SEND Information and Local Offer

In our school we make provision for pupils who have any of the needs in the table below. We know that some pupils will have difficulties in more than one of these areas and we will always do our best to meet their needs. The support in this table acts as a guide but the things we do may vary and actual support will be based on the specific needs of each pupil.

All children in school have support within lessons through differentiation and quality first teaching strategies. This means that activities are planned according to the level the child or young person is working at. This can include a variety of adaptions including changes to the physical environment, changes to teaching styles as well as levels of adult support.

Read more: Identifying and Addressing Special Educational Needs

At Abbey Catholic Primary we identify pupils where:

• Progress is significantly slower than that of peers starting from same baseline.
• Fails to match or better the child’s previous rate of progress.
• Fails to close the attainment gap between the child and peers.
• Widens the attainment gap.

In school we use a variety of different ways to assess whether a child or young person has special educational needs. Some of these ways include:

• Observations.
• Assessments.
• chool based test results/tracking and monitoring, eg. Language and Literacy continuum.
• Information from parents and carers.
• Information from the child or young person.
• Specialised assessments carried out by members of the school’s support services.
• Information from previous schools or settings.
• Results from end of key stage assessments.
• Discussions with adults who work with the child or young person.

Once a child or young person is identified as having a special educational need, a graduated approach to support is taken. The child or young person’s needs will first be assessed, then support will be planned, carried out and then reviewed. At the review any necessary changes will be made.

All children’s progress, including those children or young people with special educational need, is tracked using the school’s assessment tracking system. Pupils are assessed regularly using teacher marking, observations and questioning as well as more formal assessments such as curriculum tests and standardised test.

In Birmingham we also have access to the Birmingham Language and Literacy and Maths toolkits which support assessment when a child or young person is making small steps of progress. In addition for children or young people with special educational needs we also set individual targets that are reviews at least three times a year. This helps the school to monitor how well interventions are working.

The progress each child is making is discussed at pupil progress meetings with a member of the Senior Leadership team, the class teacher and the SENCo.

All children have access to our extra-curricular activities (see link on website). Where appropriate and possible, adjustments will be made to ensure all children and young people with special educational needs are fully included in these activities.

In addition our school provides additional extra-curricular activities for children and young people with special educational needs when needed. These may include lunchtime clubs, social interaction groups, after school clubs such as sports, forest club.

Our school has a Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, we usually call her the SENCo and her name is Miss Mosley.

If you would like to talk to her then you can arrange a meeting by calling the main office on 012 373 1793 or by pressing the SEN option. Alternatively you can send an email to k.mosley@abbeyrc.bham.sch.uk

In our school we believe that all staff should be involved in supporting pupils with special educational needs and so we make sure that staff have training to help them do this.

This year our staff have all had training for Epipen, speech and Language, Epilepsy, Asthma, Dyslexia Friendly classrooms.

As well as this various staff have been trained for different aspects of special educational needs including precision teaching, Diabetes, ASD level 2 and 3, Makaton and The National SENCO award.

In our school if we feel a pupil needs more specialist help we can work with the following people to get this: List of Specialist Helpers

Our school has an open door policy to parents ensuring we are always approachable so parents feel involved in the education of their child.

In addition our school aims to regularly involve parents in the education of their child through a variety of different ways including:

• Regular meetings with SENCo, class teacher and support staff.
• Target setting so parents can see what their child is working on next.
• Home/school books to inform parents of important information.
• Regular curriculum letter to inform parents of what will be going on during the term.
• Home reading logs.
• Information on the school website.
• Parents’ evenings.
• INSPIRE workshops.
• SEN workshops.
• Parent drop-ins/coffee mornings.
• Signposting to parent groups.
• Parents’ views on ITP/Annual Review documents.
• Reports

We aim to involve all children in our school in the evaluations and implementation of their own education. For children and young people with Special Educational Needs we use a variety of strategies to support this including:

• Child or young person’s target review meetings.
• Self-assessment at the beginning and end of learning.
• Having a range of equipment available for the child or young person to choose to use.
• Ensuring the child or young person works with a range of different partners.
• Ensuring the child or young person has a designated adult to go to if they need help.
• Pupil conferencing.
• Membership of the school council.
• One page profiles.
• Medical alert cards.
• Emotions scale.
• Visual timetables.
• Prompt cards to promote independence.
• Personalised work stations.
• Learning breaks.

If you have a complaint about the school please contact the Principal, Mr McTernan and we will do everything we can to fix the issue. Our school and governing body take complaints seriously and will act upon these on an individual basis.

In our school we have a governor who is responsible for special educational needs. Her name is Dawn Richards.

Their job is to meet with the SENCO regularly. In these meetings the SEN governor make sure that children, young people and families are being supported by the right services from in and outside of school. The SEN Governor will also visit the school, observe what happens in classrooms and meet with class teachers, support staff and children and young people.

In addition the Principal and SENCo have to give a report to the SEN governor twice a year. The SEN Governor shares this report with the other governors so that the whole governing body is aware of how special educational needs are being supported in the school and how well this support is working. The governors will challenge, support and advise the Principal if appropriate provision isn’t being made.

Read more: List of Support Services

We aim to make times of transition as easy as possible for the children and young people in our school. When starting at our school we:

• Meet with the child or young person and their parents to talk about their needs and answer any questions about our school. This includes a home visit in Reception.
• Meet with staff at the child or young person’s previous school or setting.
• Provide the child or young person with a welcome pack that has photographs of the key staff.
• Read reports from people who have worked with the child or young person.
• Arrange visits to our school so the child or young person gets to see it before they start properly eg through a ‘shared lunch’ and story time.
• Buddy the children up with a child from upper Key Stage 2.

When moving to a new year group we:

• Introduce the child or young person to their new teacher individually.
• Provide children with a two week transition period at the end of the summer term.
• Provide the child or young person with an updated transition book that has photographs of the key staff and areas around school to look at during the school holidays.
• Talk to the child or young person and their family so we can answer any questions they may have about the new year group.
• Give any adults working with the child or young person a one page profile or pupil passport describing the things that help to support them in school.

When moving to a new school we:

• Hold a review and invite key staff from the new school.
• Talk to key staff at the new school about things that help the child or young person to learn well and be happy at school.
• Arrange extra visits to the new school with a member of staff from our school if that is what the child or young person wants.
• Talk to the child or young person and their family so we can answer any questions they may have about the new school.
• Transfer relevant documents.

The Birmingham Local Authority’s Local Offer can be found at: www.localofferbirmingham.co.uk