SEND

SEND Provision at Stocks Green School

At Stocks Green Primary School we constantly strive to improve our offer in order to improve the support available to pupils and parents in our school community and provide children with the very best opportunities for future success. Since taking over the SENCo role in September 2022, I have undertaken a review of the SEN provision in Stocks Green and, alongside the Senior Leadership team, have worked to create a clearer system to identify and cater for the needs of all children at the school. I am writing to you today to outline our new approach to our SEND processes in school and how SEND is defined by the Department for Education in the SEN Code of Practice.

We are incredibly proud of our inclusive environment that welcomes and aims to support children with a range of learning, social, emotional, communication and physical needs and disabilities.

Our School values of being Kind, Respectful, Honest, Resilient and Inclusive assist the understanding of SEND for all our pupils and actively promote diversity across the school.

The first step is the identification of SEND in a child is using the SEND code of practise. As such,

A child is considered to have a learning difficulty if she or he: 

has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age; or
has a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post 16 institutions.

SEND or Special Educational Needs and Disability is when pupils may need additional or different provision to enable them to achieve their potential and is divided into 4 categories that a child will fall into. Areas of Special Educational Need include:

We have created a flow diagram (full version attached) to illustrate the process teachers and parents will follow to identify SEND in our pupils.

If you have a concern regarding your child, your first port of contact and support is your child’s class teacher.

All the teachers at Stocks Green use Quality First Teaching strategies (QFT) looking at the Education Endowment Foundation research regarding creating an inclusive environment for all pupils (poster of findings attached). In addition, teachers use Kent County Council’s Mainstream core standards (parents’ guide attached) in their teaching every day to cater for the needs of all pupils.

As part of their daily practise, your child’s class teacher monitors every child in their care to get to know them all and their learning needs. This helps them to identify any SEND characteristics through a range of effective assessment tools and approaches.

We believe in early identification of need and do not need to wait for formal diagnosis to enable children to access the support they need.

If a teacher or parent identifies a learning need, the next step will be for the teacher to complete a referral form to me. This will be used to identify the difficulties the child is having and that are proving to be a barrier for learning, despite the practices and approaches in place already that have already been put into place. The pupil will become part of the SEN Focus Group.

We understand and value the role parents play in identifying SEN. We have a graduated approach which includes collating information from our tracking data, pupil participation and progress in interventions as well as the views of parents, teachers and the child. We will ensure parents are kept informed of our actions.

In addition to this referral process, I hold regular meetings with the class teacher to review the needs of the children they have referred.

The graduated approach system follows four stages, often referred to as a ‘cycle’: Assess, Plan, Do, and Review.

The four-stage approach is as follows:

Assess: The class teacher (working with the SENCo) is responsible for carrying out a clear analysis of a pupil’s needs, drawing on teacher assessments and experience of the pupil.

Plan: Where it is decided to provide a pupil with SEN Support, the parents must be notified. All teachers and support staff who work with a pupil should be made aware of their needs, the outcomes sought, the support provided and any teaching strategies that are required.

Do: The planned interventions should then be put into place. The class teacher should work closely with any teaching assistants or specialist staff involved and the SENCo will support the class teacher.

Review: Reviews should take place and inform feed back into the analysis of the child’s needs. The Code of Practice suggests schools should meet with parents three times a year. Good practice would indicate that such reviews will be at regular. The decision to involve specialists can be taken at any time and should always involve parents.

If, despite support being provided in this way, a child or young person is not making expected progress, and requires more support than the notional SEND budgets within the school allows then High Needs funding can be applied for. This could provide extra support from an external agency, additional interventions or additional support in the class. An EHCP may also be required. If a pupil is in receipt of this funding, they will become part of our SEN register (KCC is currently undergoing a SEND review and we expect this funding option to change, as yet we do not know how and when this will happen). Some additional pupils will also become part of our SEN register and not be in receipt of high needs funding, these pupils will be identified through a rigorous assessment process and be in receipt of appropriate interventions.

All staff have high expectations of children and set challenging targets and outcomes. We have clear plans to support children in achieving these goals and provide parents with details of these.

We run a range of specific, targeted and effective interventions but believe that children are best supported by outstanding classroom practice and quality first teaching. We want every child to reach their potential and want to support children and their families in diminishing barriers to achieving.

To see what support there is in the local area for children with SEND, you can go to the ‘ KCC Local Offer’ website that gives SEND children and young people and their families information about what support services are available in their area.

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

I hope that this has helped to clarify the improved approach to the SEN processes at the school. If you have any questions regarding the new approach, please feel free to get in contact with me regarding this. I will be contacting parents of pupils on the SEN register to arrange a review meeting in the next few weeks.

Kind regards,

Mr. Endersby

SENCo / Deputy Headteacher

SEN Pathway

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)

Stocks Green is proud of its inclusive ethos and is fully committed to ensuring all pupils, regardless of their background, additional educational needs, race or gender are able to fulfil their potential.

In September 2014, a new Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice came into effect. Under the new Code of Practice, a child is deemed to have Special Educational Needs, or SEN, if he or she has, 'significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age' or his or her disability, 'prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in a mainstream school'.

In order to ensure all pupils with SEND are included in all aspects of school life, we apply the Mainstream Core Standards (MCS) across the school. Please follow the links below to find out more.