SEND

• At Rushall Primary School, we ensure that all pupils, regardless of their specific needs make the best possible progress. 

• There are now four broad areas of SEND, these are: 

• Communication and Interaction
  This area of need includes children with Autism Spectrum Condition and those with Speech, Language and Communication Needs 

• Cognition and Learning
  This includes children with Specific Learning Difficulties, Moderate Learning Difficulties, Severe Learning Difficulties and Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties 

• Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties
  This includes any pupils who have an emotional, social or mental health need that is impacting on their ability to learn 

• Sensory and/or Physical Difficulties 

• This area includes children with hearing impairment, visual impairment, multi-sensory impairment and physical difficulties. 

• Children and young people with SEN have different needs, all children with SEN but without an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) are welcome to apply for a place at our school, in line with the school admissions policy. If a place is available, we will undertake to use our best endeavours, in partnership with parents, to make the provision required to meet the SEN of pupils at this school. 

• For children with an EHCP, parents have the right to request a particular school and the local authority must comply with that preference and name the school in the EHC plan unless: 

•  it would be unsuitable for the age, ability, aptitude or SEN of the child or young person; 

or 

•  the attendance of the child or young person there would be incompatible with the efficient education of others, or the efficient use of resources. 

•  Before making the decision to name our school in a child’s EHCP, the local authority will send the governing body a copy of the EHCP and then consider their comments very carefully before a final decision on placement is made. In addition, the local authority must also seek the agreement of school where the draft EHCP sets out any provision to be delivered on their premises that have been secured through a direct payment (personal budget). 

•  Parents of a child with an EHCP also have the right to seek a place at a special school if it they consider that their child’s needs can be better met in specialist provision. 

• When pupils have an identified special educational need or disability before they join our school, we work very closely with the people who already know them including parents and use the information already available to identify what possible barriers to learning may be within our school setting and to help us plan appropriate support strategies. 

• If parents believe that their child has a special educational need, we will discuss this with them and assess their child accordingly.  Often these assessments will be carried out by school though we will sometimes request advice from more specialised services such as Educational Psychology, Speech & Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy or Rushall Inclusion Advisory Team.  We will work with parents and in consultation, plan the next steps to best support their child. 

• If teachers feel that a child has a special educational need, this may be because they are not +making the same progress as other pupils.  We believe that early identification and intervention is best to help your child achieve success.  This will help us to identify the child’s need and plan strategies to support their learning.  If school has become concerned about a child, parents will be contacted by the child’s class teacher in the first instance and / or the school’s Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO), Caroline Rea, and their thoughts and opinions will be sought to best plan the next steps. 

‘School staff and parents and carers work in partnership to help maximise pupils’ progress.’ (Ofsted 2019) 

• We are child and family centred and believe that pupils and parents should be at the heart of all decision making about the child. 

• When we consider a child’s special educational needs we discuss with parents if their child’s understanding and behaviour are the same at school and home; we take this into account and work with our parents so that we are helping their child in the same way and helping them make progress. 

• Where appropriate, in line with our graduated response, we will write and review targets with pupils and parents/carers..   

• As part of our termly Communication weeks, we communicate with the pupil and the parents in order to gather pupil and family views.  These are then taken into account when writing and reviewing targets. Other appropriate outside agencies will be able to share information, celebrate success and plan next steps. 

• Pupil voice is gathered each term and updated regularly to gain the views of the children and how best to meet their individual needs. These are then shared with the adults who support them throughout the day.  

• We use homework to repeat and practice activities that are new and presenting challenge to a pupil.  Often, this could be in using the skill in a practical and meaningful way as part of an enrichment tasks.   

• Our school website has a dedicated area for parents, which includes links directing parents to a wide range of support services for parents, pupils and families.  

• We have an open door policy which means that staff can be contacted to address concerns and celebrate successes daily.  Appointments can be booked with staff when a more in depth discussions required.  

• Our Parent Support Advisor (PSA) and a member of the Senior Management team are on the playground daily in the mornings and welcome you to raise celebrations or concerns about your child’s needs. 

• Every child has a reading diary.  Teachers may write in comments and we encourage parents to write in their observations and comments too.  Further support on how to support a child’s reading can also be obtained from the child’s teacher and our school website has a dedicated area called ‘Sky Rocket into Reading’ , where parents can find information on our book bands and how to ensure success for their child. 

• We have access to online learning packages from our website and parents are offered training sessions around how to access them. 

Class teacher
Responsible for:  

• Checking on the progress of a child and identifying, planning and delivering any additional help they may need (this could be things like targeted work, additional support) and letting the SENCO know as necessary. 

• Writing Personal Learning Targets (PLTs), and sharing and reviewing these with parents at least once each term and planning for the next term. 

• Ensuring that all staff working with a particular child in school are helped to deliver the planned work/programme for the 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, as well as differentiated quality first teaching.  

‘Staff have high levels of expertise. They support pupils to be successful and reach their personal targets. Staff and pupils regularly celebrate achievements of all kinds.’ (Ofsted 2019) 

SENCO, Caroline Rea : 01922 682300  
Responsible for:  

• 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. This includes developing and monitoring the schools graduated response of support for our SEND pupils and supporting the assessment of progress and impact. 

• Ensuring the statutory requirements of the SEND Code of Practice 2014 are fully implemented.  

• Ensuring that parents are:  

• involved in supporting their child’s learning 

• kept informed about the support their child is getting 

• involved in reviewing how they are progressing 

• Liaising with all the other people who may be coming into school to help support a 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. 

• Providing specialist support for teachers and support staff in the school so they can help children with SEND in the school achieve the best progress possible. 

• To evaluate, in conjunction with all relevant stakeholders, the effectiveness of the schools SEND provision. 

Headteacher
Responsible for:  

• The day to day management of all aspects of the school, this includes the support for children with SEND. 

• She will give responsibility to the SENCO and class teachers but is still responsible for ensuring that your child’s needs are met. 

• She must make sure that the Governing Body is kept up to date about any issues in the school relating to SEND. 

• Support the school SENCO in terms of budgeting the SEND provisions. 

SEN Governor: Mrs Kay Mills  

Responsible for:  

• Making sure that the necessary support is made for any child who attends the school who has SEND. 

• Challenging the schools SEND department to ensure ALL children are reaching their full potential. 

• We have a team of talented and inspiring Teaching Assistants who are all trained to support pupils with a wide range of educational, social and emotional needs.

• Our team of Teaching Assistants and Teachers are able to effectively support individuals or groups of children in the classroom and undertake small group or one-to-one support as appropriate to meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs or disabilities. This provision across school is planned for by our class teachers as part of our quality first teaching.

• We have a Speech and Language Therapist who works in school one day to offer advise and support children/groups of children to support an identified need.

• Our Care, Guidance and Support Manager, Jackie Faulkner is an important member of our team who has an excellent knowledge of how to support you and your child and may also be able to sign post you to other services.

• Our Assessment and Subject coordinators analyse pupil performance data half termly to ensure that each individual child is making the best possible progress and look at steps to support the child as we are committed to there being ‘no time to waste’.

• We are able to refer to/request support from outside agencies to assist us in providing the best possible support for our children.

• We are able to offer quieter environments for children at lunchtime and have playground leaders who offer support for their peers at playtimes and lunchtimes.

• Our Sensory Room is a multi- sensory room which can provide excellent opportunities to develop speech and language skills as well as being used as a place of calm and relaxation with a range of specialist sensory equipment.

• Our SEND team make bespoke individual resources for pupils with special educational needs that support their specific learning targets and needs, and reflects the learning undertaken by their peers.

•  We have a wide range of reading material (books, e-books) to appeal to aural and visual learners as well as catch-up schemes to revise lost learning.

• We have a range of technology to support different learning styles and help motivate and access learning. These include Chromebooks, iPads, computers, microphones, talking buttons and talking postcards.

• We use workstations, picture, object and symbol timetables and equipment such as countdown timers for pupils who need it.

• We seek advice from outside agencies and Outreach providers as and when the need arises for specialist seating or access facilities.

• We have changing facilities for those children who require it.

‘The school caters very well for pupils with SEND. Staff adapt lessons to meet pupils’ needs and all pupils have access to the full curriculum.’ (Ofsted 2019)

• Our curriculum celebrates the different learning styles of all of pupils and supports inclusion and differentiation to address the needs of all of our pupils. We give children the opportunity to record their work in a range of different forms which suits their needs and enables them to experience success.

• Our approach to quality first teaching enables new vocabulary to be reinforced and shared.

• Our curriculum aims to bring learning to life and wherever possible enables the child to experience and be a part of their learning. We encourage educational visits for all and arrange for visitors to come and enable all children to access and benefit from this learning.

• We are a very inclusive school. Wherever possible children are taught alongside their peers in clear differentiated groups so that every child has a level of challenge appropriate for them and also experiences success. Teachers adapt their teaching and the learning environment constantly in order to cater for their pupil’s academic and physical needs.

• When appropriate, staff are deployed to give children additional support for their academic and/or physical need in small groups outside the classroom, or to provide one-to- one support. 

• All of our staff are trained in a variety of approaches which means that we are able to adapt learning to a range of SEND: specific learning difficulties (including dyslexia); Autism; Speech, Language and communication needs; and behavioural, social and emotional difficulties. Our training is regularly updated via our INSET days and support from other professionals and further supported via our Additionally Resourced Provision for children with speech, language and communication difficulties. 

• We promote multi-sensory approaches to handwriting, running groups to support development of gross and fine motor skills. 

• We offer a range of in-house communication groups. The focus of these groups is on Attention and Listening, Speech and Language and Social Communication. We use a number of teaching methods that are adapted to the needs of both groups and individual pupils, including picture exchange cards, objects of reference and individual workstation tasks. 

• We use class and personal visual or object timelines to help children to understand what activity is coming next. 

• We are a Makaton signing school

‘Governors, leaders and staff are highly ambitious for what pupils can achieve.’ (Ofsted 2019)

• In the Foundation Stage, we track progress against the Early Years Foundation Stage “Ages and Stages” of child development.

• If a child is in Year 1 and above a more sensitive assessment tool is used which shows their progress in more detail and will also show smaller but significant steps of progress. The levels are called ‘P levels’.

• Within school, teachers assess the children’s progress half termly, this data is discussed with the Senior Leadership team so that strategies can be put in place to intervene early and support your child.

• During our termly Communication Weeks, we discuss a child’s progress and attainment and gather both pupil and parent views. This will help formulate next steps to support a child’s progress.

• We regularly use staff meetings to get all teachers to assess anonymous pieces of work to check that our judgements are correct (moderating).

• We set challenging targets for all children based on nationally agreed guidelines on progress.

•  Our marking of children’s work informs our planning and we identify next steps for all of our children.

• As a result of triangulating information from monitoring activities such as learning walks, book looks and pupil discussions, we tailor CPD for staff accordingly.

• We have a comprehensive induction policy for new staff.

• Our priorities in school include reading, emotional wellbeing and language development and so regular refresher training is provided for all staff throughout the school year.

• Each term, as a minimum, a staff meeting is allocated for SEND training. These sessions are delivered by school's SENCOS as well as outside agencies (NHS SALT, NIAT and Early Years SEN team). Training can be specific to one child or for the wider SEND provision.

• Specific staff receive specialised training to support them when planning for and meeting the needs of children with more complex needs.

• We can access support from specialist teachers and support staff for advice about accessing the curriculum and SEND related needs such as speech, language and communication; hearing impairment; visual impairment; behaviour related needs; severe learning difficulties and autism.

• Our local authority provides and early years advisory teacher who supports children with SEND when they make the transition to our nursery from pre-school settings. 

• We get advice and support through our own speech and language therapist to train staff and advise on programmes and we refer pupils for assessment if we believe they need a period of therapy. 

• We liaise with School Health as appropriate. 

• We get support and advice from Occupational Therapy for pupils that need assessment for issues such as special seating or fine and gross motor concerns. They guide school staff in meeting the needs of the individual pupils. 

• Together (pupil, parent/carer, school, outside agencies) review your child’s progress and agree on steps to make teaching more effective and learning easier.

• We have a before and after school club with trained staff from school who are able to support the needs of children from the school setting.

• We have a number of lunchtime and after school clubs which cover a range of interests which include; sports, creative activities, music. Pupils with SEND are welcomed and included, additional support is offered as necessary to support access.

• Children who join in nursery are welcomed into our school community with a personal home visit by nursery staff. A series of parent and child taster sessions follows in preparation for their September start.

• Our local authority provides an early years advisory teacher to support children with SEND when they make the transition to our nursery from the pre-school settings.

• Transition into Reception and then into successive year groups is supported by meetings, meet the teacher time and taster sessions in the new class.

• Children working across a phase Nursery –Reception, Year 1 & 2, Year 3 & 4, Year 5 & 6 also enables your child to become familiar with different classrooms and teachers.

• We liaise closely with a child’s previous school/setting and will routinely arrange to visit them in this familiar setting wherever possible before they transfer.

• Parents and children who are joining our school mid-term are encouraged to visit the school before they start.

• We will plan a child’s transition to us with information from parents and all professionals already involved to supporting a child. This helps to enable a smooth and supportive start for a child.

• As a child makes the transition to Secondary school, again we will contact and discuss the child’s needs with our Secondary school colleagues, invite them to observe the child in our setting and through dialogue with parents and the child set up appropriate transition visits to support a smooth transition.

• Schools receive funding for all pupils with special educational needs and we are able to provide what pupils need from this (including equipment). The local authority will top-up funding for pupils with a high level of need.

• If a pupil’s education, health and care plan identifies something that is significantly different to what is usually available, there will be additional funding allocated. Parents will have a say in how this is used.

• You will be told if this means that you are eligible for a personal budget. This must be used to fund any agreed plan formulated by professional advisors, parents and school.

• Children who qualify for ‘Pupil Premium’ are tracked and monitored allowing specific, appropriate interventions to be put in place. This information can be found as part of our school’s Pupil Premium statement on our school website.

The school has an excellent pastoral team who oversee the welfare of all pupils. In order to ensure personal, social and emotional well-being, they work together to:

• Ensure the curriculum provides pupils with the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to enhance their emotional and social knowledge and well-being; 

• Work with parents, where appropriate, to meet the needs of the child. 

• Provide 1:1 or small group interventions for identified pupils – school have 2 trained Drawing and Talking practioners and a member of staff who is ELSA trained. 

• Regularly gather views from pupil and parents. 

• An appointed Mental health advocate, liaises with class teachers to discuss strategies to use with pupils who require additional support. 

• It may be that she or a member of the pastoral team carries out 1:1 work with children who require it. 

• An Anti-bullying Policy, which follows Local Authority guidelines, is in place. This specifies how all incidents of bullying are reported and dealt with. Anti-bullying lessons are an integral part of our PSHE and ICT curriculum. As a school, we participate in National Anti-Bullying Week to promote the annual theme. 

• We support children to identify and communicate their emotions, build social connections and friendships, develop strategies to manage and express emotions in a safe and healthy way and develop emotional resilience. 

• We support our families by offering support sessions, coffee mornings, and external training opportunities through our ‘North Star SEND Parent Networkand sign posting, and supporting to access, a range of services in the community.

• Children in care have a termly PEP (personal education plan) meeting. Through this meeting all professionals involved discuss specific targets, progress and concerns.

• Identified SEND is discussed in depth at this meeting. We ensure that targets set are appropriate and manageable; provision that is required to ensure that they achieve success is planned for and additional funding is requested through each Local Authority’s Pupil Premium allocation.

• We work closely with social workers and the Local Authorities virtual school teams to ensure that appropriate plans and support are in place

• We listen to what children tell us about how they like to learn. Their views and feelings are important to us and have an impact on our practice.

• Our children are made aware of the support that surrounds them in school. They know who to talk to if they are worried or have any concerns they want to share. Our open door policy means that they have access to a member of the senior leadership team at all times.

• We have a high level of staffing at unstructured times such as lunchtime, to ensure children are well supervised and well supported.

• Medications that may be required on the playground are carried by a member of staff this person can be identified quickly by the red medical bags that they are carrying.

• School welcomes parents to share any concerns that they may have, however small they may think it is.

• Our Parent Support Advisor is available every morning along with members of Senior Management Team and Teaching Assistants to hear any concerns.

• Our inclusive philosophy aims to support parents of children with special educational needs or disabilities so that their child’s journey through our school is smooth, successful and anxiety free. Our practice is enhanced by your views, it is important that people listen to them and that you are satisfied with what happens as a result of our collaboration.

• Walsall’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information and Advice Support (SENDIAS) service provides free and impartial support to children and young people with

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and their parents and carers.

Phone: 01922 612008 

Email: Walsallsendiass@family-action.org.uk

• Our SENCO and our Parent Support Advisor (01922 682300) can put parents in touch with a wide range of support groups as appropriate to the specific needs of your child. Please come into school and discuss your needs.

• Following termly assessments, provision planning meetings are held with at least the class teacher, phase leader and SENCO - there may be other members of the leadership team present too. These meetings focus on reviewing high quality teaching strategies in place, reviewing interventions which have taken place and prioritising and planning provision for the following term.

• Any interventions which are carried out, if they are deemed to be additional to or different from the provision for the majority of children, are recorded and evaluated to recognise the impact of each intervention.

• Half termly meetings are carried out between SALT and the SENCO to review the provision for SLCN and again, prioritize which pupils are to be targeted

• Rushall Primary benefits from a 24 place Additionally Resourced Provision for children with communication and interaction needs across the primary age range.

• Places are allocated through Walsall’s SEN team.

• Children within the Provision spend some time in small group settings where work is focussed on their primary area of difficulty and is supported by a speech and language therapist two days per week.

• There is a high pupil to adult ratio including two teachers and a team of teaching assistants.

• Parents, the child, school staff, speech and language and other agencies that might be involved with the child liaise closely to monitor the children’s progress.

• Children are fully included with the daily life of the school, school trips and residential alongside their peers and spend a proportion of their time in their mainstream year group.

• The level of support for each child depends on the needs of the individual and time in their mainstream class focuses on both social interaction as well as academic achievement.

• Support for the children is as detailed for mainstream children in addition to specific groups as advised by outside agencies for example colourful semantics, Aided Language Displays (ALDs) PECS, Attention  Autism, etc.

• All staff benefit from regular training particularly in the field of autism and speech and language needs.

• The progress of the children is tracked and we have high expectations of the children.

• We also track children’s social and emotional progress.

• Our schools governing body actively seek the best advice from other agencies, including health and social services, local authority support services and voluntary organisations, in meeting the needs of the pupils with SEND and in supporting the families of these pupils when necessary.

• The governing body meet regularly to discuss the needs of ALL pupils at Rushall.

• Our SEND link governor, Mrs Kay Mills, meets during the academic year with the schools SEND team to discuss the school provision and progress, this includes talking to pupils and parents.

‘Everyone linked to the school is part of the ‘Rushall family’ and plays a role in making the school successful.’ (Ofsted 2019)