The aim of this section is to explain how we implement our SEND policy. In other words, we want to show you how SEND support works in our school.  If you want to know more about our arrangements for SEND, read our SEND policy.

You can find it on our website HERE

You can ask a member of staff to send you the policy.

Our school provides for pupils with the following needs in line with the Kent Mainstream Core Standards. 

 

Area of need	Condition
Communication and interaction	Autism or characteristics of aspects of Autism Spectrum
	Speech, language and communication
Cognition and learning	Specific learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia)
	Moderate learning difficulties
	Severe learning difficulties
Social, emotional and mental health	Attention difficulties including ADHD and ADD
	Attachment Difficulties
	Difficulty in making and maintaining healthy relationships
	Anxiety (e.g. fight, flight, freeze, fold responses)
Sensory and/or physical needs	Hearing impairment
	Visual impairment
	Multi-sensory impairment
	Physical disability

Which staff will support my child, and what training have they had?

Your child’s class or subject teacher has the lead responsibility for the progress of your child. We also have a team of teaching assistants (TAs) that may provide in-class, small group or individualised support. In addition, there are members of staff with specific responsibilities who may also support your child, these include but are not limited to our Family Liaison Officers (FLOs), Attendance Officer, School Nurse, canteen (dietary) and admin staff.

 

All teachers and TAs receive regular training, such as annual autism training, autism in girls and ADHD. In addition, we have TAs who are trained in more specialist areas such as speech and language, nurture, welfare or other specific areas of need.

 

Where a training need is identified beyond this we will find a provider who is able to deliver it to our staff.  Training providers we can approach are TISS, educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, sensory specialist teacher service etc.  The cost of training is covered by the notional SEND funding.

Our special educational needs co-ordinators, or SENCOs

We have three SENCOs at St George’s. At primary, Mrs Mirams and at secondary Mr Knight and Mrs Burdock. They are all qualified teachers and have achieved the postgraduate National Award in Special Education Needs Co-ordination (NASENCO).

External agencies and experts

Sometimes we need extra help to offer our pupils the support that they need. Whenever necessary we will work with external support services to meet the needs of our pupils with SEND and to support their families. These include:

• Local Inclusion Forum Team (LIFT)
• Speech and language therapists
• Educational psychologists
• Occupational therapists
• GPs or paediatricians
• School nurses
• Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS)
• Education welfare officers
• Social services and other LA-provided support services
• Voluntary sector organisations

If you think your child might have SEND, the first person you should tell is your child’s teacher.  You can contact your teacher by email or by contacting the school reception. They will pass the message on to the relevant SENCO, who will be in touch to discuss your concerns.

You can also contact the SENCOs directly: 

Primary School: Mrs Mirams is available on 01843 861696 or PrimarySENCO@st-georgescofe-thanet.kent.sch.uk.

Secondary School: Mrs Burdock is available on 01843 861696 or maureenburdock@st-georgescofe-thanet.kent.sch.uk. Mr Knight is available on 01843 609000 or SecondarySENCO@st-georgescofe-thanet.kent.sch.uk

We will meet with you to discuss your concerns and try to get a better understanding of what your child’s strengths and needs are.  Together we will decide what outcomes to seek for your child and agree on next steps. We will make a note of what’s been discussed and add this to your child’s record

If we decide that your child needs SEND support, your child will be added to the school’s SEND register.

At St George’s Church of England Foundation School we monitor the progress of all pupils a minimum of 3 times a year to review their academic progress.  We use baseline assessments for all new primary pupils. All year R and Year 3 all pupils receive speech and language screening

Where progress is not sufficient, even if special educational need has not been identified, we put in place extra support to enable the pupil to catch up.  Examples of extra support include (but are not limited to) TA support in the classroom, numeracy and literacy programmes in small groups and 1:1, accelerated reader, precision teaching and speech and language interventions.

If the pupil is still struggling to make the expected progress, the teacher will talk to the SENCO, and will contact you to discuss the possibility that your child has SEND.

Some pupils may continue to make inadequate progress, despite high-quality teaching targeted at their areas of weakness.  The SENCO will ask for your opinion and speak to your child to get their input as well. They may also, where appropriate, ask for the opinion of external experts such as a speech and language therapist, an educational psychologist, or a paediatrician.

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.  Extra support will be shared with parents, often put into a SEND 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 additional and different to what is normally available. 

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. 

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.

 

How will the school measure my child’s progress?

We will follow the ‘graduated approach’ to meeting your child’s SEND needs.

The graduated approach is a 4-part cycle of assess, plan, do, review. 

 

Assess

If your child is not making the expected level of progress, we will make an assessment to find out what strengths and difficulties your child has. We will ask for you and your child’s input, as well as getting help from external professionals where necessary.

 

Plan

In discussion with you and your child, we will decide what outcomes we are hoping to achieve. We will make a plan of the support we will offer your child to help them meet those outcomes. We will make a record of this and share it with you and all relevant school staff.

 

Do

We will put our plan into practice.

The class teacher, with the support of the SENCO, will be responsible for working with your child on a daily basis, and making sure the support we put in place is having the impact we intended.

 

Review

We will assess how well the support we put in place helped the pupil to meet the outcomes we set. We will use our improved understanding of your child’s needs to improve the support we offer.

 

As a part of the planning stage of the graduated approach, we will set outcomes that we want to see your child achieve.

Whenever we run an intervention with your child, we will assess them before the intervention begins and again at the end. We do this so we can see how much impact the intervention has on your child’s progress.

We will track your child’s progress towards the outcomes we set over time and develop our offer as we learn what your child responds to best.

This process will be continual. If the review shows a pupil has made progress, they may no longer need the additional provision made through SEND support. For others, the cycle will continue and the school's targets, strategies and provisions will be revisited and refined.

We will provide academic overviews three times a year, as well as an annual full school report.

At primary, your child’s class teacher will meet you or call you three times a year to:

·       Set clear outcomes for your child’s progress

·       Review progress towards those outcomes

·       Discuss the support we will put in place to help your child make that progress

·       Identify what we will do, what we will ask you to do, and what we will ask your child to do

The SENCO may also attend these meetings to provide extra support as these may take place as part of your child’s parents’ evening.

In secondary, there are more teachers for your child, so you will be contacted in writing both before and after interventions, to inform you of progress towards their outcomes and may be invited for meetings or phone calls with the SEND team to review support if required.

We know that you’re the expert when it comes to your child’s needs and aspirations. So we want to make sure you have a full understanding of how we’re trying to meet your child’s needs, so that you can provide insight into what you think would work best for your child.

We also want to hear from you as much as possible so that we can build a better picture of how the SEND support we are providing is impacting your child outside of school. If your child’s needs or aspirations change at any time, please let us know right away so we can keep our provision as relevant as possible.

After any discussion regarding SEND provision we will make a record of any outcomes, actions and support that have been agreed. This record will be shared with all relevant staff, and you will be given a copy. 

If you have concerns that arise between these meetings, please contact your child’s class or subject teacher in the first instance by email or by contacting reception.

 

 

How will my child be involved in decisions made about their education?

The level of involvement will depend on your child’s age, and level of competence. We recognise that no two children are the same, so we will decide on a case-by-case basis, with your input.

We may seek your child’s views by asking them to:

·       Attend meetings to discuss their progress and outcomes

·       Prepare a presentation, written statement, video, drawing, etc.

·       Discuss their views with a member of staff who can act as a representative during the meeting

·       Complete a survey

Your child’s teacher is/are responsible and accountable for the progress and development of all the pupils in their class.

High-quality teaching is our first step in responding to your child’s needs. We will make sure that your child has access to a broad and balanced curriculum in every year they are at our school.

We will differentiate (or adapt) how we teach to suit the way the pupil works best. There is no 'one size fits all’ approach to adapting the curriculum, we work on a case-by case basis to make sure the adaptations we make are meaningful to your child.

These adaptations are in accordance with the Mainstream Core Standards, which forms part of the Kent Local Offer. A full list of suggested adaptations linked to various needs can be found here. The school may utilise other adaptations or suggestions based on research or recommendations from specialists or external advisors.

The school also has an accessibility plan, which can be found within our Equality Policy to ensure pupils with disabilities can fully participate in the curriculum.

 

How will the school evaluate whether the support in place is helping my child?

Every pupil in the school has their progress tracked three times per year.  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 St George’s Church of England Foundation School include Single Word Reading Tests and similar assessments.  Using assessments such as 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 SEND provision plan will be reviewed and adjusted.

We will evaluate the effectiveness of provision for your child by:

·         Reviewing their progress towards their goals

·         Reviewing the impact of interventions after it is completed

·         Using pupil questionnaires

·         Monitoring by the SENCOs

·         Using provision maps to measure progress

·         Holding an annual review (if they have an education, health and care (EHC) plan)

 

How will the school resources be secured for my child?

School funding is used to ensure that the quality of teaching is good or better in the school and that there are sufficient resources to deploy additional and different teaching for pupils requiring SEND support.  It may be that your child’s needs mean we need to secure:

·       Extra equipment or facilities

·       More teaching assistant hours

·       Further training for our staff

·       External specialist expertise

If that’s the case, we will consult with external agencies to get recommendations on what will best help your child access their learning.

The funding arrangements require schools to provide up to £6000 per year of resource for pupils with high needs, and above that amount the Local Authority should provide top up to the school through High Needs Funding

All of our extra-curricular activities and school visits are available to all our pupils, including our before and after-school clubs.

All pupils are encouraged to go on our school trips, including our residential trip(s) in Year 6, camping trip in Year 7, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme or other residential visits that may arise.

All pupils are encouraged to take part in after school clubs or any other extra-curricular activities.

No pupil is ever excluded from taking part in these activities because of their SEND or disability and we will make whatever reasonable adjustments are needed to make sure that they can be included.

 

How does the school support pupils with disabilities?

The school as a Equality Policy which includes an accessibility plan setting out how we support pupils to ensure an inclusive environment at St George’s. Out school vision and values emphasise the importance of each individual and has clear procedures in place to deal with bullying or discrimination of any kind. Pastoral support is available to all pupils to provide additional support if and when required.

Where external advisors recommend the use of equipment or facilities which the school does not have, we will purchase it using the notional SEND 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.

 

How will the school support my child’s mental health and emotional and social development?

We provide support for pupils to progress in their emotional and social development in the following ways:

·       Pupils with SEND are encouraged to be part of the school student voice

·       Pupils with SEND are also encouraged to be part of a range of after school and lunchtime clubs or activities to promote teamwork/building friendships

·       At primary, we provide a nurture provision for pupils who need extra support with social or emotional development.

·       In secondary, we provide a comprehensive wellbeing and pastoral support programme that can provide appropriate support as required.

Prospective pupils with SEND should follow the local authority procedures for applying for a school place. Parents of prospective pupils with SEND may wish to visit the school to discuss their child’s needs with the SENCOs and should contact the school to arrange this. In addition, we ensure the admissions process is fair by:

·       Ensuring Looked after Children and those pupils with an EHCP are given priority within our admissions criteria.

·       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.

 

What support will be available for my child as they transition between classes or settings or in preparing for adulthood?

 

Between years in primary:

To help pupils with SEND be prepared for a new school year we:

·       Ask both the current teacher and the next year’s teacher to attend the final meeting of the year when the pupil’s SEND is discussed

·       Schedule lessons with the incoming teacher towards the end of the summer term

Between schools:

When your child is moving on from our school, we will share appropriate information with their new school. This is to ensure they continue to receive support in their new school.  

Between our primary and secondary school:

The SENCO of our secondary school will meet with our primary SENCO for those transitioning within St George’s. They will discuss the needs of all the children who are receiving SEND support or have EHCPs and their files will be provided to the secondary school.

Depending on their need pupils may be prepared for the transition by:

·       Practising with a secondary school timetable

·       Learning how to get organised independently 

·       Undertaking additional visits to our secondary school

Between phases (from other primary schools):

The SENCO of the primary school meets with our SENCO to discuss the needs of the incoming pupils during the summer term.

We arrange meetings with the parents of incoming pupils with EHCPs to discuss how we can best welcome their child into our community and to discuss provision plans.

We will look at providing enhanced transition arrangements on a case-by-case basis if required. These might include additional visits to the school for your child, visits from the SENCO or year team to the primary school or other suitable activities.

Onto adulthood (for secondary schools):

We provide all our pupils with appropriate advice on paths into work or further education, including independent careers advise.

We work with the pupil to help them achieve their ambitions, which can include goals in higher education, employment, independent living and participation in society. 

We work closely with the local college, who will usually send a relevant member of staff to the final EHCP annual review in Year 11.

Mr Chris Knight is our Designated Teacher for Looked After Children and is also our secondary school SENCO and works closely with Mrs Mirams in primary. They work to ensure that all teachers understand how a looked-after or previously looked-after pupil’s circumstances and their SEND might interact, and what the implications are for teaching and learning.

Children who are looked-after or previously looked-after will be supported much in the same way as any other child who has SEND. However, looked-after pupils will also have a personal education plan (PEP). We will make sure that the PEP and any SEND support plans or EHC plans are consistent and complement one another and where possible will seek to hold these meetings on the same day to avoid duplication.

Where parents have concerns about our school’s SEND provision, they should first raise their concerns informally with the relevant class teacher or Head of Year. We will try to resolve the complaint informally in the first instance. If this does not resolve their concerns, parents are welcome to submit their complaint formally.

 

Formal complaints about SEND provision in our school should be made to the SENCO in the first instance. They will be handled in line with the school’s complaints policy.

 

If the parent or carer is not satisfied with the school’s response, they can escalate the complaint. In some circumstances, this right also applies to the pupil themselves.

To see a full explanation of suitable avenues for complaint, see pages 246 and 247 of the SEND Code of Practice.  

If you feel that our school discriminated against your child because of their SEND, you have the right to make a discrimination claim to the first-tier SEND tribunal. To find out how to make such a claim, you should visit: https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-school/disability-discrimination

You can make a claim about alleged discrimination regarding:

·       Admission

·       Exclusion

·       Provision of education and associated services

·       Making reasonable adjustments, including the provision of auxiliary aids and services

Before going to a SEND tribunal, you can go through processes called disagreement resolution or mediation, where you try to resolve your disagreement before it reaches the tribunal. Information on this from Kent County Council can be found here.

If you have questions about SEND, or are struggling to cope, please get in touch to let us know. We want to support you, your child and your family.

To see what support is available to you locally, have a look at the Kent local offer. Kent County Council publishes information about the local offer on their website:

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

Our local special educational needs and disabilities information advice and support services (SENDIASS) organisations is ‘Information Advice and Support Kent’:

https://www.iask.org.uk/parents-and-carers/frequently-asked-questions/

Some charities that provide support for families include:

 

·       Kent PACT

·       Thanet Health CIC

·       IPSEA

·       SEND family support

·       NSPCC

·       Family Action

 

Kent Handbook for Families

Thanet Inclusion Support Service

Support Leaflet

Glossary

 Access arrangements – special arrangements to allow pupils with SEND to access assessments or exams

 Annual review – an annual meeting to review the provision in a pupil’s EHC plan

 Area of need – the 4 areas of need describe different types of needs a pupil with SEND can have. The 4 areas are communication and interaction; cognition and learning; physical and/or sensory; and social, emotional and mental health needs.

 CAMHS – child and adolescent mental health services

 Differentiation – when teachers adapt how they teach in response to a pupil’s needs

 EHC needs assessment – the needs assessment is the first step on the way to securing an EHC plan. The local authority will do an assessment to decide whether a child needs an EHC plan.

 EHC plan – an education, health and care plan is a legally-binding document that sets out a child’s needs and the provision that will be put in place to meet their needs.

 First-tier tribunal/SEND tribunal – a court where you can appeal against the local authority’s decisions about EHC needs assessments or plans and against discrimination by a school or local authority due to SEND

 Graduated approach – an approach to providing SEND support in which the school provides support in successive cycles of assessing the pupil’s needs, planning the provision, implementing the plan, and reviewing the impact of the action on the pupil

 Intervention – a short-term, targeted approach to teaching a pupil with a specific outcome in mind 

 Local offer – information provided by the local authority which explains what services and support are on offer for pupils with SEND in the local area

 Outcome – target for improvement for pupils with SEND. These targets don't necessarily have to be related to academic attainment 

 Reasonable adjustments – changes that the school must make to remove or reduce any disadvantages caused by a child’s disability  

 SENCO – the special educational needs co-ordinator

 SEND – special educational needs

 SEND – special educational needs and disabilities

 SEND Code of Practice – the statutory guidance that schools must follow to support children with SEND

 SEND information report – a report that schools must publish on their website, that explains how the school supports pupils with SEND

 SEND support – special educational provision which meets the needs of pupils with SEND

 Transition – when a pupil moves between years, phases, schools or institutions or life stages