Greythorn Primary School

Greythorn is a mainstream primary school that aims to be as inclusive as possible and tries to ensure that all pupils, regardless of their specific needs, make the best possible progress in school.

There is a wide range of special educational needs for which children may need extra support. Sometimes these needs are only short term, others may continue through a child’s school life and some children may have a specific diagnosis. We use dyslexia friendly strategies in all classrooms.

The needs generally fall into one or more of the following categories: Cognition and Learning; Communication and Interaction; Social Emotional and Mental Health; or, Sensory, Medical and Physical needs. 

Early identification of pupils with SEND is a priority for our school. All teachers, alongside parents and other staff are responsible for identifying pupils with SEN and, in collaboration with the SENCo, will ensure that those pupils requiring different or additional support are identified at an early stage. When identifying children as having special educational needs, we would always revert back to the definition in The SEND Code of Practice 2014.

Concerns in school

• When a teacher or a parent has raised concerns about a child’s progress, and targeted teaching has not resulted in expected progress, the teacher will discuss this with the SENCo.
• There are also meetings every term between each class teacher and a senior staff member in the school to ensure all children are making good progress. This is another way your child may be identified as not making as much progress as expected, and the SENCo will be alerted.
• In consultation with the SENCo (who will also monitor progress from this point), the teacher will discuss the best approach to support the child; this might involve arranging checks of vision or hearing, putting different strategies in place in class, or referring to an intervention group or an outside agency, such as Speech and Language Therapy.
• If your child is still not making expected progress the school will discuss with you:

• any concerns you may have, or any additional information you may have regarding family history or medical conditions
• any further interventions or referrals to outside professionals which may be necessary to support your child’s learning
• how school and home can work together to support your child

Parental Concerns

If you have concerns about your child’s progress you should speak to your child’s class teacher in the first instance. If you are not happy that the concerns are being managed and that your child is still not making progress, you should speak to the SENCo or Head teacher.

Pupils will be supported and that support evaluated by using a graduated approach outlined below.

A graduated approach:

Quality First Teaching

 High quality teaching, scaffolded for individual pupils, is the first step in responding to pupils who have or may have a special educational need. This may include:

• Ensuring the child’s strengths are used to build confidence, self-esteem and maintain motivation
• Using a multi-sensory approach to give pupils the opportunity to learn effectively in a way suited to their ability
• Helping pupils overcome learning difficulties by, for instance, supplying frequent spoken instructions for children with reading difficulties or reading aloud key texts/ instructions before the child reads them
• Including work recorded in alternative formats
• Matching demands to current level of development
• Providing a range of activities to ensure participation
• Using a clearly defined step-by-step approach promoting gradual development of concepts and skills
• Using jargon-free, unambiguous language starting from the child’s own language, introducing new words as needed
• Explaining new words regularly to ensure understanding and use
• Allowing sufficient repetition to consolidate skills
• Allowing time for reflection
• Ensuring that the pace of the lesson takes account of the differences between individuals
• Supplementing information in books with audio, video, pictures, charts, diagrams
• Simplifying written worksheets and texts or verbal instructions

SEN Concern

1. All children’s achievement and progress is monitored closely both through in-class continual formative assessment and regular progress dialogue meetings held by the Head Teacher with each class teacher. Through these processes, any child who is falling outside of the range of expected academic achievement in line with predicted performance indicators will be identified.
2. Once a pupil has been identified as possibly having SEN they will be closely monitored by staff in order to gauge their level of learning and possible difficulties. At this point they will be added to our list of ‘SEN Concern’ children.
3. The child’s class teacher will take steps to provide adapted learning opportunities that will aid the pupil’s academic progression and enable the teacher to better understand the provision and teaching style that needs to be applied.
4. The SENCo will be consulted as needed for support and advice and may wish to observe the pupil in class.
5. Through (b) (c) and (d) it can be determined which level of provision the child will need going forward.
6. If a pupil has recently been removed from the SEN Support Register they may also fall into this category as continued monitoring will be necessary.
7. Parents will be informed fully of every stage of their child’s development and the circumstances under which they are being monitored. They are encouraged to share information and knowledge with the school.
8. The child is formally recorded by the school as being under observation due to concern by parent or teacher but this does not place the child on the school’s SEN Support Register. Parents are given this information. It is recorded by the school as an aid to further progression and for future reference.
9. Pupil progress meetings are used to monitor and assess the progress being made by the child. The frequency of these meetings is dependent on the individual child’s needs and progress being made.

SEN Support

If a child continues to cause concern, we will then add them to our SEN Support Register and put appropriate provision in place for them.  Some children, due to the nature of their need, may be added straight to the SEN Support Register, rather than being monitored on the SEN Concern List.

Where it is determined that a pupil does have SEN, parents will be formally advised, and the decision will be added to the pupil’s school records.  The aim of formally identifying a pupil with SEN is to help school ensure that effective provision is put in place and so remove barriers to learning. The support provided consists of a four-part process:

• Assess
• Plan
• Do
• Review

This is an ongoing cycle to enable the provision to be refined and revised as the understanding of the needs of the pupil grows. This cycle enables the identification of those interventions which are the most effective in supporting the pupil to achieve good progress and outcomes.

Assess

This involves clearly analysing the pupil’s needs using the class teacher’s assessment and experience of working with the pupil, details of previous progress and attainment, comparisons with peers and national data, as well as the views and experience of parents. The pupil’s views and, where relevant, advice from external support services will also be considered. Any parental concerns will be noted and compared with the school’s information and assessment data on how the pupil is progressing.

This analysis will require regular review to ensure that support and intervention is matched to need, that barriers to learning are clearly identified and being overcome and that the interventions being used are developing and evolving as required. Where external support staff are already involved their work will help inform the assessment of need. Where they are not involved they may be contacted, if this is felt to be appropriate, following discussion and agreement from parents.

Plan

Planning will involve consultation between the teacher, SENCo and parents to agree the adjustments, interventions and support that are required; the impact on progress, development and or behaviour that is expected and a clear date for review. Parental involvement may be sought, where appropriate, to reinforce or contribute to progress at home. 

All those working with the pupil, including support staff will be informed of their individual needs, the support that is being provided, any particular teaching strategies/approaches that are being employed and the outcomes that are being sought.

 Do

The class teacher remains responsible for working with the child on a day-to-day basis. They will retain responsibility even where the interventions may involve group or one-to-one teaching away from the main class /subject teacher. They will work closely with teaching assistants and /or relevant specialist staff to plan and assess the impact of support and interventions and links with classroom teaching. Support with further assessment of the pupil’s strengths and weaknesses, problem-solving and identification of appropriate interventions and strategies will be provided by the SENCo.

Review

Reviews will be undertaken in line with agreed dates. The review process will evaluate the impact and quality of the support and interventions. It will also take account of the views of the pupil and their parents. The class teacher, in conjunction with the SENCo, will revise the support and outcomes based on the pupil’s progress and development making any necessary amendments going forward, in consultation with parents and the pupil.

Parents will be provided with clear information about the impact of support to enable them to be involved in planning next steps.

By following the graduated approach and an assess-plan-do-review cycle, the school is continually reviewing the child's progress and adapting provision (see 3a above). If your child is in the Foundation Stage, progress is monitored termly against the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, which uses ‘best fit’ judgements to measure progress against age-related expectations across all areas of learning.  If your child is in Key Stage 1 or 2, progress is reviewed formally every term and progress is monitored in Reading, Writing and Maths, as well as in other areas, as appropriate, such as attendance, engagement in learning and behaviour. If your child is identified as having significant needs, we may use a more sensitive assessment tool which shows their level in more detail and will also show smaller but significant steps of progress.  The progress of children with an EHC Plan is formally reviewed at an Annual Review with all adults involved with the child’s health, education and development.  This is in addition to the termly reviews of their SEN Support Plans. 

A range of ways will be used to keep you informed, which may include:

• SEN Support Plan review meetings
• Parent consultation meetings 
• Messages on Class Dojo/letters/certificates sent home/ a communication book
• Additional meetings as required
• Annual Reports to parents 

More information about how we communicate with parents is in section 7 below. Where parents are keen to support children's learning at home, which we welcome, either the class teacher or SENCo can provide advice and resources. 

At Greythorn Primary School we have adopted a whole-school approach to SEN policy and practice. Pupils identified as having SEN are, as far as is practicable, fully integrated into mainstream classes. Every effort is made to ensure that they have full access to a broad and balanced curriculum and are fully included in the school community and all its activities. In order to do this we use inclusive quality first teaching strategies and will make adaptations to the teaching and learning to ensure every child achieves their potential (examples of adaptations listed in 3a above).

• Class teachers plan lessons according to the specific needs of all groups of children in their class and will ensure that learning tasks are adapted in order to enable your child to access their learning as independently as possible. 
• Support staff can implement the teacher’s modified planning to support the needs of your child where necessary. 
• Specific resources and strategies will be used to support your child individually and in groups. This may be in the form of scaffolds for learning, adapted resources, additional equipment or support from teachers and teaching assistants.
• In some cases specific interventions (including for social and emotional difficulties) will be used. Examples of the interventions we use include literacy interventions such as Read Write Inc Catch Up, precision teaching, speech and language programmes, use of numicon to support maths and interventions to help with self-esteem, anxiety and managing feelings.

Children who have been identified as having a special educational need will have the targets and strategies they are working on recorded on a SEN Support Plan. These targets and a review of strengths/ progress and needs will be re-evaluated termly and discussed with both the pupils and their families at review meetings. The individual targets will include strategies on how families can best support their child and what the preferred outcome will be.

As part of the graduated approach (above), provision is regularly reviewed. This may be by the class teacher after a short intensive intervention for example, or as part of termly pupil progress dialogues with the headteacher or SENCo, or as part of the termly review with parents. It may also arise following input from an external agency. As part of that review, the pupil's support plan and targets will be updated, which will inform the support and interventions put in place. 

The amount of additional support is linked to the funding received:

All pupils with SEND will have access to Element 1 and 2 of a school’s budget which equates to £6,000.

Some pupils with more complex needs may access additional funding. This additional funding (AFN) comes from a budget which is devolved to and moderated by the Family of Schools. This is accessed by submitting bids according to the level of support required. The SENCO formulates the bids according to LA prescribed criteria.

For those with the most complex needs, additional funding is retained by the local authority. This is accessed through the Family of Schools. The Family SENCO will refer individual applications to a multi-agency panel, which is administered by the Local Authority, who will determine whether the level and complexity of need meets the threshold for this High Level Need funding.

We aim to make sure that children with special educational needs are able to take part in all the activities of the school, including extra-curricular activities and in the day to day roles and responsibilities in school. Pupils will be supported during such activities with the appropriate support they need.  This will level of support will be discussed and decided with parents.

Extra preparation and resources such as a visual timetable or a social story may be provided in order to reduce anxieties which may occur when things are different.

We recognise that some children have extra emotional and social needs that need to be developed and nurtured. These needs can manifest themselves in a number of ways, including behavioural difficulties, anxiousness, and being uncommunicative. All classes deliver PSHE (Personal, Social, Health end Economic education) curriculum to support this development.

However, for those children who find aspects of this difficult we offer in-school nurture provision, run by our Pastoral Lead and teaching assistants such as lunchtime and playtime support through planned activities and groups. We also have a nurture room, in which children can attend planned nurture interventions or can drop in for ad hoc support. We have a trained ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant.) Staff have undertaken professional development on mindfulness and emotional wellbeing.

If your child still needs extra support, with your permission, the SENCo will access further support through Mental Health Support Team who offer workshops and group support sessions. If further support is needed a referral to Children and Adolescent Mental Health services (CAMHs) will be made.

The SENCO, Heidi Ackroyd, can be contacted by phoning the school office 0115 9149779 or emailing during working hours to:

office@greythorn.notts.sch.uk

The SENCO received additional training in the last 3 years (2020-2023) on Emotional Health and Wellbeing and child mental health;  Developmental Language Disorder; OFSTED best practice SEND; Engagement model; Wellbeing for Education; ASD and attention from SFSS; Child protection and the role of the Designated Teacher for Looked After Children.  All teachers have received training in adaptive teaching and scaffolding support for children with SEND and in use of the Boxall profile.

Teachers will receive training in ASD in June 2024 and all staff are attending a partnership wide INSET day in February 2024 on the theme of Inclusion. 

Our school operates the following training programmes:

• Flying High Trust PLCs
• The SENCO attends Local authority conferences
• Specialist schools and Families services training.
• The Rushcliffe Primary Behaviour Support provides training for teaching staff, TAs and Midday Supervisors on behaviour management and social and emotional issues. The Educational Psychologist also provides training for example on attachment issues.
• The family of schools a work together to train staff through the 'Springboard' process were possible.
• Individual staff also attend training to support specific needs.

We work with outside agencies when the pupil’s needs cannot be met by the school alone. We have links with the Rushcliffe Behaviour Partnership, The West Bridgford Family of schools SENCo Support Network with Family SENCo and the opportunity to have wider links with a network of schools within the Flying High Partnership. We work with, amongst others, Social Care, Sure Start, Healthy Families Team, Community Paediatricians, physiotherapists, Speech and Language therapy, the Local Authority Schools and Family Specialist Support Services and Educational Psychologists. We welcome the advice of external agencies and always seek to implement the strategies suggested.

Physical Environment         

Building

The school has been adapted to accommodate children with a physical disability.  The car park has ramped access to the pavement. The entrance to the main school building has a ramped approach and doors suitable for wheelchair access. Classrooms are adapted on a needs led basis to have greater accessibility for children with physical disabilities. There is at least one classroom in each year group accessible via a ramp from the playground. There is a purpose built accessible toilet with shower facilities. There is also a smaller accessible toilet in the staff toilet area. Additional equipment such as specialist furniture or building adaptation for children with specific disabilities is arranged through the Physical Disability Support service. 

Assistive technology

In school we use technology to support the children in a variety of ways. We have specific software for the laptops and apps for the iPads to support children with different needs. 

We believe that children do their best when staff and parents/carers work together.  Parents/carers have a unique knowledge of their child and we encourage them to share this wealth of knowledge with the class teacher and SENCo, as we know that with a strong home and school team, children will thrive.  We will communicate with parents in the way they are most comfortable - this might mean face to face conversations, telephone calls, contact via Teams or email. We are also happy to use an interpreter where needed or translate documents as required. 

We encourage all parents to communicate with their child’s class teacher regularly so we know what they are doing at home and we can tell you about what we are doing in school. This is to ensure that we are doing similar things to support them both at home and at school and can share what is working in both places.

We have termly parent consultation meetings to discuss progress and to share strategies that we are employing in school. 

All pupils with identified special educational needs will have a SEN Support Plan, which outlines the targets they need to work on and the provision required to meet these. These are reviewed termly and parents are invited to come in and discuss previous/new targets with the class teacher / SENCo.

In addition to this;

• The SENCo is available by appointment to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns/worries you may have.
• Any information from outside professionals will be discussed with you by the visiting professional involved directly, or where this is not possible, in a report.
• A home/school contact book may be used to support communication with you, when this has been agreed to be useful for you and your child.

If you child is undergoing statutory assessment you will also be supported by the Local Authority.  They will ensure that you fully understand the process.

Children with special needs each have a support plan. This is co-constructed with the child, so they can voice their opinion about their strengths, difficulties and what helps them. Each term, when their plans are reviewed, they are supported to review their targets and suggest next steps. Children, where able, are asked to review meetings to contribute their view on the provision they are accessing and how they feel they can best be supported. Where children have communication difficulties, they might use pictures, signs or symbols to express their views. With children with very complex needs who find it very difficult to communicate, the people who know them best (parents, teacher, key worker) use information gleaned from the child's behaviour, expressions and preferences to add their voice to review documentation. 

If a parent or carer has any concerns or complaints regarding the care or welfare of their child, an appointment can be made by them to speak to the SENCO, who will try to resolve any difficulties and also be able to advise on formal procedures for complaint. The head teacher and senior leadership team will aim to resolve any complaints as soon as possible.

The School Complaints Policy is on the school website or available on request from the school office.

Governors have a responsibility to ensure children with SEND can access services by:

• Determining school’s general policy
• Appointing the ‘person responsible’ for Special Needs (SENCO)
• Having regard to the Code of Practice in all decisions
• Establishing the appropriate staffing and funding arrangements and maintain an overview of the school’s work
• Ensuring that where the ‘responsible person’ has been informed by the LA that a pupil has special educational needs, those needs are made known to all who are likely to teach him or her
• Ensuring that teachers in the school are aware of the importance of identifying, and providing for, those pupils with special educational needs
• Working with the governing bodies of other schools in the area where necessary to co-ordinate special educational provision.
• Ensuring that necessary provision including accessing other services is made for any pupil who has special educational needs and that all pupils are fully included.

Parents/carers seeking advice if they have a concern about their child can contact the following

Heidi Ackroyd school SENCO: office@greythorn.notts.sch.uk  Tel: 0115 9149779

Abbey and Lady Bay Children’s Centre; Tel: 0115 977 3749

Ask Us (formerly Parent Partnership) :0800 121 7772 askusnotts.org.uk 

We also regularly signpost information about services, workshops, events, support groups in our newsletter or on our Class Dojo site.

Transition into school is carefully managed. We gather as much information from parents, previous settings and outside agencies as possible. The SENCO and/or a TA/ Class teacher from school will visit the nursery or previous setting where possible, and then the nursery will often visit our setting so they can be aware how to prepare the child. Passports to facilitate a smooth transition are made where necessary with photographs. Where is is considered appropriate, the child may have a planned programme of transition visits. 

Transition between classes is carefully managed by all the staff. At the end of each year the class teachers hold meetings with the children’s new teachers. TAs also meet, at the end of each academic year, to pass on information about targeted children. Class teachers pass on all relevant information regarding children including details of any interventions, difficulties, successful strategies etc.

The SENCO at West Bridgford School (where the majority of our Year 6 leavers transition to) is invited to Year 6 reviews to meet with the children and their families. We also liaise closely with the head of Year 7 and the pastoral assistant. When a child is moving to a different secondary school we also contact and liaise with the relevant staff.

In the summer term the Key Stage 3 SENCO invites all children with SEND and those whom there are concerns about the secondary school transfer, to visit the Learning Support Centre.  Some children will also undertake extra visits to West Bridgford School to familiarise themselves with the support available, meet staff and facilitate the transition process. The children also produce a passport to support their transition.

Many aspects of our curriculum prepare all our children for adulthood and for independence. With children who receive additional adult support, they are encouraged not to become reliant on that support, but to experience and develop independence and choice. Our PSHE programme helps prepare children for adulthood, for example by teaching them how to resolve conflict, how to form good relationships and how to handle money. Our computing curriculum supports children with how to navigate the online world safely. Children with additional needs are supported to access these lessons and achieve these learning outcomes. 

From the school website: http://www.greythornschool.co.uk/

or please refer to the various organisations and links highlighted in response to question 11 (please see above).