SEND Information

All children are valued, respected and welcomed to the school whatever their additional need may be. We will support their learning and ensure they are fully included in all school activities, making full use of externally provided facilities where appropriate.

We are a mainstream primary school with 112 pupils and we have 26% of pupils with SEND.

Our special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCo) is: Mrs Anna Merryweather. She can be contacted through the office phone on: 01235 763858, email: amerryweather@stnicholasce.vale-academy.org.

Our SEN policy can be found here: Vale Academy Trust - Policies and Procedures (vale-academy.org)

Our Equality Scheme and Accessibility Plan can be found at the bottom of this page.

St Nicholas CE Primary School provides for children with a wide range of Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) including those with:

• Communication and interaction needs;

  • this includes children who have speech language and communication difficulties including autistic spectrum conditions.

• Cognition and Learning needs;

  • this includes children who have learning difficulties and specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia.

• Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs

  • this includes children who have anxiety, or ADHD

• Sensory and/or Physical needs;

  • this includes children who have visual or hearing needs, or a physical disability that affects their learning.

 

How do we identify and give extra help to children and young people with SEN?

Our school uses Oxfordshire County Council’s guidance ‘Identifying and supporting Special Educational Needs in Oxfordshire schools and settings’.

The guidance sets out:

• How we identify if a child or young person has a special educational need.

• How we assess children and plan for their special educational needs and how we adapt our teaching.

• Ways in which we can adapt our school environment to meet each child’s needs.

• How we review progress and agree outcomes and involve you and your child in this.

• Please click to see Oxfordshire County Council's SEND Guidance

 

Learning Support Plans

If your child has an EHCP (Education and Health Care Plan) they will receive an LSP (Learning Support Plan). This will be written by the class teacher, SENCO and parents/carers. The document will include long term outcomes and annual outcomes set on your child’s EHCP. These outcomes will then be broken down into termly targets. Your child will receive support to work on these targets and evidence to show their progress will be recorded in a separate book. The Learning Support Plan will be reviewed three times a year with parents/carers, the SENCO and class teacher to assess progress and reset targets.

 

Pupil Profiles

If your child is on the school’s Special Educational Needs register at SEN support level they will receive a Pupil Profile. This will detail what interventions your child is receiving and what targets they are working on in these interventions. Pupil Profiles will be reviewed three times a year in a meeting with parents/carers and class teachers.

 

How do we work with parents and children/young people?

We will always contact parents if we have a concern about a child at school. We work closely with children with SEND and their families to agree how best to support them to achieve at school. We then review and monitor their progress in termly meetings, progress meetings and at parent consultation evenings.

 

Adapting the Curriculum

We offer an exciting and creative curriculum for all children including those with SEND. We adapt this for children with SEN and disabled children to ensure they are included.

The teachers at St Nicholas CE Primary School differentiate the curriculum by adapting the lessons to make sure all children have challenging work at their level, and all receive quality teaching.

Specific support for pupils with SEND varies for each individual child but could include:

 

• Small group work targeting specific difficulties and teaching key skills.

• Individual support for pupils with high level needs.

• Detailed assessments to understand what each pupil needs to learn.

• Spirals - a small group communication and language intervention

• Intervention programs for example , drawing for talking, developing social skills and ‘closing the gap’ for reading, writing and maths.

 

What expertise can we offer?

All teachers continually develop their practice and work closely with the SENCo to ensure pupils receive appropriate support. There are members of staff who have trained at a specialist level in literacy, reading, phonics, Maths and ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support). Teaching Assistants are trained to support the particular needs of the children they work with, and have regular opportunities to develop their role. Our SEND governor takes a keen interest in the welfare of all pupils including those with SEND.

We also have access to a range of specialist support services including

• Educational Psychology

• SENSS, who support children with communication and language, sensory needs and physical needs

• SNAST, Special Needs Advisory Teacher

• Behaviour Support service

• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

• Oxfordshire School Inclusion Team

• Speech and language therapy, Language and Communication support

• Early Intervention at the HUB in Abingdon.

• Occupational Therapy

Information about these services and what they offer can be found on the Oxfordshire County Council SEND web pages

We always discuss the involvement of specialist SEN services with parents first. We also only work with other services and organisations that are involved with a family, with the family’s permission.

 

How do we know if SEND Provision is effective?

Your child’s progress is tracked each term by the class teacher against age related expectations. (How your child is doing compared to other children of the same age). If there are any concerns this is discussed with the SENCo head teacher and parents, and any additional support is put into place. This is regularly assessed, monitored and evaluated to check it is helping the pupil.

Where possible we support all pupils in class, occasionally groups of pupils need special intervention programmes to address similar needs or gaps in their learning. We assess how successful they have been and use that information to decide on how best to run them in the future.

 

How are children and young people with SEND helped to access activities outside of the classroom?

All children and young people are included in activities and trips following risk assessments where needed and in accordance with duties under the Equalities Act 2010. We talk to parents and young people when planning trips so that everyone is clear about what will happen.

There is information about activities and events for disabled children and those with SEND in Oxfordshire in the Family Information Directory

Click for Oxfordshire's accessibility strategy    

 

What do we do to support the wellbeing of children/young people with SEN?

All children have the opportunity to share their views through pupil leaders, with their teacher, during class discussions and assemblies. We take bullying very seriously. We help to prevent bullying of children/young people with SEND by having:

• Anti-bullying and behaviour for learning policy which can be viewed on the website.

• Lessons like RE and PHSE

• Assemblies

• Equality policy which can be viewed on the website

If a child reports any bullying, the class teacher and member of the senior leadership team will take it seriously, and talk to all involved. We will monitor the situation to ensure it is stopped straight away. If a parent feels their child is being bullied they must report it to the class teacher straight away, we will then investigate and report back any actions we have taken.

 

Joining the school and moving on

All new pupils are invited for transition visits and induction sessions with the opportunity to talk to the class teacher and meet other pupils. If there are specific SEND needs these can be shared with the teacher and SENCo and any additional support can be arranged. We make sure we have all school records and have spoken to the previous school if appropriate. At the end of the school year all information is shared with the next class teacher, files and information are passed on. For pupils in Year 6, the transition to secondary school is carefully managed and overseen by the SENCo early in the school year. All relevant information is shared with the next school and extra visits are arranged to help with a smooth transition.

 

For all admissions arrangements, please refer to the OCC Schools Admissions

There is also information on the OCC website regarding admissions arrangements to special schools in Oxfordshire

 

Who to contact

If you are concerned about your child please contact their teacher. They know your child better than any other member of staff. You can talk to them at the end of the day, email or phone the office to ask to be contacted. If further action is required they may ask advice or invite the SENCo to a meeting to understand the needs of the child and plan their support.

If you’d like to give us any feedback about SEN provision you can email the school office for the attention of the SENCo, or ask for an appointment.

For impartial advice you can ask Oxfordshire’s Parent Partnership Service, now known as SENDIASS. 

If you’d like to know more about opportunities for children with SEN and their families, support groups or information about SEN these are listed in the Family Information Directory

Oxfordshire’s Local Offer contains lots of information for parents. 

 

Complaints about SEND

If you have any complaints regarding how your child with SEND is supported at St Nicholas CE Primary School, please contact the headteacher in the first instance.