Consultation with Children and Young People with SEND
Teachers/SENCO and Support Staff will work with children and young people to identify the support needed to meet agreed outcomes. The provision is planned and interventions are allocated to individual needs. The children take an active role with setting their targets, discussing them with the class teacher/SENCO. The children have regular meetings with support staff to discuss their progress and support.
Consultation with families is key to securing success in this area. The SEND children attending our school are aged 4-11 years so consulting with them to seek their views about how we are meeting their needs has to be age appropriate, especially when they have communication difficulties.
This is why the views, wishes and feelings of the child, and the child’s parents are paramount. The importance of the child, and the child’s parents, participating as fully as possible in decisions, and being provided with the information and support necessary to enable participation in those decisions is at the centre of the entire SEND process. The need to support the child, and the child’s parents, in order to facilitate the development of the child and to help them achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes, preparing them effectively for adulthood.
The class teacher and SENDCO and any other agencies involved, will meet with parents termly to discuss your child’s needs, support, progress and review targets. For further information the SENDCO is available to discuss support in more detail.
Parents are welcome any time to make an appointment to meet with either the class teacher or SENDCO and discuss how your child is getting on. We can offer advice and practical ways that you can use to help your child at home.
We believe that your child’s education is a partnership between parents and teachers, therefore we aim to keep communication channels open and communicate regularly, especially if your child has complex needs.
- Your child may have a Supported Planning Document in place and therefore the targets set are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time scaled) targets with the expectation that the child will achieve the target by the time it is reviewed.
- If a decision is made to create a supported planning document for your child, you will be asked to complete a ‘My Story’ document. This document allows you and your child to share information only once, including family history, what works well, what’s not working so well, who is important to your child, what you and your child would like to achieve and what is needed to get there, any additional agencies involved with your child (for example Speech and Language).
- If your child has complex SEND they may have an EHC Plan (Education Health Care Plan) which means that a formal Annual Review will take place to discuss your child’s progress and a report will be written. This can also be done at a six monthly interim review if changes to circumstances occur or concerns arise.
Consultation with parents and carers of children and young people with SEND
We are committed to working with parents and carers to identify their child’s needs and support. Parents and carers will be involved throughout the process.
There is a range of ways this can be done, for example:
- Termly parents/ carers evenings;
- Ongoing discussions with a class teacher and/or SENDCO;
- An ‘open-door’ policy, where parents and carers are welcome to come into school to discuss any concerns they may have;
- Through a review of a child’s SEN Support Plan or the Annual Review of their Statement of SEN or EHC Plan.
Looked After Children with SEND
Our Designated Teacher for Looked after Children is Mrs Karen Harrison. Mrs Harrison is also the SENDCO. Mrs Harrison’s role within school is to ensure all teachers in school understand the implications for those children who are looked after and have SEND.
Looked After Children with SEND are supported in the same way as all children in school with SEND through the Graduated Response, the Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycle. The process will start with a Short Note and following the identification of need an SEND Support Plan or EHCP to meet the requirements of the pupil and the addition of a PEP (Personal Education Plan).
When a child becomes looked after his/her social worker must ensure that the child’s needs and the services to meet these are documented in the Care Plan. The Care Plan – of which the PEP is an integral part – is made before the child becomes looked after or in the case of an emergency placement within 10 working days. The PEP is a record of what needs to happen for looked after children to enable them to fulfil their potential and reflects any existing education plans, such as an EHCP, SEND Support Plan or Provision Mapping. The PEP should reflect the importance of a personalised approach to learning which secures good basic skills, stretches aspirations and builds life chances. The PEP is the joint responsibility of the local authority and the school.
Our Designated Teacher for Looked After Children is Mrs Karen Harrison and can be contacted on 01388 815427.
Our Designated Governor for Looked After Children is Mrs Kate Tarling.
Our Looked After Children Policy can be found in our School Policies section of our website
