SEN&D

Special Education Needs and Disability

Bringhurst Primary School is committed to providing an appropriate and high quality education for all the children living in our local community. We value all children equally and believe that all children, including those identified as having Special Education Needs (SEN), have a common entitlement to a broad and balanced academic and social curriculum, which is accessible to them, and to be fully included in all aspects of school life.

Equality & Inclusion at Bringhurst Primary School

We are a very inclusive school and cater for a wide range of needs. These will fall under the four broad categories from the SEN Code of Practice 2014:

Communication and Interaction
Cognition and Learning
Sensory and/ or Physical needs
Social, Emotional and Mental Health.

We will always endeavour to meet your child’s needs.

At any given time we have a small number of pupils experiencing difficulties in one or more of these areas of need. This may be a relatively short-term issue which may be resolved with targeted, timely support or it may be a difficulty relating to a long term issue or disability which may need a programme of on-going, rigorously evaluated and highly individualised support.

What is SEND?

“A child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special education provision to be made for him or her. A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she:

a) has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others the same age, or
b) has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools.

When children need additional support

We know if a child needs additional support if

Concerns are raised by Parents/Carers
Concerns are raised by teachers and school staff
Concerns are raised by outside agencies
There is a lack of progress over two terms (e.g. from September to Easter)
There is a change in the pupil’s behaviour
A pupil asks for help

Where pupils’ progress is significantly slower than that of their peers, or fails to match their previous rate of progress, despite high-quality teaching targeted at specific areas of difficulty, it may be that the child has SEN. Information will be gathered, including seeking the views of parents and the pupil, as well as from teachers and more formal assessments.

There can be many reasons for learners ‘falling behind.’ These may include absences, attending lots of different schools, difficulties with speaking English, or worries that distract them from learning. The schools understand that children who experience these barriers to learning are vulnerable. This does not mean that all vulnerable learners have SEN. Only those with a learning difficulty that requires special educational provision will be identified as having SEN.

What support do we offer?

Stage 1:
All pupils will receive well-differentiated, quality first teaching, including, where appropriate, the use of small group interventions.

Stage 2:
Pupils will be offered additional SEN support when it is clear that their needs require intervention which is “additional to” or “different from” the well-differentiated curriculum offer for all pupils in the school and will therefore be identified as having a special educational need as defined by the SEN Code of Practice 2014. These children will have a written support plan identifying the additional support they will receive which will be shared with parents and carers. The support plan will identify personalised targets that should be achieved by the support. Support plans are reviewed regularly and adapted to maximise individual progress.

Stage 3:
A small number of pupils may need support which requires a more individualised and specialist programme of support. In this instance the school will follow the statutory procedure for requesting a statutory assessment which may result in the writing of an Education Health and Care Plan.

The school will ensure that pupils with Education, Health and Care Plans and those with a statement of educational needs, dating from before January 2014, will have access to all arrangements for pupils on the SEN list (above) and, in addition to this, will have an Annual Review of their statement/plan.

Full information about SEND can be found by downloading the full report on this page.