Most children and young people in mainstream schools will have their special educational needs met through good classroom practice. This is called Quality First Teaching.

Early Identification of Need

As a school, we assess all children continuously across all areas of learning including the four broad areas of Special Educational Needs. We assess informally everyday through observations and we carry out formal assessments at the end of every term to measure progress and identify the next steps in learning. We work in partnership with parents, carers and pupils by building good relationships, working together and supporting each other. If there is an identification of need then we will discuss this with parents and if needed provide a pupil with a Short Note. We will share this with parents and may begin to gather evidence to inform whether to make special education provision and consider if we need to consult with relevant external agencies and use assessment tools and materials to ensure early help or identification of SEN happens.

SEN Support

Where a pupil is identified as having a special educational need we follow a graduated approach which takes the form of cycles of “Assess, Plan, Do, Review”.

This means that we will: 

• Assess a child’s special educational needs
• Plan the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes
• Do put the provision in place to meet those outcomes
• Review the support and progress

As part of this approach every child with SEN will have an individualised Support Plan that describes the child’s needs, outcomes and provision to meet those needs.  Parents, carers and children’s views are integral to this process. When the child’s SEN Support Plan is reviewed comments are made against each outcome to show what progress the child has made. If the child has not met the outcome, the reasons for this will be discussed, then the outcome may be adapted into smaller steps or a different approach may be tried to ensure the child does make progress.

For some concerns, we may discuss the involvement of specialist support, for example, Education Psychology, Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy. It is important to understand that the involvement of professionals does not always seek to ‘label’ or ‘diagnose’ children but to seek advice or strategies to help them to reach their full potential.

A small percentage of children and young people with significant and/or more complex needs may require an assessment that could lead to an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

The purpose of an EHCP is to make special educational provision to meet special educational needs of the child or young person, to secure the best possible outcomes for them across education (SEND Code of Practice p.142). It is a legal document that describes a child or young person’s special educational, health and social care needs. We currently have three pupils with EHC Plans.

For more detailed information see the Local Offer

For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found in the School Policies section of our website.