The Special Educational Needs Code of Practice defines that ‘Children have special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty that is significantly greater than the majority of children of the same age; this may call for special educational provision to be made for them’. The Governors and staff of St Francis Catholic Primary School believe that all children have the right to access a broad and balanced curriculum that is relevant to their learning. This enables children to develop a sense of independence and to reach their full potential in life. We believe that children are individuals, with individual talents and needs, and, together, in partnership with parents, we aim to meet these talents and needs to benefit the children. We aim to ensure that children’s needs are identified early and the strategy of early intervention is introduced to meet these needs.
To contact our SENDCO Christine Shotton, please call 020 7639 0187, option 4
Why our provision for children with Special Educational needs or disabilities looks like this:
We at St. Francis believe that all children have an entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. We want to ensure that pupils with SEND receive the support they need and are able to engage in the activities of the school alongside pupils who do not have SEND.
We also believe it is important to build an informed and mutually supportive partnership with parents by involving them fully in the provision appropriate to the needs of their child.
All children have strengths and talents that should be celebrated so our intent is always to reward a child’s strengths and achievements as well as addressing areas of concern.
Finally, it is a team approach that will ensure the success of all our pupils, so we emphasise a collaborative approach that involves all teaching and support staff in developing a range of teaching strategies and resources so that the children’s needs can be met.
How we address the needs of children who have SEND at St. Francis School:
The Special Education Needs new Code of Practice 2014 stipulates that:
“…A pupil has SEN where their learning difficulty or disability calls for special educational provision, namely provision different from or additional to that normally available to pupils of the same age…”. [para 6.15-6.20].
- The SENDCO maintains a register of all children identified as having a special educational need and keeps an overview of the needs of these children, advising and supporting class teachers and support staff, monitoring provision and liaising with external agencies.
- There is a graduated approach to addressing the needs of children with SEND as stated in the Code of Practice – this is through a cycle of: Assess, Plan, Do, Review.
- Children’s needs are identified in the four areas of SEND need as identified in the Code of Practice – Cognition and Learning, Communication and Interaction, Social, Emotional and Mental Health and Physical and Sensory.
- The needs of children are firstly identified through information received from previous settings, through the school’s early identification assessment systems and through regular pupil progress meetings.
- All children receive quality first teaching from their class teacher through careful curriculum planning, which has been differentiated to address each child’s needs. The classroom is where the children with SEND will spend most of their time so that they can enjoy learning experiences alongside their peers.
- Interventions are provided to individual and groups to address specific targeted needs where the need for this is identified.
- The advice of external professionals is sought, and their recommendations are implemented
- Each class teacher prepares a provision map (and IEPs for the children with very high needs) which show what is in place for children in their class. This is regularly reviewed and updated as a working document. The SENDCO keeps an overview of these documents.
- Parents are informed if their child is placed on the SEND register and have the opportunity to discuss their child’s needs with the class teacher (in the first instance) and/or the SENCO.