3. Links with other School Policies

This policy should be read in conjunction with the following school policies:

• Behaviour and Exclusion
• Equality Policy & Action Plan
• Teaching and Learning
• Positive Handling
• Child Protection
• Complaints
• Medical Care

This policy will be developed and reviewed with parents/carers across the school. This process will involve inviting parents/carers and other stakeholders in school, the opportunity to review the draft SEN policy, together with representatives from the governing body. Requests for responses to be returned within two weeks will be made. Following this, any responses will be reviewed comprising of parents who have responded, governors and SENCO, The draft copy will then be revised and presented to the Governing Body for ratification and publishing.

The policy will be reviewed annually, and published on the website. Hard copies of this policy are available upon request from the School Office.

A child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her. In other words, if they require a curriculum/ support that is significantly different or additional to their peers.

A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty if he or she:

1. Has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age; or
2. Has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions. SEN Code of Practice (2015, p 15)

However, the definition of what constitutes SEN Support is less clear. In order to help schools, colleges and early years settings accurately identify their SEN Support cohort, KCC provides the following clarification of what constitutes SEN Support:

"SEN support is intensive and personalised intervention which is required to enable the child/young person (CYP) to be engaged in learning.  It will usually involve significant amounts of resource from the educational setting (approaching or exceeding the nationally prescribed threshold for schools and colleges, and SCARF funding for EYFS). Each CYP identified as SEN Support will have Outcomes which have been agreed through a process of collaboration and discussion. A personalised programme of support will be devised and be reviewed and adjusted frequently (at least three times per year) with close CYP and/or parental involvement."

Many children and young people who have SEN may also have a disability under the Equality Act 2010 – that is’…a physical or mental impairment which has a long-term and substantial adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’.  This definition provides a relatively low threshold and includes more children than many realise: ‘long-term’ is defined as ‘a year or more’ and ‘substantial’ is defined as ‘more than minor or trivial’ SEN Code of Practice (2015, p16)

At Hawkhurst CEP, we can make provision for every kind of frequently occurring special educational need without an Education, Health and Care Plan, for instance Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Speech and Language needs, Auditory Processing Disorder, ADHD, ADD, Autism, Physical Impairment, Visual and Hearing impairment, learning difficulties and behaviour difficulties. There are other kinds of special educational need which do not occur as frequently and with which the school is less familiar, but we can access training and advice so that these kinds of needs can also be met. 

The school also currently meets the needs of pupils with an Education, Health and Care plan. Decisions on the admission of pupils with an Education, Health and Care plan are made by the Local Authority in conjunction with the school.

The admission arrangements for pupils without an Education, Health and Care Plan do not discriminate against or disadvantage disabled children or those with special educational needs.

8. Who is the SEN Co-ordinator?

The SENCO at Hawkhurst CEP Primary School is Mrs Nicola Poland, who is Assistant Headteacher and a qualified teacher. She has been accredited with the National Award for SEN Co-ordination and Senior Mental Health Lead, is a trained ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) and a Youth Mental Health First Aider. She has also completed the following training: Child Protection, Language for Learning, ASD Awareness, Dyslexia Awareness, Developmental Dyscalculia Awareness, Leuven training, Boxall Profile training and Language Workshops and also keeps up to date with AEN updates and other training courses relevant to the position.

Mrs Poland is available on 01580 753254 or e-mail senco@hawkhurst.kent.sch.uk.

Teaching and Learning

High quality teaching, differentiated for individual pupils, is the first step in responding to pupils who have or may have SEN.  Additional intervention and support cannot compensate for a lack of good quality teaching.  Schools should regularly and carefully review the quality of teaching for all pupils, including those at risk of underachievement. This includes reviewing and, where necessary, improving, teachers’ understanding of strategies to identify and support vulnerable pupils and their knowledge of the SEN most frequently encountered.  SEN Code of Practice (2015, 6.37).

In Hawkhurst Primary School the quality of teaching is judged to be good or better than good by the Local Authority.

We follow the Mainstream Core Standards advice developed by Kent County Council to ensure that our teaching conforms to best practice. Please see web link below:

https://www.kelsi.org.uk/special-education-needs/special-educational-needs/the-mainstream-core-standards

In meeting the Mainstream Core Standards the school employs some additional teaching approaches, as advised by internal and external assessments e.g. one to one tutoring, precision teaching, mentoring, small group teaching, use of ICT software learning packages etc.  These are delivered by existing staff and some additional staff employed through the funding provided to the school as ‘notional SEN funding’.

We employ 12 teaching assistants (TAs) across the school. One of these is an HLTA (Higher Level Teaching Assistant.) TAs are based with a class and run intervention groups at appropriate times throughout the day according to the requirements specified on the Provision Maps.

Using evidence-based research including the DISS Report, Sutton Trust Toolkit findings and current thinking from groups including NASEN, derived from information received by SENCO at AEN updates, training has been delivered explaining the effective use of teaching assistants.  Teaching assistants play a key part in supporting children’s learning in our school and we are aware that a key question to reflect on regarding this support is: What impact is the support having on children’s learning at every point in the session?

We have discussed effective deployment strategies to use in class and around school and all teachers are aware of how to use Teaching Assistants at different points in the lesson:

Support during whole class teaching

• Ensuring access (for example by simplifying or translating the teacher’s language, helping a child formulate answers to questions, helping a child to use resources, signing, or scribing);
• Sitting close to children who need support and giving them focused help (for example, reminding child of previously learned strategies, encouraging use of correct language);
• Working with children to prepare them to answer a question the teacher has given them time to think about;
• Providing images, pictures and tactile, practical resources to help children’s understanding;
• Providing appropriate praise and encouragement;
• Supporting children with behaviour difficulties, e.g. helping to settle and involve them, and keep attention directed to the task;
• Observing individual children for assessment purposes;
• Monitoring progress of class or individuals on behaviour targets.

Support during group work

• Ensuring access to the task (for example by scribing, signing, helping the child use ICT, providing adapted resources);
• Going over the teaching in an earlier part of the lesson, giving time for more explanation and examples, and for children to explain their thinking to others;
• Supporting work on teacher-planned differentiated tasks;
• Ensuring access to resources children may need in order to understand what is being taught;
• Guided and supported reading/writing/talk;
• Pre-tutoring for future whole class work or the plenary;
• Coaching behaviour/group work skills;
• Supervising the class while a teacher works with a particular group.

Questions to ask when giving support to Individual Children

• Is the support clearly focused on moving the child on – is the learning objective and outcome known?
• Is the child able to have time when they are working unsupported or supported by peers to reduce the risk of over-dependency?
• Is the support being offered enabling interaction between the child and their peers, or is it inadvertently acting as a barrier to such interactions?
• Discretion – is the support is given sensitively?

11. What additional support is available to pupils with special educational needs?

As part of our budget we receive ‘notional SEN funding’.  This funding is used to ensure that the quality of teaching is good in the school and that there are sufficient resources to deploy additional and different teaching for pupils requiring SEN support. 

The amount of support required for each pupil to make good progress will be different in each case. In very few cases a very high level of resource is required.   The funding arrangements require schools to provide up to £6000 per year of resource for pupils with high needs, above that amount application will be made for High Needs Funding.

All clubs, trips and activities offered to pupils at our school are available to pupils with special educational needs either with or without an Education, Health and Care Plan.  Where it is necessary, the school will use the resources available to it to provide additional adult support to enable the safe participation of the pupil in the activity.

However, while every effort will be made to include all pupils on educational trips and to provide activities that all are able to access, where it is considered unsafe to include a particular pupil because there are serious doubts concerning their behaviour or it is felt that they represent significant risks to themselves or others within the group (including staff), the Head Teacher will make a final decision on whether the pupil should access the trip and suitable alternatives that will meet the educational needs of the visit will be planned.

At our school we understand that an important feature of the school is to enable all pupils to develop emotional resilience and social skills, both through direct teaching for instance through Circle Time and PSHE, Lego group and resources and indirectly with every conversation adults have with pupils throughout the day. 

For some pupils with the most need for help in this area we also can provide the following: access to counsellor, support from Place2Be, mentor time with a member of staff, time in ‘The Nest’ at lunchtimes, ELSA sessions and time with FLO to address immediate needs.

Pupils in the early stages of emotional and social development because of their special educational needs will be supported to enable them to develop and mature appropriately.  This will usually require additional and different resources, beyond that required by pupils who do not need this support.

14. What are the expertise and training of staff in relation to children with SEND and how does the school secure specialist expertise?

Information relating to specific training attended by teachers and teaching assistants can be accessed by request to the SENCO. She is also able to provide, on request, a list of members of staff who have received enhanced and specialist training.

Where a training need is identified beyond this, we will find a provider who is able to deliver it.  Training providers we can approach are Broomhill Bank Outreach team, Educational Psychologist, Speech and Language Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist etc. The school also works closely with other local schools to share expertise and training and will access advice from the Specialist Teaching Service.  The cost of training is covered by the notional SEN funding.

15. How are equipment and facilities used to support children with SEND secured?

Where external advisors recommend the use of equipment or facilities which the school does not have, we will purchase it using the notional SEN funding or seek it by loan.  For highly specialist communication equipment the school will seek the advice of the KCC Communication and Assistive Technology team.

Recording and Assessment

At Hawkhurst CEP we monitor the progress of all pupils through formal assessments and Pupil Progress Meetings up to six times a year. Through this regular review of attainment and progress, teachers are able to swiftly identify any pupil who is not making the progress expected of them and immediate action to address this is agreed with the SLT and the SENCO. In addition to this, we use a range of standardised and other assessments with pupils to support more specific identification of need as required:

Where progress is not sufficient, even if a special educational need has not been identified, we put in place extra support to enable the pupil to catch up. In class these may include the following: pencil grips, fiddle toy, work station etc. Examples of interventions in place are listed below:

Some pupils may continue to make inadequate progress, despite high-quality teaching targeted at their areas of weakness.  For these pupils, and in consultation with parents, we will use a range of assessment tools to determine the cause of the learning difficulty.  At Hawkhurst CEP we are experienced in using the following assessment tools:

• Sandwell Numeracy Assessment
• Speech Link
• Language Link
• Language for Learning
• BURT (reading age)
• Boxall Profile
• YARC
• Lucid Rapid
• Lass 8-11
• BPVS
• Ravens
• Nara II

We also have access to external advisors who are able to use their own specialised assessment tools:

We can access specialist teacher support though LIFT meetings.  They are able to:

Offer educational support to ensure full access to the learning environment, curriculum and information, and to promote the independence and resilience for children and young people. Specialist Teachers for Visual Impairment, Hearing Impairment, Cognition and Interaction, and behaviour are deployed on the basis of ongoing proactive needs analysis to provide high quality, highly specialist information, intervention and support for children and young people both in the home and school.

We are also able to access physiotherapists and occupational therapists.

The purpose of this more detailed assessment is to understand what additional resources and different approaches are required to enable the pupil to make better progress.  These will be shared with parents, put into a Personalised Plan and reviewed regularly, and refined / revised if necessary.  At this point we will have identified that the pupil has a special educational need because the school is making special educational provision for the pupil which is significantly additional and different to what is normally available.  Children receiving significant and ongoing additional support or those with a diagnosis will be on the school’s SEN support register. For children receiving significant and ongoing support, a detailed, individual Provision Plan is created, rather than including them on the class Provision Map which shows the additional support for all children within the class if appropriate. Children who do not meet this criteria will continue to be monitored closely.

If the pupil is able to make good progress using this additional and different resource (but would not be able to maintain this good progress without it) we will continue to identify the pupil as having a special educational need. 

If the pupil is able to maintain good progress without the additional and different resources he or she will not be identified with special educational needs. When any change in identification of SEN is changed parents will be notified.

We will ensure that all teachers and support staff who work with the pupil are aware of the support to be provided and the teaching approaches to be used.

At Hawkhurst we have direct access to an Educational Psychologist who works with the school to support individual pupils through SBRs (School Based Reviews) and Assessments. These are all carried out with the support and the permission of the parents.

Monitoring and Evaluating

All reviews will be informed by the views of the pupil, parents and class/subject teachers and the assessment information from teachers which will show whether adequate progress is being made.

The SEN Code of Practice (2015, 6.17) describes inadequate progress thus:

Is significantly slower than that of their peers starting from the same baseline

Fails to match or better the child’s previous rate of progress

Fails to close the attainment gap between rate of progress

Widens the attainment gap

For pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan there will be an Annual Review of the provision made for the child, which will enable an evaluation of the effectiveness of the special provision. 

19. What are the school’s arrangements for assessing and reviewing the progress of pupils with Special Educational Needs?

At Hawkhurst we use NTS to assess every pupil three times a year. We also use Insight to track the attainment and progress of our pupils. In addition to this, pupils with special educational needs may have more frequent assessments of reading age, spelling age etc.  The assessments we use at Hawkhurst CEP can be found in Section 8. Using these it will be possible to see if pupils are increasing their level of skills in key areas.

If these assessments do not show adequate progress is being made the SEN support plan (Provision Map) will be reviewed and adjusted.

All parents of pupils at Hawkhurst CEP are invited to discuss the progress of their children three times a year, and receive a written report once per year.  In addition, we are happy to arrange meetings outside these times. These meetings will be with the class teacher and/ or the SENCO. As part of our normal teaching arrangements, all pupils will access some additional teaching to help them catch-up if the progress monitoring indicates that this is necessary; this will not imply that the pupil has a special educational need.  All such provision will be recorded, tracked and evaluated on a Provision Map which is available at parent’s request.

If following this normal provision improvements in progress are not seen, we may use internal or external assessments which will help us to address these needs better.  Parents will be actively supported to contribute to assessment, planning and review. However, only children with either a diagnosis or receiving significant and ongoing support to maintain progress will be listed on our SEN support register.

In addition to this, parents of pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan will be invited to contribute to and attend an annual review, which, wherever possible will also include other agencies involved with the pupil. Information will be made accessible for parents prior to the meeting.

21. What are the arrangements for consulting children with SEND and involving them in their education?

When a pupil has been identified to have special educational needs because special educational provision is being made for him or her, the pupil will be consulted about and involved in the arrangements made for them as part of person-centred planning.  Parents are likely to play a more significant role in the childhood years with the young person taking more responsibility and acting with greater independence in later years.

The normal arrangements for the treatment of complaints at Hawkhurst CEP School are used for complaints about provision made for special educational needs.  We encourage parents to discuss their concerns firstly with the class teacher who is responsible for the provision made for the children in their class. After that the SENCO, Assistant Headteacher or Head teacher can be consulted to resolve the issue before making the complaint formal. A copy of the Complaints Procedure can be obtained by request at the school office.

If the complaint is not resolved after it has been considered by the governing body, then a disagreement resolution service or mediation service can be contracted.  If it remains unresolved after this, the complainant can appeal to the First–tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability), if the case refers to disability discrimination, or to the Secretary of State for all other cases.

There are some circumstances, usually for children who have an Education Health Care Plan, where there is a statutory right for parents to appeal against a decision of the Local Authority. Complaints which fall within this category cannot be investigated by the school.

The governing body have engaged with the following bodies:

• Free membership of LIFT for access to specialist teaching and learning service
• A Service Level Agreement with Educational Psychology Service
• Link to Disabled Children’s Service for support to families for some pupils with high needs
• Access to local authority’s service level agreement with Occupational Therapy Services / Physiotherapy Services for pupil with requirement for direct therapy or advice following the required number of support sessions in school
• Ability to make ad hoc requests for advice from Communication and Assistive Technology Team, etc
• Membership of professional networks for SENCO eg NAS, SENCO forum, NASEN etc (through AEN update)
• Utilisation of the Early Help and Preventative Services from Kent Integrated Family Support Service (KIFSS) and Kent Integrated Adolescent Support Service (KIASS)

24. What are the contact details of support services for the parents of pupils with SEND, and children and young people with SEND up to age 25. (Code of Practice 2015, 6.39)

Information Advice and Support Kent (IASK) provides a free and confidential, information, advice and support service, for parents of a disabled child or a child with special educational needs and to children and young people up to age 25 who have a special educational need or disability.

Trained staff can provide impartial legally based information and support on educational matters relating to special educational needs and disabilities, including health and social care. The aim is to empower parents, children and young people to fully participate in discussions and make informed choices and decisions. Also to feel confident to express their views and wishes about education and future aspirations.

They can be contacted on:

HELPLINE: 03000 41 3000

Office: 0300 412412

Email: iask@kent.gov.uk

www.kent.gov.uk/iask 1

At Hawkhurst CEP School we work closely with the educational settings used by the pupils before they transfer to us in order to seek the information that will make the transfer as seamless as possible. 

1. From Early Years Settings (Nurseries/ Preschools) into Reception – visits are made to all the local settings prior to starting in September.  Meetings with parents follow this visit either at school or home, and where necessary a transition booklet is produced for the child.
2. From Year group to Year group – children participate in a changeover afternoon where they meet their new teachers in the summer term. Class teachers complete transition meetings in Term 6, where current and new class teachers meet to share progress data and discuss provision maps. One-page profiles are also discussed to prepare new class teachers to support vulnerable pupils in their class. For children with SEND and medical needs, a transition meeting is held where the current staff involved, SENCO and future staff involved are present.  Current support is described and future support is discussed.  Again, a transition booklet is produced where necessary.
3. From Year 6 into secondary school – transition forms are completed by Year 6 staff. In addition, the secondary school staff will visit the children here in school to prepare for transition to Key Stage 3. In some cases, additional visits are organised to support more vulnerable children and the SENCOs from both settings will meet to assist families with this process. One Page Profiles will be handed on to KS3 settings to support vulnerable students and their new teachers.

26. Where is the local authority’s local offer published?

The local authority’s local offer is published on the following web address:

http://www.kent.gov.uk/education-and-children/special-educational-needs

Parents without internet access should make an appointment with the SENCO for support to gain the information they require.

Health and Safety

At Hawkhurst CEP School we follow the advice in the Mainstream Core Standards on how to adapt the curriculum and the learning environment for pupils with special educational needs.  We also incorporate the advice provided as a result of assessments, both internal and external, and the strategies described in Education, Health and Care Plans.

As part of our requirement to keep the appropriateness of our curriculum and learning environment under review the Governors have made the following improvements as part of the school’s accessibility planning:

modification within the school building to incorporate a Care Suite

repainting of disabled parking bays

removal of the edging of paths

Should access for wheelchairs need to be changed, the doorways will be widened.

Teaching Assistants are supported by Class Teachers and the SENCO to ensure that children within the class are supported and appropriate provision is made for them.  If modifications are required to the curriculum this will be carried out in conjunction with the Class Teacher and SENCO.

Training courses are provided for all staff in accordance with priorities and needs within the school.