If you have any concerns about your child, please speak to your child’s class teacher, you do not have to wait for a parent’s evening. 

At Scole CE Primary Academy, class teachers meet regularly with the head teacher and Special Educational Need Coordinator (SENDCo) to review the needs and progress of the children. 

Children of concern are discussed at whole staff meetings, during the SENDCo’s visit to the school and informally on a day to day basis. At these times, we share concerns and discuss options for support, ensuring that additional needs are identified early.

Children are carefully assessed. Teacher observation, live marking of work and collecting a range of evidence are all vital in fully assessing a child, so that class based support and any other intervention can be carefully adapted to the individual child. The following are also respectfully considered:

• Information from a transferring nursery or school
• Information given to us by parents, especially during home visits before starting school, which may include family history
• Individual learning styles, as observed by teaching staff and described by the student themselves
• School based assessments, such as standardised reading and maths tests, which feed into the school’s tracking system
• Other diagnostic assessments, for receptive vocabulary, working memory and phonics processing being a few examples.

Any concerns raised by parents are shared with the SENDCo and the headteacher, both are happy to meet with parents. Please contact them on 01379 740654 or by email, head@diss.stbenets.org.

In addition to this Norfolk County Council publish their Local Offer  Norfolk Local Offer online which has some useful information about SEND, the support you can expect, plus contacts and resources available.

The level of support your child will receive will depend on their needs. Class teachers will be able to explain the additional support in place. In addition, the SENDCo is willing to make arrangements to meet.

Additional support, for those experiencing barriers to learning is delivered as follows.

High Quality Classroom Teaching

The most valuable tool we have for all our children is high quality class teaching. This is the best model of inclusion for children with SEND. 

This excellent classroom teaching is how every teacher continually adapts the curriculum, to ensure access to learning for all children in the class. 

Targeted Small Group or One to One work (Interventions)

We have intervention groups for those children who need a boost, to fill gaps in learning or to ‘catch up’. These children can be those with an identified Special Educational Need (SEND) but could also be children highlighted by teaching staff  in need of some short-term support.

These groups may run in the classroom or in an alternative learning space. They may be run by a teacher or a trained teaching assistant. We use an interesting range of published programmes as well as putting together our own bespoke packages for particular needs.

The need for this provision is reviewed at least termly.

Further specialist support

If a child is not making the progress we would expect, despite QFT and short-term intervention, we will talk with you about further assessment, more intervention time, greater involvement from the SENDCo, the specifics of your child’s SEND and possibly the involvement of other specialist professionals. At this point, your child will be recognised as having ‘SEND support’ and will be child placed on the SEND record. An INDES (Identification of needs descriptors in educational settings) document will be submitted to Norfolk County Council.

When specialist support is sought, this helps us all understand further your child’s particular needs and to plan positive ways forward. We work with a range of other professionals to make sure that all children receive the support they need to do well at school. These include, but are not limited to, Speech and Language Therapists (SALTs), Occupational Therapists (OTs) and Educational Psychologists (EPs). 

At times of more formal assessment, including the statutory SATs for example, those children who benefit from having adult readers, scribes, additional time or other specific support will be provided with what is appropriate in line with the support they have on a day to day basis. If there are reasons for a child to be ‘dis-applied’ from formal assessment, this can be discussed.

Education Health Care Plans

For those children whose learning needs are severe, complex and life-long we will endeavour to support via an application to the Local Authority for an Educational and health care needs assessment for an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP).

https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/children-and-families/send-local-offer/support-for-learning/education-health-and-care-ehc-plans).

We would work on such an application together and once in place it states outcomes and actions that education and health professionals are required to provide. These plans are reviewed annually and can continue through to age 25.

Where a child holds an EHCP, or an EHC Needs is in process, admission is proposed through review and consultation with Norfolk County Council.

At different times in their school career, a pupil may have a special educational need. The SEND Code of Practice (2014) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-guide-for-parents-and-carers) definition of SEND is having ‘a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. A child has a learning difficulty or disability if they have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than others of the same age or have a disability which hinders them from making use of educational facilities as provided for others of the same age’.

Parents/carers, class teachers, support staff and the children themselves will be the first to notice a difficulty with learning. At  Scole CE Primary Academy, we ensure that identification and assessment of educational needs directly involves the children, their parents/carer and their teacher. The special educational needs co-ordinator (SENDCo) will also assist with the identification of barriers to learning, using a variety of assessment methods and tools, for a range of learning barriers.

If your child has an Education, Health and Care Plan, this will specify the support needed for your child and this will be reviewed at least annually, to ensure that the plan is still appropriate for your child and to make any changes.

For all other children with an identified additional need, named within our SEND record or not, the type of support given to your child will be reviewed at least termly, by the class teacher, head teacher, SEND higher level teaching assistant (HLTA) and SENDCo and you will have the opportunity to discuss this at termly meetings with the class teacher. 

During the school day, the work will be adapted so that your child will be able to access the curriculum provided for all children in the class.

A variety of resources will be available and your child will be involved in making decisions around the adaption. Both the teacher and teaching assistant will provide support in groups or individually within the classroom.

Individual strategies for children with SEND are planned and reviewed at least termly, these will apply to activities all around school as well as in the classroom and throughout the school day, not just in class teaching times.

Your child’s progress is continually monitored by their class teacher, this is in the context of the whole school progress tracking from entry through to Year 6.

Effectiveness can be measured in many ways, for example, children are successful in meeting targets, children make progress academically against national/age related expected levels, the gap is narrowing and they are catching up with their expected age levels, verbal feedback from the teacher, parent and child consistently suggests improvement and reading age and spelling age scores increase.  

We follow the ‘assess, plan, do and review’ model and try to ensure that parents/carers and children are involved in each step. The name we give to this process and paperwork is a ‘pupil passport’. Before any additional provision is selected to help a child, the SENDCo, Class Teacher, Teaching Assistant (delivering the intervention) and learner, agree what they expect to be different following this intervention. Parents/carers and pupils will be asked for their ‘voice’ as part of the pupil passport. A baseline will be recorded, which can be used to monitor the impact of the provision. 

Children who need additional support with their social, emotional and mental well being may be supported through a reasonable adjustment plan, known as a RAP.

This plan lays out reasonable adjustments which are personal to the child. For example, a child might benefit from wearing ear defenders. We would not necessarily expect to see that the child rapidly grows out of wearing ear defenders and so this provision remains with the child as long as it is necessary. The plan is produced alongside the parents and the child, it can be amended as and when necessary but at least termly. 

For children who need support with more distressed behaviours, a risk management plan (RMP) may be put in place. This identifies behaviours when everything is going well through to how to support a child when their behaviours become increasingly distressed. This is produced with support from the parents and child, it can be amended as and when necessary but at least termly. 

Very often children move off the SEND record when they have ‘caught up’ or made sufficient progress that indicates they have adapted to or overcome the barrier to learning. At this point, progress is still carefully monitored.

Children who are not making expected progress are identified through termly SEND focus staff meetings or one to one meetings between class teacher and SENDCO. In this meeting a discussion takes place concerning why individual children are experiencing difficulty and what further support can be given to aid their progression.

Parents are kept updated through the Autumn and Spring Term learning conversation evenings, as well as the Summer term full report. The termly changes in QFT and interventions for those on the SEND register, can be shared at parent’s evenings. For a few children with multi-level needs we write a Pupil Passport or Reasonable Adjustment Plan, this is reviewed in the same way and is always shared by the Class Teacher with parents.

Parents and carers are given copies of any specialist assessment reports and can discuss them with the SENDCo or class teacher. Parents and carers are invited to meet visiting professionals, such as the Educational Psychologist, on the day of an assessment, if appropriate.

We offer an open door policy where parents/carers are welcome any time to make an appointment to meet with either the class teacher or SENDCo and discuss children’s progress. 

We regularly discuss and identify staff training needs related to the needs of the children in school at the time. 

The TAs involved in intervention are highly experienced and the SENDCo has the National Award for SEND coordination. In combination with detailed individual planning, we use a number of structured programmes.

Outside services are employed too.  Scole CE Primary Academy commissions support from Judith Carter’s Educational Psychology organisation Willow Tree learning. For speech therapy services we work with our Multi Academy Trust (MAT)  who can commission private speech services. We can access the sensory occupational therapy services SENSI and Open Arms Sensory Support and have access to services universally provided by Norfolk County Council, which are described on the Local Offer

(https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/children-and-families/send-local-offer).

We are an inclusive school and welcome diversity. All staff believe that high self-esteem is crucial to a child’s well-being. We have a caring, understanding team looking after our children. 

We care about the social and emotional well-being of each child and take bullying very seriously. We teach anti-bullying as part of the school ethos and our anti-bullying policy can be found on our school website. 

A key stage 1 and key stage 2 nurture, well-being and self-esteem based intervention is available for groups of children who need some specific social and emotional support. We also work with Simon Andrew from Hearts and Minds, he provides children and family support through therapeutic activities and counselling.

The class teacher has overall responsibility for the pastoral, medical and social care of each child in the class, therefore this is the parents’ initial point of contact. If further support is required, the class teacher liaises with the SENDCo for further advice and support, this happens when needs are complex, when the child is in local authority care (LAC) and/or when there are, in addition, safeguarding concerns. This may involve working alongside outside agencies such as the Education of Vulnerable Groups Achievement and Access Service, Health practitioners and Children’s Services. 

The school is accessible to children with SEND. The school is wheelchair accessible with a disabled toilet in the main building. The school produces an annual Disability Access Plan to ensure that this provision is regularly monitored and developed.

At  Scole CE Primary Academy, we allocate funds carefully to the variety of support offered; 1:1 support, small group support, specialist support from outside agencies and time for the Special Educational Needs Coordinator to work with children, parents, class teachers and teaching assistants. We also buy equipment and resources where appropriate and our teaching assistants attend courses to support their work with children.

The SENDCo is able to work alongside the class teacher in order to access further funding if necessary, through the submission of the INDES document and requesting ‘Yes’ to further support. 

We ensure that the needs of all children who have special educational needs are met to the best of the school’s ability with the funds available. The budget is allocated on a needs basis. The children who have the most complex needs are given the most support, often involving an additional adult. 

Where a SEND child is also registered as pupil premium they will benefit additionally from the funding allocated to that group.

At Scole CE Primary Academy, we offer a range of additional clubs and activities. These can be found on our website. 

All children at Scole CE Primary Academy have the same opportunity to access extra-curricular activities and other school activities including residential visits. All staff take seriously their obligation to make reasonable adjustments for all children, including those with SEND and those with a disability, to be able to access all activities if they wish, in line with the Equality Act of 2010.

School trips are accompanied by a suitable ratio of adults to children and more individualised support is arranged if necessary. A risk assessment is carried out prior to any off site activity and sometimes a child specific risk assessment will be in place too, for this parents would be asked to advise and contribute. 

When a child joins our school or a need is identified at Scole CE Primary Academy, we endeavour to ensure we get the appropriate training, updates and support available to us, through the relevant services.

Our SENDCo, holds the statutory qualification and informs staff of SEND developments, they attend the Local Authority termly SEND forums, MAT SEND events and is a member of the SEND Network run by Willow Tree Learning. 

 Some interventions, for example, Sound Discovery and Catch Up require specialist training in order to be delivered effectively. Any staff leading these interventions, have been appropriately trained either by experienced staff within the school or by an external provider. Additionally, the SENDCo has access to a number of assessment tools.

We recognise that ‘moving on’ can be difficult for any child and this seems particularly true for those with SEND. We are committed to working in partnership with children, families and other providers to ensure that any transition is as smooth as possible.

 As a child gets ready to move into our Reception class, initial contact is made with their previous setting and with the parents. Children are invited for a number of taster sessions in the Summer term and parents are invited to contact the school at any other time to ask questions and discuss concerns. Any relevant information is shared with other members of staff and the SENDCo when appropriate.

As a child gets ready to move to a new school, we will contact the SENDCo there and ensure they know about any special arrangements or support that needs to be made for your child. We will make sure that all records about your child are passed on as soon as possible. We will strongly support transitional visits to the new setting.

As a child moves into a new class within school, information will be passed on to the new class teacher in advance and a planning meeting will take place with the new teacher. Children will have opportunities to meet their class teacher and be involved in ‘transition days’ to work within their new class in the Summer Term prior to transition.

On high school transition, the SENDCo and Year 6 staff will be in contact with the high school SENDCos to discuss the specific needs of your child and what provision needs to be made. Where possible, your child will visit their new school on several occasions and in some cases staff from the new school will visit your child in this school, we encourage this happening as early as possible. Opportunities to familiarise children with their new school are organised as part of the transition process throughout the year by all high schools locally. Some of these transition days facilitate additional opportunities for vulnerable learners.

At  Scole CE Primary Academy, we respect and value your understanding of your child’s needs and wishes. We aim to involve you throughout decision making processes and to keep you informed of the support your child is having. We encourage you to meet with us as often as you feel necessary and we really notice the positive impact of parents working equally alongside us.

Parents are encouraged to express opinion through Parentview on the OFSTED website. In the event that parents are not satisfied with the outcomes of discussions or their child’s progress, parents should speak to the head teacher.

Please do not hesitate getting in touch with us.

At Scole CE Primary Academy your first point of contact is always the class teacher. You can also speak to or email the SENDCo, Mrs Peters via the school office or at m.peters@diss.stbenets.org. Mrs Cerullo, the head teacher, is also very happy to discuss any concerns.

Where can I find further information, advice and contacts on SEND?

There are many sources of advice for a range of children’s needs, the class teacher and SENDCo can help you find the most relevant for you. The following links are for general sources of support.

NORFOLK’s LOCAL OFFER 

SCOLE CE PRIMARY ACADEMY  

NORFOLK SEND PARTNERSHIP 

THE SEND CODE OF PRACTICE 

JUST ONE NORFOLK WEBSITE