What we offer to children with special educational needs and disabilities
We are an inclusive school welcoming all children and their families.
Our highly skilled, caring school team believe that a child’s emotional well-being and self-esteem is crucial to their academic progress. We place the child and family at the centre of all we do.
At Richard Alibon Primary School we support all children to enable them to achieve at school.
The core of our work is good teaching in each classroom but some children may require further support to help them achieve their best.
The following staff lead on our SEN/D provision:
Deputyhead Teacher:
Mrs Sian Farrelly
The Special Needs/Disability Co-ordinator (SENDCO) and Assistant Headteacher for Inclusion is:
Miss Nikkie Marshall
Additionally Resourced Support Manager for children with complex needs:
Miss Nikkie Marshall
The school governor with send responsibility is:
Mr David Botterill
If you would like to find out more about the school’s SEN/D provision do read the detailed information below or contact Nikki Marshall, Assistant Headteacher for Inclusion and our SEN/D Co-ordinator. If you would like to make a complaint about our SEN/D provision, please follow the school complaints procedure which can be found in the policy section of our website here.
Our annual Special Educational Needs report which offers useful information to parents and carers is below:
SEND Annual Report RAPS
SEN Local Offer Sections
1. Effective Leadership and Governance
2. High Quality teaching and support to help your child to learn and make good progress
3. Identification of Children with SEND at Richard Alibon
4. The Support Available to Children with SEND at Richard Alibon Primary
6. Involving parents and pupils in planning and reviewing progress
7. Evaluating Success and Impact
Introduction
Our SEND report for parents/carers outlines the offer we make to parents and carers with children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It outlines the support, interventions and provisions they can expect to receive, if they choose Richard Alibon Primary School for their children. This is in line with the new code of practice which came into force I September 2014.
What is the local school offer?
Richard Alibon Primary School local offer sets out in one place what we provide for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEN/D) throughout their time with us. It explains how we support them on to the next stage of their education. Our SEN/D policy* gives more detail about our day to day procedures – see School Policies section of School Info.
You will find an explanation about the words with an asterisk* in our Glossary.
Barking and Dagenham Local Authority also publishes on its website, setting out a wide range of information about the specialist services, schools, colleges and organisations that can provide support and information for families of children and young people with SEN/D. It explains the procedures for requesting an assessment for an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP)* – which is replacing the SEN statement*. You will also find information about:
- Where to go for advice and guidance on SEN and Disability matters
- Leisure activities for children with SEN/D
- Arrangements for resolving disagreements and mediation*
1. Roles and Responsibilities
SEN/D provision in school
Teachers are responsible and accountable for the progress and development of ALL pupils in their class including where pupils access support from teaching assistants or specialist staff.
Our SENCo (Miss Marshall) is responsible for the operation of the Special Education Needs and Disability (SEN/D) policy and co-ordination of targeted provision made to support individual children and groups of children with SEN/D.
We have a Governor who takes a particular responsibility for SEN/D matters. She meets with our SENDCo at least once a term to ensure the governing body are able to be clear on all matters pertaining to SEN/D. She reports termly to the pastoral care and curriculum committee of the governing body.
We fully involve our Governors when we review and revise our SEN/D policy and our Offer at the end of each school year.
2. High Quality teaching and support to help your child to learn and make good progress
We know that high quality teaching and well-matched support will make a big difference to the progress of all children including those with SEND.
Teachers are responsible and accountable for the progress and development of ALL pupils in their class including where pupils access support from teaching assistants or specialist staff.
Richard Alibon Primary School leaders – including the SENDCo – work with teachers and support staff to provide effective teaching and support for children with SEN/D in a variety of ways. These include:
- supporting the Class Teacher to take full responsibility for the learning and progress of all children
- carefully adapted planning which ensures that all children are able to make progress
- using a wide variety of teaching approaches, including guiding learning through demonstration; providing visual support material
- providing a stimulating, rich and interactive classroom environment
- using regular, clear and rigorous assessments that help teachers to track pupils’ progress and identify gaps in their understanding
- providing additional adult support from well-trained and well supervised Support Teachers and Teaching Assistants where necessary
- making available specialist equipment and digital technology to support access and participation in learning
We help ALL children to develop their skills as learners – and to persevere when they find learning difficult in line with our aims as a school.
Developing the skills, knowledge and expertise of school staff
All staff have regular training and guidance to meet the varied needs of our children. Our SENDCo has a responsibility to arrange and provide this training.
We address staff training needs termly ensuring training is up to date – this includes knowledge and expertise about different areas of SEN/D including:
· Communication and interaction (such as speech and language, ASC etc)
· Cognition and learning (Global developmental delay, Down Syndrome etc)
· Social, emotional and mental health difficulties (ADHD, ACES, school based anxiety etc)
· Sensory and/ or physical needs (hearing impaired, feeding issues, mobility issues etc)
(We are aware that children may frequently have a range of needs that do not sit within just one of the 4 main areas as outlined above)
Members of our SEN team attend training sessions run by national and local organizations.
We use the eight national Teaching Standards* to develop the knowledge, skill and confidence of all of our Teachers as part of their professional development.
Ensuring Access to the Curriculum
All children have access to a broad and balanced curriculum that is adapted to support the needs of individual children, including access to the Engagement Model where appropriate.
Opportunities are provided for learning to be enriched by off site visits.
3. Identification of Children with SEND at Richard Alibon
On entry to our school, we conduct a baseline assessment to assess each pupil’s current skills and levels of attainment. Where children have transferred to our school, we use their information provided from previous setting and key stages together with our baseline to monitor an individual’s progress and attainment.
Our school tracks pupils’ progress through half termly assessments and progress meetings. If parents/carers have concerns regarding their child’s progress or behaviour they can request an appointment with the class teacher to discuss their concerns. If a teacher has concerns about a child’s progress or behaviour they will invite parents in to discuss these concerns.
If further advice is required class teachers will refer to the SENDCo. If specialist advice is required parental consent will be requested.
Appendix/hyper link cause for concern forms
How are children with Additional Needs Defined?
A pupil has SEN where their learning difficulty or disability calls for special educational provision, namely provision different from or additional to that normally available to pupils of the same age. (c.o.p 6.15)
4. The Support Available to Children with SEND at Richard Alibon Primary
Richard Alibon Primary provides 3 levels of support to children. They are Universal, Targeted support and Specialist support.
Where a child has SEN or progress is less than expected, teachers will co-produce a Personalised Learning plan (PLP) detailing special education provision that is different from and additional to that which is normally available to pupils of the same age.
This could be additional support in class such as resources (word banks, sentence openers etc) or appropriate interventions such as ELSA and TEACCH.
If your child is identified as having an additional need in a particular area, your child may be invited to attend interventions. You will be notified of this by your child’s year group lead.
Speech and language – lang link, talk boost, pecs, intensive interaction
Cognition and learning – phonics, precision teaching, fine motor
Semh – elsa, scerts
Sensory and physical – sensory integration, dough disco, as directed by physio/OT
5. The contribution that specialist services and teams make to the progress and well-being of children with SEN/D
Teaching and support staff work closely with relevant members of specialist services who provide support for our school. The services which are working with our school this year are:
6. Involving parents and pupils in planning and reviewing progress
Where a pupil is receiving SEN support, teachers will talk to parents regularly to set clear outcomes and review progress towards them, discuss the activities and support that will help achieve them, and identify the responsibilities of the parent, the pupil and the school. This will be shared in the format of a personalised learning plan. (PLP)
We know that the only way we really find out if a child is happy, feeling safe and taking part in the full life of our community is for the school to be certain that it hears the voices of children, especially those most vulnerable.
We make sure that we listen to children in our school and respond to what they say in a number of ways, including:
- clear policies and systems to support children in expressing any worries or concerns that they have: giving children the right to choose a preferred adult to talk to
- talking to children and/or groups of children after lesson observations to understand their experience of the lesson
- where possible inviting children to make personal contributions to their Annual Review meetings.
- encouraging children to respond to feedback given through developmental marking
- agreeing with them individual targets
- making sure that our School Council and our Rights Respecting Schools Ambassadors are inclusive and represent the whole of our school community
- ensuring that our safeguarding procedures are strong and that all staff are well trained
The SEN/D department hold termly coffee mornings for parents of children with SEN/D. The ARP lead teacher and SENCo make time to meet with parents to offer support and advice.
7. Evaluating Success and Impact
Class Teacher are responsible for ensuring progress towards targets set and evidence will be collected to support these judgements. Reviews will be held termly and monitored/overseen by the SENDCo.
You will also have a further opportunity to discuss your child’s progress at Parent’s evenings.
The class teacher will be available at the end of each day for you to raise a concern or you could make an appointment through the office to meet with the class teacher and SENDCo.
Areas that are reviewed include:
- academic attainment and progress
- Attendance and punctuality
- involvement in activities, visits and clubs
- Parental feedback
We want to further understand the experience of children with SEN/D at our school with an emphasis upon:
- Children’s sense of inclusion
- Positive attitudes to self, peers and school: positive friendships
- Their personal resilience and confidence as learners
8. Supporting Transition of Pupils with SEND
When a child with an identified need joins our Nursery or Reception class, a member of staff will make a home visit and where relevant, collect information and records from the previous setting.
If we are aware prior to entry of significant SEN/D issues, or a child already has a EHCP then we will organise a transition meeting from the current provision. We always encourage parents to visit our Nursery or Reception classes prior to entry. We plan carefully to help children to feel safe and settle in. We have “Settling in” days, “Lunch-time visits” and “Playground visits”.
When a child moves up to the next class, we organise “Hand-Over” meetings where teachers and support staff make sure that the new teacher and Teaching Assistant have a clear understanding of the needs of all children.
We also provide an opportunity for parents and their children with SEN/D to meet the new teacher and teaching assistant before the start of the school year. For some children we may also arrange a number of ‘visits’ to their new class during the summer term and use photo storybooks (social story) in order to ease the transition. Parents are also able to visit the new classroom and get to know the new adults who will be teaching and supporting their children.
When a child comes to our school in the middle of a term, we plan a range of support – depending on the particular needs of each child.
Support for transition to secondary schools are bespoke to the needs of individual children. Key information is shared with the receiving school during borough led transition meetings. Where appropriate, additional transition meetings are held with the family and appropriate professionals.
Where a child has an ECHP, an interim review will be held with the receiving school in order to ensure that the child receives consistent support.
All paperwork is passed on to receiving schools.
9. Complaints and procedures
If you would like to make a complaint about our SEN/D provision, please follow the school complaints procedure which can be found in the policy section of our website here.
Glossary
