Special Educational Needs and Disability Policy

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DATE ESTABLISHED BY GOVERNING BODY: Autumn 2015 DATE FOR REVIEW: Autumn 2018 www.dorothy-stringer.co.uk

Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEN/D) Policy Dorothy Stringer School

Vision Dorothy Stringer School will do its best to ensure that the necessary provision is made for any student who has additional needs and that those needs are made known to all. The school will use its best endeavours to ensure that teachers and support staff in the school are able to identify, provide and include those students who have additional needs. We will provide a safe and inclusive environment for all students that allows them all the opportunity to achieve their potential. The school will have regard to the SEN Code of Practice (2014) when carrying out its duties toward all students with additional needs and will maintain a close relationship and dialogue with parents, carers and students alike regarding their care and provision. Who is responsible for the implementation of this policy? Every teacher at Dorothy Stringer is a teacher of every child in their class, including those with SEN/D. Within Dorothy Stringer, Paul Watson and Rob Allen are the Assistant Head/Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) and Inclusion co-ordinator (INCo) respectively with responsibility for leading, developing and managing the additional needs provision for children and young people with any additional needs, including SEN/D needs. The SENCo is a member of the school’s Senior Leadership Team with Jenny John, the school governor with responsibility for SEN/D.

Compliance This policy complies with the statutory requirement laid out in the SEND Code of Practice 0–25 years (September 2014) and has been written with reference to the following guidance and documents:  Equality Act 2010: advice for schools DfE Feb 2013 

Statutory Guidance on supporting pupils at school with medical conditions (April 2014)

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Dorothy Stringer School Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy

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Dorothy Stringer School Equality Report and Accessibility Plan

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Teacher Standards 2012

Scope The SEN/D Code of Practice (2014) identifies 4 broad categories of need:    

Cognition and learning Communication and interaction Social, emotional and mental health difficulties Sensory and/or physical needs

Within these areas of need our children and young people identified as needing SEN Support or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) will; 

have a greater difficulty in learning which significantly impacts on their learning and progress when compared to the majority of children of the same age

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have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in schools within the Local Authority (LA).

Identifying ‘behaviour’ as a need is no longer an acceptable way of describing a child or young person’s additional need. Any concerns relating to child or young person’s behaviour will be described as an underlying response to a recognised (or clearly hypothesised) need. These four broad areas give an overview of the range of needs that should be planned for. The purpose of identification is to work out what action the school needs to take, not to fit a student into a category. At Dorothy Stringer, we identify the needs of students by considering the needs of the whole child, which will include not just the additional needs of the child or young person, but their holistic needs (e.g. social; emotional; physical; sensory) and these needs may be met in a variety of ways. Many children need some short-term additional support within each of these categories to help them meet their potential and we do not categorise these children as having additional needs and we believe it is important that these are not automatically perceived as such. English as an Additional Language Students must not be regarded as having a additional need solely because they are identified as having English as an Additional Language (EAL). Partnership with their parents and carers plays a key role in enabling students to achieve their potential. The school recognises that their parents and carers hold key information and have knowledge and experience to contribute to the shared view of a child’s needs and the best ways of meeting these. In addition to this, our students have a unique knowledge of their own needs and their views about what sort of support they would like will be ascertained. They will be encouraged to participate in all the decision-making processes and contribute to the assessment of their needs, the review and transition processes. Identification, Assessment and Provision Through constant support and regular opportunities for professional development and dialogue, every teacher will follow quality first teaching principles to engage all students as effectively as possible in their learning. In conjunction with the whole school team, including teaching assistants, mentors and form tutors, all students are given focused feedback to enable them to make progress and reduce the barriers to their learning.

Graduated response Dorothy Stringer School applies a graduated response to meeting the additional needs of our students. Initially we identify and support students in subject lessons before bringing specialist expertise to bear. When a student is identified as having additional need(s), the school will intervene as outlined below. Support is first realised at a

subject teacher level with advice and guidance given by the support department via our class provision maps and individualised strategies and support information for specific students. This information is also shared with parents and carers via the Stringer Learning Gateway (SLG). The school uses a process of family and/or teacher referral which initiates a school system to collate and review the observations and interventions already made by subject teachers and form tutors. This helps us review current in-class provision and support whilst helping match available additional needs provision to each student’s profile of need. We record the steps taken to meet the needs of our individual students and if a student transfers to our school from a Primary or other Secondary school, representatives of the Head Teacher (SENCo and/or Inclusion lead) will be meet to consider any statutory or non-statutory advice. Identification of students with additional needs A systematic approach to identifying students with additional needs across has been developed:    

Comprehensive transition process between our school and our partner Primary schools Screening of all Year 7 students through reading, writing and spelling assessments Liaison with outside agencies and professionals surrounding the students moving into Year 7 Contextual information shared by both parents, carers and the student’s previous primary or junior school.

The results of this assessment process are used to inform us of the following:       

Students who should be entered onto our provision map / WAVE (see Behaviour Policy) Inform all departments across the school about the student’s additional needs Supporting teaching staff in delivering an appropriate curriculum offer, accessible for all students Students whom the Support Team will work alongside Liaison with outside agencies Ongoing screening to identify that students have made at least expected progress and are meeting agerelated expectations Arrange access arrangements for examinations for those identified students from Year 9 onwards who meet the thresholds set out by the JCQ guidelines.

Tiers of Support Monitoring Class teacher is responsible for intervention work. SENCO/Head of Year are aware and parents / carers are informed. SEN Support Class teacher continues to take major responsibility for the student. The SENCO / INCo will organise additional support, e.g. individual or small group work with a teacher or support assistant. Strategies and advice will be shared with the student’s subject teachers via the electronic provision map so that everyone is working to common targets. Outside agencies may become involved and a written support plan drawn up so that everyone agrees and is working to common targets. Parents and carers are included, informed and encouraged to support

work going on in school. Additional information and reports, where appropriate, are shared with staff via the ‘linked documents’ section of the class provision maps. English as an Additional language The identification and assessment of the special educational needs of young people whose first language is not English requires particular care. Where there is uncertainty about an individual, the school will look carefully at all aspects of a student’s performance in different subjects to establish whether the problems they have in the classroom are due to limitations in their command of the language that is used there or arise from special educational needs. Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) If an EHCP is supporting a child or young person and their family it will secure the Local Authority's involvement in overseeing the additional need provision made for the student by the school. Annual review of an EHCP All EHC Plans will be reviewed at least annually with the parents and carers, the student, the LA and the school to consider whether any amendments need to be made. The annual review should focus on what the child has achieved as well as on difficulties that need to be resolved. The annual review held in Year 9 and Year 11 will be particularly significant in preparing for the student’s transition to GCSEs or other qualifications and employment, the further education sector, work-based training, higher education and adult life. Bespoke support plans Strategies employed to enable students to progress are recorded on our provision map for each identified student. All students with an Education, Health and Care plan have specific strategies and support outlined as follows;     

the short-term targets set for or by the student the teaching strategies to be used the provision to be put in place when the plan is to be reviewed expected outcomes.

Partnership with Adults Dorothy Stringer has an ’Open Door’ policy for parents and carers of students. They are encouraged to contact the school immediately if they have any concerns and someone will always arrange to see them. Many difficulties that arise can be resolved through discussion. Parents and/or carers will be informed either by letter, email or telephone of any concerns the school has about their child, either academic or behavioural.