CONTENTS
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1.0 Aims of SEN Policy
To ensure all pupils have access to a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum.
The aim of every teacher at Anchorsholme Primary School is to help all children realise their full potential in a happy and caring environment. The whole school approach to teaching pupils considered to have S.E.N. relies on collective and shared responsibility. One major principle underpins this policy and that is that all the teachers at Anchorsholme Primary School are teachers of Special Needs Pupils.
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1.1 |
To provide information about Special Educational Needs at Anchorsholme Primary School and to ensure equal opportunities for all pupils. |
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1.2 |
To promote the achievement of pupils with Special Educational Needs. |
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1.3 |
To indicate the responsibilities of class teachers, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, parents, Governors and the wider community in relation to Special Educational Needs at Anchorsholme Primary School . |
2.0 Objectives of SEN. Policy
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2.1 |
To identify issues to be considered when dealing with Special Educational Needs at Anchorsholme Primary School. |
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2.2 |
To evolve a school philosophy and policy for the early identification, teaching and assessment of SEN children. |
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To explain the new SEN approach of School Action and School Action Plus and the Statementing Process to staff, parents and governors. |
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To ensure whole staff involvement in relation to children with SEN and the role of the SEN Co-ordinator. |
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To inform staff of teaching and support agency arrangements. |
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To work collaboratively with SEN support agencies to ensure Special Educational Needs are met. |
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To develop a partnership with parents in order to maximise the effect of meeting Special Educational Needs. |
3.0 Special Needs Support Personnel
Special Needs Co-ordinator
- Mrs H Newbery
School Action/Action Plus Support
- Ms S K Clough 0.1
- Mrs H Newbery 0.4
Governor Special Needs
- Mrs H Newbery
4.0 Admission Arrangements
The school's admission arrangements are as described by Blackpool Borough Council for all maintained Primary schools. The Governors support the notion that wherever possible all pupils with Special Educational Needs should be educated in mainstream school provided that the following criteria apply: -
- a. Account must be taken of the views of parents of the child
- b. Educational needs can be met in the school
- c. Placement must be consistent with the education of the other pupils in school
If the school is alerted to the need for a child to receive SEN, either by the parents or by external support agencies, the school will use its best endeavours to ensure that the appropriate resources are available including staffing and equipment.
All the facilities at Anchorsholme Primary School are situated at ground floor level and the school has a disabled toilet and M.I. Room. To further improve access to the school, a number of alterations to the building have been made in recent years.
5.0 Introduction & Background Information
The system for dealing with 'Special Needs' at Anchorsholme Primary School has evolved over a number of years.
The 1981 Education Act implemented many of the recommendations of the Warnock Report published two years earlier. In the post-Warnock period it was assumed that many 'normal' children would require additional help at some time or other in their school career. It was suggested by Lady Warnock that this might be as high as one in five of the school population. It was assumed that help should be available wherever possible in the ordinary school environment and that all teachers should take responsibility in providing that help, albeit supported at times by specialist staff. There was also a shift in emphasis away from what pupils with S.E.N. could not do, to one which looked positively at their abilities.
The desirability of teaching pupils with special needs as far as possible in mainstream schools has not been seriously challenged and is the major legacy of the 1981 Act.
Part III of the 1993 Education Act built upon the principles and practices first set out in the 1981 Act. The Act required the Secretary of State to issue a Code of Practice giving practical guidance to local authorities and the governing bodies of all maintained schools on their responsibilities to all children with S.E.N. The Code's guidance is designed and intended to help schools make effective decisions and, as under the 1981 Act, requires them to make their ". best endeavours to make provision for pupils with special educational needs."
All those to whom the Code of Practice applies have a statutory duty to have regard to it; they must not ignore it. The Code recognises that there is a continuum of special educational needs and that such needs are found across the range of ability. The Code also recognises that the continuum of needs should be reflected in a continuum of provision. To help match special educational provision approach to children's needs, schools and CSAs should adopt the new system of School Action and School Action Plus.
6.0 School Philosophy for Children with S.E.N.
All teachers at Anchorsholme Primary School are teachers of special needs pupils.
It is the work of individual teachers reflected in the S.E.N. policy and practice which is of the utmost consequence. The whole school approach relies on collective and shared responsibility for all the pupils. Class teachers will make provision for delivering the curriculum to all children equally through careful assessment, curriculum planning and differentiation. The school caters for all children on an equal opportunity basis.
The whole school approach starts from the basic premise that the aims of education are the same for all children. Hence, all children are entitled to the same equal opportunities to study all the subjects that the school offers. The curriculum must be relevant to their lives and take into account the changing society in which they live. It acknowledges the fact that all children have educational needs and that these needs only become 'special' in terms of the provision the school offers, when it is additional to or different from those provided as part of the school's differentiated programme. Intervention should take place in as normal a setting as possible and any form of segregation or discrimination should be avoided.
7.0 School Policy on SEN
The whole school approach involves pupils, parents, governors, teachers, other professionals and the community in catering for special needs pupils.
8.0 Working Definition
We at Anchorsholme believe that a child with Special Educational Needs (SEN) is one who has a learning need which prevents or hinders his/her education, or if he/she has a greater difficulty in learning than the majority of his/her age.
We need to be aware that there are many children who have SEN in different areas of our curriculum often on a short term basis. It is not necessarily the same children all the time.
9.0 The Curriculum
It is of paramount importance that the planning and delivery of the curriculum caters for the needs of all pupils. Anchorsholme Primary School recognises that the curriculum is the cause and potential cure of the majority of learning difficulties and that a pupil has a learning problem when their educational needs remain unmet, not because they display a low ability. We aim to minimise this mismatch between curriculum and pupils.
All pupils at Anchorsholme Primary School share the right to a broad and balanced curriculum following the National Curriculum guidelines. This right applies to all pupils in school regardless of whether or not they are considered to have Special Educational Needs. Each pupil should be given the opportunity to work at an appropriate level and be able to make progress. Curriculum development plans,
Schemes of work and classroom environments need to be closely aligned with the teaching needs and individual programmes of study of pupils with SEN. Effective liaison between class teachers and the school Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) and support teachers should ensure this.
It therefore follows that the withdrawal of children from the classroom for SEN work should be kept to a minimum. However, it therefore follows that the withdrawal on some occasions may be deemed necessary to enable individual tuition and support to be given. This will probably involve skills teaching particularly for reading, writing, spelling and number work. Counselling of a pupil may also be considered a valid reason for withdrawal.
10.0 The Code of Practice
The New Code of Practice adopts a graduated response to learning to encompass a range of strategies. It recognises that there is a continuum of special educational needs that makes use of all available classroom and school resources. However, it may be necessary to bring in specialist help to assist with the difficulties experienced by individual children. The Code sets out a model of action and intervention that is designed to help children towards independent learning. In many cases the action taken will mean that the child's needs are resolved. Additional action may be taken for those children whose progress continues to cause concern.
When a child is identified as having special educational needs the school should intervene by placing the child at School Action/School Action Plus. These interventions will not usually be steps towards statutory assessment. The interventions are a means of matching special educational provision to the child's needs. This forms part of the continuous process of planning, action and review within the school to enable the children to learn and progress.
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School Action When a class teacher identifies a child as having special educational needs, the class teacher should provide interventions that are additional to or different from those provided as part of the school's usual differentiated curriculum. The triggers for this intervention could be the teacher's or others' concern, underpinned by evidence, about a child who, despite receiving differentiated learning opportunities:
The class teacher in consultation with parents may decide that the child needs extra support to help their progress. To inform the type of help the child needs, the class teacher with the SENCO should collect all the available information about the child, including information from the parents. Further assessment should take place to identify specific areas of difficulty then an Individual Education Plan (IEP) can be written. The child's class teacher should remain responsible for working with the child on a daily basis and for planning and delivering an individual programme. |
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Individual Education Plans Action taken to enable the child to make progress should be recorded in an Individual Education Plan. The IEP should include:
The IEP should only record that which is additional to and different from the differentiated curriculum plan which is in place as part of the provision for all children. The IEP should be discussed with the child and parents. |
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Reviewing IEPs IEPs should be reviewed at least twice a year, but ideally they should be reviewed every term. One of these reviews could coincide with a routine Parents Evening. Parent's views of the child's progress should be sought at these reviews. If possible the child should be present at these reviews and they should be involved in the target setting process. If the child is not present at the review their views should be considered in the discussion, if possible. The school has a duty to inform the child's parents that special educational provision is being made for the child because the child has special educational needs. |
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School Action Plus Schools should always consult specialists when they take action on behalf of a child through School Action Plus. This is likely to follow a review of the IEP in consultation with the SENCO, colleagues and parents. However, specialists may also be involved with very early identification and in advising school of effective provision. At School Action Plus external support services can provide advise to teachers on new IEP's, provide specialist assessments that can inform planning and give advice on the use of new strategies or resources. The triggers for School Action Plus could be that despite receiving an individualised programme under School Action, the child:
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Request for Statutory Assessment When a school makes a request for statutory assessment the child must have demonstrated significant cause for concern. The CSA will ask for evidence that all strategies and interventions that have been tried with the child have continued for a reasonable time without success and other interventions have taken place also without success. The CSA then makes a decision based on all the evidence collected whether or not to make a formal assessment of the child. |
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Working with children with statements of SEN All children with statements should have short-term targets and strategies to meet the targets. These will be set out on an IEP which will be reviewed termly. There will also be a more formal annual review to which parents, pupils (if appropriate) and all professionals that are involved with the pupil are invited. |
11.0 The Identification of Special Educational Needs
Early identification of pupils with SEN is extremely important and cannot be over emphasised.
At Anchorsholme Primary School pupils who might have Special Educational Needs may be identified by one or more of the following processes:
- a. new intake information, pre-school or transfer documentation
- b. pupils who are subject to a statement of their Special Educational Needs
- c. physical disabilities which present difficulties for mainstream school
- d. subjective criteria: - the pace of their work is much slower, or considerably quicker in the case of the highly intelligent child, than their peers - concern expressed by any member of staff that indicates SEN after scrutiny
- e. basic language skills considerably weaker than those of their peers - a reading age more than twelve months behind their chronological age; difficulty in understanding written or oral instructions of a type common in class lessons, difficulty in expressing meaning either orally or written lessons, difficulty in expressing meaning either orally or in a written form
- f. pupils whose work output is not commensurate with their measured potential
- g. National Curriculum attainment levels and S.A.T.S.
- h. the interpretation of infant rating scales and screening tests
- i. other objective test results completed by the school that indicate Special Educational Needs
- j. pupils experiencing social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.
To assist in the early identification of children with S.E.N. we have the following assessment resources available:
- a. Baseline assessment to be administered during the reception year plus Salford Reading Test
- b. PIPs assessment at the end of Yr1, plus Salford Reading Test and Spelling Test
- c. PIPs assessment and S.A.T.S. administered in Yr 2
- d. NFER Verbal and Non-Verbal tests in Yr 3
- e. Optional SATS in Years 3, 4 and 5
- f. S.A.T.S. in Year 6
Diagnostic tests available in school include:
Quest Resources - Screening & Diagnostic Tests
Aston Index
Neale Analysis
NFER Group Reading Tests 1 & 2
NFER Nelson Non-Verbal Reasoning 8,9,10 & 11
NFER Verbal Reasoning 8,9,10 & 11
Salford Reading Test
Dyslexia Test
Continuous assessment will also be carried out by individual teachers who will collect evidence related to all pupils. This information is passed onto subsequent class teachers so the child's attainment can be tracked throughout the school. If there are any concerns about an individual pupil, the issues will be discussed with the SENCO and if it is felt some form of action is needed, the parents will be informed and the pupil placed on the SEN register at School Action. Once the child's needs have been identified and strategies put in place to help the child an IEP is written including any targets that are in addition to and different from the differentiated work delivered to other pupils in the class. The school SEN register will be reviewed and updated each term. Regular review meetings, to which parents will be invited to attend and contribute to, will be held in school.
12.0 Communication of Information
Information about SEN pupils is vital if staff are to meet their needs. The school recognises the rights of pupils and their parents when dealing with information that is very often of a sensitive nature and the need for confidentiality should therefore be respected. The school recognises the need to minimise labelling and the importance of avoiding stigmatising pupils.
To enable children with SEN to receive the maximum benefit from the support they receive, close links will be fostered between the parent, the teacher, the SENCO and any outside agency involved with the child.
13.0 Complaints Procedure
Parents having any complaint regarding the special educational needs provision within the school are asked to discuss the matter with the school SENCO or the Headteacher. If they are still unhappy, the Governor with responsibility for Special Educational Needs will be asked to investigate. If the matter remains unresolved, the complaint panel of the governing body will be asked to examine the complaint and the matter will also be referred to the Principal Special Educational Needs Officer.
14.0 Special Educational Needs & Outside Agencies
Anchorsholme Primary School welcomes and values the role of outside agencies and will continue to liaise with and develop a co-ordinated and co- operative approach to enhance the quality of service for all SEN pupils.
The school will seek to ensure the provision of appropriate access, accommodation, resources and support staff.
The school will strive to provide clear lines of communication and consultation which will include planning meetings, statement reviews and specific liaison periods. The SENCO, together with the headteacher will ensure that Anchorsholme Primary School staff are aware of the work of external agencies. The outside agencies currently operating in school are:
The Schools' Psychological Service
Besides the work needed to complete an assessment and statutory work related to the Code of Practice, the Schools' Psychological Service provides help and advice to the school. The school receives at least two half-day visits per term from the Educational Psychologist. The new consultation process is now in place and provides closer links with the service and a more structured approach to the help and advice available to individual children.
Speech Therapy Service
A number of pupils from Anchorsholme Primary School access this service and we have been allocated a link therapist who can provide help and support to school.
Blackpool Special Educational Needs Officer
Staff working for the area office are based at Progress House in Blackpool . The Principal Special Educational Needs Officer drafts statements of SEN.
Advice and support is also offered to the school by the B.B.C. through a Link Advisor that has been designated to the school - Mrs Jennie Treece-Birch. Three planning meetings per year take place between the E.P., the advisor and the SENCO to determine the needs of the school for the coming term.
Other Agencies
Anchorsholme County Primary School also has links with Blenheim House Child Development Centre, The Park School , The Complex Learning Difficulties Team, Health Service, The Hearing Impaired and Visual Impaired Team and the Educational Welfare Office, Windmill House.
15.0 Responsibilities
S.E.N. Co-ordinator
- Overseeing the day - to - day operation of the school's SEN policy
- Co-ordinating provision for children with special education needs
- Liaising with and advising fellow teachers
- Managing learning support assistants
- Overseeing the records of all children with special educational needs
- Liaising with parents of children with special educational needs
- Contributing to in-service training of staff
- Liaising with external agencies including the CSA's support and educational psychology services, health and social services, and voluntary bodies.
Teachers
- Identify children with Special Educational Needs by providing evidence of progress and needs.
- Refer SEN pupils to SENCO
- Liaise closely with SENCO
- Attend termly review meetings with parents and SENCO
- Monitor progress closely and provide evidence of progress at each stage, when required
- Ensure work stated on the children's IEP's are fulfilled.
Parents
- Parents should be informed of child's progress and areas of concern as soon as possible
- They should be made aware of how they can best help their child and the action to be taken in school
- The importance of their contribution in deciding upon the best course of action
- The parents should be involved in the termly reviews so they are well informed as to the progress their child is making
Planned Expenditure:
Staffing
The governors have appointed a part-time teacher to work .5 of a week in a learning support role. This post is in addition to the normal school establishment and is funded, in part, from the S.E.N. budget.
The S.E.N. co-ordinator has been awarded two-responsibility point above C.P.S.; this will be funded from the S.E.N. budget. The SENCO is given cover for two days per term to work exclusively on SEN affairs and, in addition, receives two half day's support each week to complete SEN administration. In addition to this the SENCO receives eight days a year Monitoring and Evaluating time.
An annual allocation to the S.E.N. department for educational equipment and resources comes directly from the S.E.N. budget
Other monies are used to purchase assessment materials for the SEN department
INSET
Funding from the Standard Fund School Effectiveness Grant will be used for training related to the Code of Practice and to new SEN initiatives.
General SEN Resources
Resources within school are centrally held. A list of resources can be obtained from the SENCO. All reading books are colour coded and have a gold star on them and are for pupils unable to benefit from the school reading scheme. They have been purchased to maintain a high interest level while containing a low reading level. They also provide continuity and progression. All these books are also marked with a gold star to differentiate from the school reading scheme.
17.0 Teaching Arrangements
The Learning Support teacher, Mrs Newbery is timetabled to provide support pupils at School Action Plus on a 1-1 withdrawal basis. In-class support is also offered throughout the school.. There are also classroom assistants in the majority of classes and Y5 and Y6 have booster classes to help meet the needs of the pupils
18.0 In-Service Training
The SENCO will attend all appropriate in-service courses organised by the CSA and will liaise closely with the Principal Special Educational Needs Officer. SEN INSET training days and informal school-based twilight meetings will be held regularly to keep staff in school informed.
19.0 Evaluation and Review
The school's Special Educational Needs policy will be regularly reviewed and updated by the SENCO with the help of the headteacher and support staff. The policy will be discussed with the Advisor for Special Educational Needs and other interested outside agencies. The SENCO will be expected to attend all LEA organised INSET courses and liaison meetings.
The governors will discuss the SEN policy on an annual basis and a report to parents will be included as part of the governor's annual report to parents.
The criteria for the success of the policy will be the ability of the school to meet the needs of all the pupils and to provide effective teaching and learning in every area of the curriculum. Performance indicators will include, pupil assessment, feedback from pupils, parents and governors, and reports from outside agencies including OFSTED.
