SEND Provision

All Barking and Dagenham Local Authority (LA) maintained schools are supported by the LA to ensure that all pupils, regardless of their specific needs, make the best possible progress in school.

All schools are supported to be as inclusive as possible, with the needs of pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Disabilities being met in a mainstream setting wherever possible.

The four broad ‘areas of need’ are Communication and Interaction, Cognition and Learning, Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties, and Sensory and Physical Needs.

What is the Local Offer?

The Children and Families Bill became enacted in 2014. Local Authorities and schools are now required to publish and keep under review information about services they expect to be available for children with Special Educational Needs. This is the ‘Local Offer’.

Information regarding the Local Offer for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham can be found by pressing here:

The intention of the Local Offer is to improve choice and transparency for families. It will also be an important resource for parents in understanding the range of services and provision in the local area.

This utilises the LA Local Offer to meet the needs of SEND pupils as determined by the school policy included below, as well as the provision that the school can meet.  It also provides information on how SEN progress is assessed.

SEN Information Report

SEND School Policy

Our school currently provides additional provision for a range of needs, including:

• Communication and interaction, for example, autistic spectrum disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, speech and language difficulties
• Cognition and learning,
• Social, emotional and mental health difficulties,
• Sensory and physical needs, for example, visual impairments, processing difficulties
• Moderate learning difficulties

At Beam County Primary School we pride ourselves in providing opportunities that allow every child to develop to their full potential. We value all children as individuals, recognising that they have a range of needs and abilities and aim to ensure that every child feels that they are a respected part of our school community. We have high expectations of all children and promote an ethos of ‘achievement for all’ through the removal of barriers to learning and participation. We provide support for children who are identified as having special educational needs and disabilities, in order to empower them to succeed.

We aim to promote the early identification of children who have SEND in order for them to reach their potential and hope to work in close partnership with parents to achieve this.

Class teachers work in partnership with parents, and where necessary other agencies, to ensure that children with SEND are provided with an individually tailored education that will facilitate the best possible progress.

We recognise that access to inclusive, highest quality teaching is a priority for all children – this is considered to be Wave 1 of our support for learning. Wave 2 includes additional interventions to enable children to work at age-related expectations. Wave 3 incorporates our SEND interventions which are additional and highly personalised.

The SENCo/Inclusion Managers:  Miss K. Mooney & Mrs. Gholampour

Responsible for:

• Developing and reviewing the school’s SEND policy.
• Co-ordinating support for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).
• Liaising with other professionals who may be coming into school to help to support your child’s learning, e.g. Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychology.
• Updating the school’s SEN list (a system for ensuring that all the SEND needs of pupils in this school are known) and making sure that records of your child’s progress and needs are maintained.
• Providing advice and training for teachers and support staff in the school, so that they can help children with SEND to achieve the best progress possible.

Ensuring that you are:

• involved in supporting your child’s learning
• kept informed about the support your child is getting
• involved in reviewing your child’s progress

The Headteacher: Miss T. Whittington

Responsible for:

• The day-to-day management of all aspects of the school includes support for children with SENDCo.
• The Headteacher will give responsibility to the SENDCo and class teachers but is still responsible for ensuring that your child’s needs are met.
• The Headteacher must ensure that the Governing Body is updated about issues relating to SENDCo.

The SEND Governor: Ms. D. Lumsden

Responsible for:

• Ensuring that the necessary support is given to any child with SEND who attends the school.

At Beam County Primary school, the pupils have disabled wc access in:

• the Nursery
• the KS1 building – main corridor
• Near the main office

We also have within our nursery a shower and changing bed.  In the KS1 part of the school, there is a wet room shower.

The class teacher

Responsible for:

• Checking on the progress of your child and identifying, planning and delivering any additional help your child may need (this could be targeted work or additional support) and letting the Special Education Needs/Disabilities Co-ordinator (SENCo) know as necessary.
• Writing Pupil Progress targets and Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). These targets may be (where applicable), linked to the smaller steps outlined in PIVATS (Performance Indicators for Value Added Target Setting).
• Sharing and reviewing these targets with parents at least once each term and planning for the next term.
• Personalised teaching and learning for your child through Wave 1 inclusive, highest quality teaching.
• Ensuring that the school’s SEN Policy and Guidelines are followed in their classroom for all pupils in their class.

The SENCo/Inclusion Manager:  Miss K. Mooney and Mrs Gholampour

Responsible for:

• Developing and reviewing the school’s SEN policy.
• Co-ordinating support for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).
• Liaising with other professionals who may be coming into school to help to support your child’s learning, e.g. Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychology.
• Updating the school’s SEN list (a system for ensuring that all the SEND needs of pupils in this school are known) and making sure that records of your child’s progress and needs are maintained.
• Providing advice and training for teachers and support staff in the school, so that they can help children with SEND to achieve the best progress possible.

Ensuring that you are:

• involved in supporting your child’s learning
• kept informed about the support your child is getting
• involved in reviewing your child’s progress

The Headteacher: Miss T Whittington

Responsible for:

• The day-to-day management of all aspects of the school; this includes support for children with SEND.
• The Headteacher will give responsibility to the SENCo and class teachers, but is still responsible for ensuring that your child’s needs are met.
• The Executive Headteacher must make sure that the Governing Body is kept up to date about issues relating to SEND.

The SEN Governor: Cllr Lumsden

Responsible for:

Making sure that the necessary support is given for any child with SEND who attends the school.

a) Class teacher input via inclusive, highest quality teaching.

For your child this would mean:

• That the teacher has the highest possible expectations for all pupils in their class.
• That all teaching is built upon what your child already knows, can do and can understand.
• That different ways of teaching are utilised, so that your child is fully involved in learning in class. This may involve activities being presented or recorded in many different ways.
• That specific strategies, which may be suggested by the SENCo or other professionals, are in place to support your child to learn.
• Your child’s teacher will have carefully checked on your child’s progress and will have decided that your child has a gap or gaps in their understanding/learning and needs some extra support to help them make the best possible progress.

Specific group work will be:

• Run in the classroom or a group room – planned and evaluated by a teacher.
• Run by a teacher or a learning support assistant (LSA) – planned and evaluated by a teacher.

b) Assessment and advice from other professionals

(SEN Code of Practice 2014: School Support (SS))

This means a pupil has been identified by the SENDCo/Inclusion Manager/class teacher as needing some extra specialist input from a professional outside of the school. This may be from:

• Local Authority services, such as the ASD Team, Behaviour Support Team or Sensory Services (for students with a hearing or visual need).
• Outside agencies such as the Education Psychology Service (EPS) and Speech and Language Therapy (SALT).

What could happen:

• You may be asked to give your permission for the school to refer your child to a specialist professional, e.g. a Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. This will help both you and the school to understand your child’s particular needs better, and to be able to support them more effectively in and out of school.
• The specialist professional will work with your child to understand their needs and make recommendations as to the ways they should be supported effectively.

c) Specified Individual support

This type of support is available for children whose learning needs are severe, complex and lifelong.

This is usually provided via a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). This means your child will have been identified by professionals as needing a particularly high level of individual or small-group teaching.

This type of support is available for children with specific barriers to learning that cannot be overcome through Quality First Teaching and intervention groups.

Your child will also need specialist support from other professionals. This may be from:

• Local Authority services, such as the ASD Team, Behaviour Support Team or Sensory Services (for students with a hearing or visual need).
• Outside agencies such as the Education Psychology Service (EPS) and Speech and Language Therapy (SALT).

For your child this would mean:

The school (or you) can request that Local Authority Services carry out a statutory assessment of your child’s needs. This is a legal process which sets out the amount of support that will be provided for your child.

After the request has been made to the ‘Panel of Professionals’ (with a range of information/paperwork about your child, including some from you), they will decide whether they consider that your child’s needs (as described in the paperwork provided), seem complex enough to require a statutory assessment. If this is the case, they will ask you and all professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs. If they do not think your child needs this, they will ask the school to continue with the current level of support.

After the reports have been submitted, the Panel of Professionals will decide if your child’s needs are severe, complex and lifelong. If this is considered to be the case, they will write a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP). If this is not thought to be the case, they will ask the school to continue with the current level of support ensuring that parents are kept fully aware of what support is being given

The Statement or EHC Plan will outline the number of hours of individual/small group support your child will receive, and how the support should be used. It may also detail what strategies must be put in place to ensure that your child makes the best possible progress. The Statement/ EHC Plan will include long- and short-term goals for your child.

The additional adult may be used to support your child with whole class learning, with individual programmes/ interventions specific to your child or within small group interventions.

If you have concerns about your child’s progress, you should speak to your child’s class teacher initially.

If you continue to be concerned that your child is not making progress, you may speak to the Special Education Needs/Disabilities Co-ordinator (SENCo).

The school SEN Governor can also be contacted for support.

If your child is identified as not making progress, the school will set up a meeting to discuss this with you in more detail in order to:

• Listen to any concerns you may have.
• Plan any additional support your child may need.
• Discuss with you any referrals to outside professionals.

The school budget, received from Barking and Dagenham LA, includes money for supporting children with SEND.

The Headteacher decides on the deployment of resources for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, in consultation with the school governors on the basis of needs in the school.

The Headteacher and the SENCo discuss the information they have about SEND within the school, including:

• which children currently receive additional support
• which children require additional support and in what form
• which children have been identified as not making as expected progress and the possible reasons for this

From this information, they decide what resources/training and support is needed.

• Teachers are responsible for teaching individuals/ groups within classes.
• Teaching Assistants and HLTAs working with individual children or with small groups.
• Additional intervention groups led by trained members of staff supporting the particular needs of groups of children, such as those with Speech and Language programmes.
• ICT support in the form of iPads with apps to support children’s learning. Also, the recently purchased Lexia programme will be offered to a target group of children with additional needs in Literacy.
• Speech and Language Therapy Assessment and Advice provided by Ed Hooke, Private Speech and Language Therapist.

Local Authority Provision

• Autism Advice Service
• Educational Psychology Service
• Sensory Advice Services for children with visual or hearing needs
• Behaviour Support Team
• Health Provision
• Speech and Language Therapy (SALT)
• School Nurse
• CAMHs

The SENDCo’s job is to support the class teacher in planning for children with SEND.

The school provides training and support to enable all staff to improve the teaching and learning of children, including those with SEND. This includes whole school training on SEND issues, such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and speech and language difficulties.

Individual teachers and support staff attend training courses run by outside agencies that are relevant to the needs of specific children in their class.

Class teachers plan lessons according to the specific needs of all groups of children in their class and will ensure that your child’s needs are met.

Support staff, under the direction of the class teacher, can adapt 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.

Planning (including that for specific Personal Learning Plan targets) and teaching will be adapted, on a daily basis if needed, to meet your child’s learning needs.

Your child’s progress will be continually monitored by his/her class teacher.

Children’s progress is reviewed formally during Pupil Progress meetings and Phase Group Meetings each term.

If your child is in Reception or above, a more sensitive assessment tool can be used, which shows their attainment in more detail – breaking learning down into smaller steps (PIVATS – Performance Indicators for Value Added Target Setting).

At the end of each key stage (i.e. at the end of year 2 and year 6), all children are required to be formally assessed using Standard Assessment Tests (SATS). This is something the government requires all schools to do and the results are published nationally.

Where necessary, children will have a Personal Learning Plan which may incorporate targets based on PIVATS (Performance Indicators for Value Added Target Setting) or set by outside agencies specific to their needs. Targets will be designed to accelerate learning and close the gap. They will also aim to address children’s individual learning, social, speech and language needs. Progress against these targets will be reviewed regularly, evidence for judgements assessed and a future plan made.

The progress of children with a statement of SEN/EHC Plan will be formally reviewed at an Annual Review with all adults/ professionals involved in the child’s education.

The SENCo will also check that your child is making good progress within any intervention group in which they are involved.

Regular book scrutinies and lesson observations will be carried out by the SENCo and other members of the Senior Management Team to ensure that the needs of all children are met and that the quality of teaching and learning is high.

• The class teacher is regularly available to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have and to share information about what is working well at home and school, so that similar strategies can be employed.
• The Inclusion Manager/SENCo is available to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have.
• All information from outside professionals will be shared with you via copies of reports received or through scheduled meetings with them.
• Personal Learning Plan targets will be written and reviewed with your involvement every term.
• Homework will be adjusted as needed to your child’s individual requirements.
• 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).
• Mrs. Huskie is our dedicated Parent Support Advisor who is available to meet with parents and offer advice and support on a number of issues. Mrs. Huskie also coordinates a range of different classes/ training events for parents.
• As a school, we have developed close links with IMPART. IMPART is a charity organisation which is run by a group of parents from Barking and Dagenham, all of whom have children with Special Educational Needs. We host regular coffee mornings which parents are invited to attend. Representatives from IMPART along with Mrs. Huskie are available to speak with parents at every coffee morning and we frequently have guest speakers or representatives from other agencies attend also.

We recognise that transitions can be difficult for a child with SEN, and we take steps to ensure that any transition is a smooth as possible.

If your child is joining us from another school:

• The SENDCo will visit pre-schools with a member of staff from the Early Years Foundation Stage team where possible.
• We will make contact with your child’s previous school in order to discuss their needs and the provision which was made for them.
• Your child will be able to visit our school and stay for a taster session, if this is appropriate.
• An admissions meeting will be arranged at school to discuss your child’s needs with you.

If your child is moving to another school:

• We will contact the school SENCo and ensure he/she knows about any special arrangements or support that need to be made for your child. Where possible, a planning meeting will take place with the SENCo from the new school.
• We will make sure that all records about your child are passed on as soon as possible.

When moving classes in school:

• During the Summer Term, your child will have an opportunity to meet their new class teacher and any Support Staff during ‘Transition Week’. They will spend a week in their new class and this will give the new teacher the chance to become familiar with their needs.
• Information will be passed on to the new class teacher in advance and in all cases, a transition meeting will take place with the new teacher. Personal Learning Plans and targets will be discussed with the new teacher and all relevant paperwork passed on via Pupil Profile folders.

The SENDCo will discuss the specific needs of your child with the SENCo of the child’s secondary school. In most cases, a transition review meeting will take place with the SENDCo from the new school.

Your child will participate in focused learning relating to aspects of transition, to support their understanding of the changes ahead.

Where possible, your child will visit their new school on several occasions, and in some case,s staff from the new school will visit your child in this school.

1. In the first instance, complaints about SEN provision in our school should be made to the SENCCO Miss Mooney or Mrs Gholampour.
2. Follow the Beam’s complaints procedure.

There’s a different process if you disagree with a decision your local authority has made about an EHC plan.

 
The parents of pupils with disabilities have the right to make disability claims to the first-tier SEND tribunal if they believe that our school has discriminated against their children. They can make a claim about alleged discrimination regarding

• Exclusions
• Provision of education and associated services
• Making reasonable adjustments, including the provision of auxiliary aid services

Please press here to be directed to the web page regarding the first-tier application form.