Contact details:
Our SENCo is Belinda Sherlock
Contact details are: admin@stmarys.empowermat.co.uk
Working Together to Help Every Child Succeed
At St Mary’s, we value the contributions made by all children, professionals and parents to help develop our inclusive school community.
‘Special educational provision goes beyond normal differentiated and personalised teaching and learning approaches, it is individual provision that is additional to or different from that made for other children of the same age.’
Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (July 2014)
St Mary’s CE Primary and Nursery School aims to:
- Ensure that all pupils reach their full educational potential and that pupils make good progress regardless of any Special Educational Need, Learning difficulty, disability or disadvantage.
- Recognise and assess additional needs through early identification and timely intervention to ensure that everything possible is implemented to remove or overcome barriers to learning at the earliest opportunity.
- Personalise provision, enabling all pupils to access the curriculum and achieve their full potential.
- Actively involve parents and carers in any decisions affecting their child’s education.
To achieve these aims, staff at St Mary’s ensure that:
- Everyone has the highest aspirations and expectations for every child.
- Provision is adapted accordingly and is responsive and matched to individual children’s needs.
- Extended and outreach services provision makes a difference to outcomes for children and their families.
- Every child is able to access all areas of school life.
Provision is made to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND within the four broad areas of need:
- Communication and Language
- Cognition and Learning
- Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties (SEMH)
- Sensory and Physical Needs
Identification of children with SEND
Throughout the school, formal and informal assessments take place. These assessments help to identify a child who:
- is significantly behind their peers who have started from the same baseline
- is not maintaining their previous rate of progress
- is not closing the attainment gap between themselves and their peers
- widens the attainment gap between the child and their peers
We may feel that a child requires a bit of extra support to ensure that they don’t fall further behind. Parents are always informed if we are putting in additional support for their children.
Sometimes the barrier to learning and making progress is identified as being a social, emotional or mental health issue, a sensory need or a physical need. Whatever the barrier to learning is considered to be, further advice may be sought from outside professionals.
When children arrive from a previous setting already identified as having a special educational need, liaison will take place between St Mary’s CE Primary and Nursery School and the previous setting so that transfer can be as smooth as possible for these children and their families.
For children starting at St Mary’s, the EYFS team and SENCo will liaise with nursery settings to ensure that there is good transition and transfer of information. This will also involve parents and other professionals where appropriate.
Assessment of children with SEND
Once a concern has been raised (by the child, a parent, class teacher or the SENCo) the school may assess your child further to allow clearer identification of the nature of the need and therefore find the best way of ensuring appropriate provision.
School have access to a wide range of support services and professionals and further assessments may be requested by them when it is felt appropriate to do so.
Support
All children who have special educational needs or disabilities have their progress carefully recorded and have specific targets set. These targets are recorded in a Pupil Centred Plan (PCP). The PCPs are regularly monitored and reviewed termly in collaboration between school and home. New targets are set according to your child’s progress and current needs. Your child’s progress and targets can be discussed with class teachers or the SENCo at any time. Progress against these targets is also discussed with parents at a termly parents’ evening.
Where your child has an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan), an annual review will also take place. This review will pull together reports from all professionals involved with your child and will be submitted to the Local Authority SEN Team.
Intervention
We aim to meet the needs of our children primarily through high quality teaching strategies and adaptive teaching; matching the way in which the curriculum is delivered to the needs of the children. As part of this, it may be necessary to offer further interventions to support your child’s learning. These may include, for example:
-fine or gross motor skills activities
-speech and language activities
-specific reading, writing, phonics or maths key skills teaching.
Expertise and training of staff
- Our SENCo, Belinda Sherlock, has qualified in the National SENCo Award.
- Our staff are trained in Read, Write, Inc (RWI) tutoring and further training happens when new staff take up posts within school.
- Some members of staff are trained to deliver the Cool Kids programme.
- Some members of staff are trained in Makaton.
- Some members of staff are trained in Talking Time, a programme to boost children’s early vocabulary levels.
- Staff have received Trauma and Attachment Training and training in ACEs.
- Training for SEND happens ongoingly throughout the year in response to staff needs and the needs of the children.
- All staff receive bespoke speech and language training and training for hearing impairments specific to the children in their class throughout the year.
- Staff received training on the EEF Toolkit of SEN in Mainstream Schools.
- Staff receive ongoing training on Cognitive Load and Rosenshine’s Principles.
Outside agencies
When appropriate we liaise with external agencies to gather advice and training around specific areas of need. All of these agencies work closely with both school and parents. External agencies accessed by school include:
- Educational Psychologists (EPs)
- Health Support through NHS services
- Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT)
- Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy
- Specialist teacher service for visual, hearing and physical impairment
- Emotional Health and Wellbeing Services (BEE-U)
- SPECTRA Autism Inclusion Service
- Shropshire Early Help
- Trust SENCO for assessments
If you would like to discuss any aspect of our SEND provision please contact:
Belinda Sherlock, our SENCo via admin@stmarys.empowermat.co.uk
Specialist Provision
If your child already has a diagnosis of need and/or an EHCP and you are unsure whether or not a large mainstream school will be right for your child, please make an appointment to come and have a look around.
You may be considering more specialist provision. If so, there are a range of Specialist Provisions in Shropshire. A complete list can be found here.
Shropshire have a range of Specialist Resource Provisions or SEN Hubs. These are Specialist Provisions attached to mainstream schools.
Additional Information Documents
SEND Policy-This is an Empower Trust wide policy
Shropshire Council – SEND Local Offer
Shropshire Local Offer for SEND
Video – Shropshire Local Offer SEND
The Shropshire Local Offer provides information for parents/carers, practitioners and young people about SEN provision in their local area
This document provides guidance on the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system for children and young people aged 0 to 25. It came into effect from 1 September 2014.
The All In Programme is part of the Early Help service for children aged up to the age of 18 who live in Shropshire and have a disability that prevents them accessing universal services without additional support.
Shropshire Council – SEND Newsletters
SEND Newsletter for parents, carers and families
PACC-Shropshire (Parent and Carer Council)
PACC supports and empowers Shropshire parents and carers of children with a disability or additional need, to enable them to be actively involved in the design and delivery of the services that they use, through the sharing of their experience and knowledge of their family’s needs.
Autism West Midlands-AWM
Autism West Midlands are the leading charity in the West Midlands for autistic people. We use our passion and expertise to enrich the lives of people on the autism spectrum and those who love and care for them.