SEND - Local Offer

How can I let the school know I am concerned about my child’s progress in school? 

• If you have concerns about your child’s progress you should speak to your child’s class teacher initially. An appointment can be made directly with the class teacher at the end of the school day when licking up your child, or via telephone through the school’s office.
• If you are not happy that the concerns are being managed and that your child is still not making progress you should speak to the Inclusion Manager.

Who are the best people to talk to in this school about my child’s difficulties with learning/Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND)?

Class Teacher

Responsible for:

• Continually checking on the progress of your child and identifying, planning and delivering any additional help your child may need and letting the Inclusion Manager know as necessary.
• Writing Individual Education Plans (IEP), and sharing and reviewing these with parents termly and planning for the next term.
• Ensuring that all staff working with your child in school are helped to deliver the planned work/programme for your child, so they can achieve the best possible progress. This may involve the use of additional adults, outside specialist help and specially planned work and resources.
• Ensuring that the school’s SEND Policy is followed in their classroom and for all the pupils they teach with any SEND.

The Inclusion Manager (currently the Headteacher)

Responsible for:

• Ensuring that you are:
  • involved in supporting your child’s learning
  • kept informed about the support your child is getting
  • involved in reviewing how they are progressing
• Coordinating all the support for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) and developing the school’s SEND Policy to make sure all children get a consistent, high quality response to meeting their needs in school.
• When necessary liaising with all the other professionals who may be supporting your child’s learning e.g. Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychology etc…
• Updating the school’s SEND register (a system for ensuring all the SEND needs of pupils in this school are known) and making sure that there are excellent records of your child’s progress and needs.
• Coordinating specialist support and professional development for teachers and support staff in the school so they can help children with SEND in the school achieve the best progress possible.

Headteacher

Responsible for:

• Overseeing the management of provision and review process, including for those with SEND.
• Ensure that the IM is receiving the relevant professional development and information relating to SEND provision.
• Ensure that the Governing Body is kept up to date about any issues in the school relating to SEND.

SEN Governor

Responsible for:

• Making sure that the necessary support is made for any child who attends the school who has SEND.
• Meet with the IM annually as part of subject audit; discuss the role and changes in provision due to ‘needs’ within the school.

What are the different types of support available for children with SEND in St. Mary’s?

Regardless of the type of support provided at St. Mary’s School. Staff always ensure that they utilise SMART guidelines:

• Specific to the child’s needs.
• Measurable with evidence to inform parents of the impact it is having on the child.
• Achievable, through an individualised target setting process, which is specific to that child.
• Realistic as they are based on their current level/capacity and would naturally form the next step in the progressive learning process.
• Time-related: so that progress can be measured and provision can be reviewed and modified.

High Quality First Teaching

This is the term used for support provided within the classroom. For your child this would mean:

• That the teacher has the highest possible expectations for your child and all pupils in their class.
• That all teaching is based on building on what your child already knows, can do and can understand.
• Different ways of teaching are in place so that your child is fully involved in learning in class. This may involve things like using more practical learning.
• Specific strategies (which may be suggested by the SENCO or outside staff) are in place to support your child to learn.
• Your child’s teacher will have carefully checked on your child’s progress and will have decided that your child has gap in their understanding/learning and needs some extra support to help them make the best possible progress.

All children in school should be getting this as a part of excellent classroom practice when needed.

Group Support 

Children can be supported in groups, which are:

• Run in the classroom or outside.
• Run by a teacher or most often a teaching assistant who has had training to run specialist groups.

Specialist groups run by outside agencies 

Your child will have been identified by the class teacher/Inclusion Manager (or you will have raised your worries,) as needing more specialist input instead of, or in addition, to high quality first teaching and intervention groups. You will be asked to come to a meeting to discuss your child’s progress and help plan possible ways forward. You may be asked to give your permission for the school to discuss your child in a Multi-Professional Planning Meeting (MPPM) where the outcome may be to refer your child to a specialist professional e.g a Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. This will help the school and yourself understand your child’s particular needs better and be able to support them more effectively in school.

Specialist services available to the school:

• Occupational Therapy
• Educational Psychology
• Child and adolescent Mental Health Services
• Speech and Language Therapy

This specialist support is available for children with specific barriers to learning that cannot be overcome through High Quality First Teaching and intervention groups.

Specified Individual support

for your child of more than 20 hours in school.

This is usually provided via a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). This means your child will have been identified by the class teacher/AHT Inclusion as needing a particularly high level of individual or small group teaching (more than 20 hours a week), which cannot be provided from the budget available to the school.

Usually your child will also need specialist support in school from a professional outside the school. This may be from:

• Local Authority central services such as the ASD Outreach Team or Sensory Service (for students with a hearing or visual need)
• Outside agencies such as the Speech and Language therapy (SALT) Service.

For your child this would mean:

• The school (or you) can request that the Local Authority carry out a statutory assessment of your child’s needs. This is a legal process which sets out the amount of support that will be provided for your child.
• After the school have sent in the request to the Local Authority (with a lot of information about your child, including some from you), they will decide whether they think your child’s needs (as described in the paperwork provided), seem complex enough to need a statutory assessment. If this is the case they will ask you and all professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs. If they do not think your child needs this, they will ask the school to continue with the support at School Action Plus.
• After the reports have all been sent in the Local Authority will decide if your child’s needs are severe, complex and lifelong and that they need more than 20 hours of support in school to make good progress. If this is the case they will write a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an EHC Plan. If this is not the case, they will ask the school to continue with the support at School Action Plus and also set up a meeting in school to ensure a plan is in place to ensure your child makes as much progress as possible.
• The Statement or EHC Plan will outline the number of hours of individual/small group support your child will receive from the LA and how the support should be used and what strategies must be put in place. It will also have long and short term goals for your child.
• The additional adult may be used to support your child with whole class learning, run individual programmes or run small groups including your child.

This type of support is available for children whose learning needs are:

• Severe, complex and lifelong
• Need more than 20 hours of support in school

How will the school let me know if they have any concerns about my child’s learning in the school?

Every pupil’s progress is reviewed continuously at St. Mary’s. This is achieved using an array of methods: from success criteria within every lesson in a formative manner; to the schools formal review cycle, whereby the class teacher meets the Headteacher and the Inclusion manager and the rest of the senior leadership team on a termly basis to monitor the effectiveness of their teaching and the resultant learning. These, (what are termed pupil progress meetings,) are the forum for any party to voice concerns about individual children.

If your child is identified as not making progress the school will set up am meeting to discuss this with you in more detail and to:

•  listen to any concerns you may have too
•  plan any additional support your child may receive
•  discuss with you any referrals to outside professionals to support your child’s learning

How is extra support allocated to children?

• The school budget, received from Hounslow LA, includes money for supporting children with SEND.
• The Head Teacher decides on the budget for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in consultation with the school governors, on the basis of needs in the school.
• The Head Teacher and the Inclusion Manager discuss all the information they have about SEND in the school, including:
  • the children getting extra support already
  • the children needing extra support
  • the children who have been identified as not making as much progress as would be expected

And decide what resources/training and support is needed.

• All resources/training and support are reviewed regularly and changes made as needed.

Who are the other people providing support to children with an SEND in this school?

The school employs a number of specialist trained teaching assistants, who are regularly sent our on further training to ensure that their subject knowledge is up to date with current practice. The school also employs and Educational Psychologist, via the LA who works directly with children as well as advising the staff.

Provided and paid for by the Health Service (Central and North West London NHS Trust) but delivered in school and off site at clinics etc:

• School Nurse
• Occupational Therapy
• Physiotherapy
• CAMHS
• Speech and Language Therapist

How are the teachers in school helped to work with children with an SEND and what training do they have?

• The Inclusion Manager’s job is to support the class teacher in planning for children with SEND.
• The school has a training plan for all staff to improve the teaching and learning of children including those with SEND. This includes whole school training on SEND issues such as ASD and Speech and language difficulties.
• Individual teachers and support staff attend training courses run by outside agencies and professionals that are relevant to the needs of specific children in their class.

How will we measure the progress of your child in school?

• Your child’s progress is continually monitored by his/her class teacher.
• His/her progress is reviewed formally every term within a pupil progress meeting with the school’s Senior Leadership Team.
• If your child is in Year 1 and above, but is not yet at National Curriculum levels, a more sensitive assessment tool is used which shows their level in more detail and will also show smaller but significant steps of progress.
• At the end of each key stage (i.e. at the end of year 2 and year 6) all children are required to be formally assessed using Standard Assessment Tests (SATS). This is something the government requires all schools to do and are the results that are published nationally. There is also a formal test in year 1, which has only recently introduced, that assesses the children’s phonics (sounds) awareness. If children do not reach the expected level in year one then they are tested again in an identical way to see if the intervention the school has put into place has had an impact.
• Children that have specific needs are given an IEP (individual action plan,) which has very specific targets which are linked to their needs. The progress of children with a statement of SEND/ EHC Plan is formally reviewed at an Annual Review with all adults involved with the child’s education invited.
• The Inclusion Manager will also check that your child is making good progress within any individual work and in any group that they take part in.

What support do we have for you as a parent of child with an SEND?

• The class teacher is regularly available (at the end of the school day,) to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have and to share information about what is working well at home and school so similar strategies can be used.
• The Inclusion Manager is available to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns/worries you may have.
• All information from outside professionals will be discussed with you with the person involved directly, or where this is not possible, in a report.
• IEP’s will be reviewed with your involvement each term.
• Homework will be adjusted as needed to your child’s individual needs.
• Every effort will be made to ensure that communication is as open and honest as possible to support families of child with SEND.

 How is St. Mary’s School accessible to children with SEND?

• St. Mary's is a three story premises with no lift access due to the age of the building. As a result of this there is no access for wheelchairs above the ground floor, which has access ramps via the main entrance. We ensure that equipment used is accessible to all children regardless of their needs.
• After school provision is accessible to all children including those with SEND.
• Extra-curricular activities are accessible for children with SEND.