Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities are assessed when they arrive in school or as soon as their needs become apparent.

Some needs are quite mild, requiring no more intervention than high quality teaching, regular encouragement and monitoring; some children need carefully differentiated work, while others’ needs are greater, and may require one or more of a range of strategies, varying from extra support provided by a Teacher or Teaching Assistant to the delivery of specific learning intervention materials administered to small groups or even on an individual basis.

A record of every child on the SEND register logs their needs, the support they have received and their progress and is kept by the  co-ordinator.

All teachers have a responsibility to identify and meet the special educational needs of students. Those children should be taught together with their peers as much as possible and have full access to the national curriculum. We understand that children make progress at different rates and have different ways in which they learn best. When planning lessons based around the National Curriculum, your child’s teacher will take account of this by looking carefully at how they organise their lessons, classroom, books and materials.

These were introduced in September 2014 and replaced Statements of Special Educational Need and Disabilities. This is an excerpt from the SEND Code of Practice 2014 describing EHC Plans:

The majority of children and young people with SEND will have their needs met within local mainstream early years providers, schools or colleges. A local authority must conduct an assessment of education, health and care needs and prepare an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan when it considers that it may be necessary for special educational provision to be made for the child or young person through an EHC plan. This is likely to be where the special educational provision required to meet the child or young person’s needs cannot reasonably be provided from within the resources normally available to mainstream early years providers, schools and post 16 institutions. This statutory assessment should not be the first step in the process; rather it should follow on from planning already undertaken with parents and young people in conjunction with an early years provider, school, post-16 institution or other provider. EHC plans must be focused on the outcomes the child or young person seeks to achieve across education, health and care. EHC plans must set out how services will work together to meet the child or young person’s needs and in support of those outcomes. EHC plans will be based on a co-ordinated assessment and planning process which puts the child and young person and their parents at the centre of decision making.

Statutory assessment will not always lead to an EHC plan. The information gathered during an assessment may indicate ways in which the school, college or other provider can meet the child or young person’s needs from within available resources.

All children on the SEND register have an individual provision map and a Learning Profile which identify the child’s needs, targets areas of particular difficulty and record interventions. These documents identify the steps that are to be taken to support the child’s learning, learning targets and a date for reviewing progress. They are discussed with both the child and parents. Parents are invited to reviews which assess progress made under the current plan and set new targets.

Where the school alone does not have the resources to provide sufficient help for the child a full assessment is carried out and, if the authorities agree to a ‘Education, Health and Care Plan’ (EHCP), help is provided from central funds. This procedure applies to very few children.

Many children make good progress when given some extra help and are then no longer recorded on the SEND register; others will continue to need support if they are to make progress in the curriculum.

The school is accessible for students with some physical needs. Adaptations include:

• Ramps
• Lifts
• Accessible toilets in main areas of the school site

The school has been assessed by Visual Impairment specialists and adaptations have been made for visually impaired students such as highlighting tape for obstacles, yellow strips on stairs and thresholds. The school works closely with the Hearing Impaired Service to ensure that FM systems are compatible with each other. Accessibility options are used within the IT systems to ensure they are accessible to all.

We have a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities policy which is available to any parents. Our policy follows the new Code of Practice for pupils with Special Educational Needs 2014 and the Equality Act 2010.

• Mrs E Healey, Assistant Headteacher (Inclusion & Transition)
• Mrs J Timms, EHCP Manager.
• Miss A Warrington, Deputy SENDCo.

Should you have questions about SEND provision at Tytherington, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

You can click here to view our Equality policy.

If you would like further information regarding the new SEND Code of Practice, please click this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-guide-for-parents-and-carers

If you have any concerns or queries regarding your child’s SEND needs, please email the SEND Helpdesk: sendhelpdesk@tytheringtonschool.co.uk