevant interventions and in-class support are in place to meet the needs of the child within the classroom.
The SENCo may be consulted to undertake in-school assessments or work with a child if difficulties continue to impact upon their progress. Advice will be given and implemented and the child's progress monitored.
If the gap between your child's attainment and age expected attainment widens to the point they are a year below age expected in two out of the three core areas (reading, writing and maths), they will be added to the SEND Register and a Support Plan will be written. We may also make a referral to a relevant outside agency for further assessment and advice.
Children may also be added to the SEND Register if they have difficulties with Communication and Interaction; Social, Emotional and Mental Health; Physical or Sensory needs or a combination of these. This will be done in discussion with parents and will often be at a level where we are receiving additional support and advice from an outside agency.
Your child will be placed on a personalised SEND Support Plan. This will be written with the involvement of the child, parents or carers, class teachers, relevant agencies and the SENCo.
Support follows an Assess, Plan, Do, Review model and will be reviewed regularly throughout the year. Targets will be set at the start of the Autumn term and reviewed with new targets set in the Spring and Summer terms. A final review takes place at the end of the Summer term. Targets may be adjusted between these times, based on the child's progress towards them.
In the rare case that needs may be severe and sustained and this process has not met the needs of the individual, it may be necessary to enter a multi-disciplinary assessment process in order to consider the need for an Education, Health and Care Plan.
Where a pupil is identified as having SEND, to enable the pupil to take part, learn and make progress we look at how to remove barriers to learning and put effective provision in place.
SEND support should come from a four-part cycle - the Graduated Approach. The four stages are:
- Assess
- Plan
- Do
- Review
This approach starts at whole school level as teachers are constantly assessing, planning, implementing and reviewing their work with children. However, where a special educational need has been identified, the process becomes more personalised to the child and their needs.
There are 4 areas of SEND in the Code of Practice. When a child is entered onto the SEND Register it will be under one, or more, of the following headings:
- Communication and Interaction
- Cognition and Learning
- Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties
- Sensory and/or Physical Needs
Where gaps or needs have been identified, interventions will be put into place to address these. This could be 1:1 support, small group work or adjustments within the whole classroom setting. Interventions for children on the SEN Register are monitored to evaluate the impact that they have. Monitoring is through classroom observations, individual Support Plans and class teacher assessment. All this feeds into the four strands of the cycle and helps personalise the learning for the child.
Page updated on 22/12/22 by KJD.
