SEN

At Milnthorpe Primary SEND needs are usually grouped into 4 categories:

• communication and interaction
• cognition (thinking) and learning
• physical and sensory
• social, emotional and mental health needs.

Everyone at school is involved in making sure your child is supported and achieves their full potential. Your child’s class teacher:

• checks on your child’s progress and (where needed), identifies, plans and delivers any additional help your child may need
• plans for all children who need extra help
• monitors this help to make sure it is making a difference for your child
• asks, with your permission, for further specialist help if your child isn’t making progress – for example, they may ask you if they can include the Speech and Language Therapist in an assessment of your child’s speech, language and communication needs
• discusses with you at all stages how your child is doing, what help and support is needed and agrees plans together with you called SSPs (School Support Plans) and reviews how things are working 

The school Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator is Sarabeth Pearce (spearce@milnthorpe.cumbria.sch.uk). The SEND co-ordinator's role includes:

• co-ordinating all of the support that we provide for children with SEND and their families and develops our approach so that all children get the best quality help
• ensuring children and their parents/carers are included in knowing what’s happening and are involved in checking what’s working/what’s needed next
• working with the outside agencies that we sometimes need support from – Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Paediatrics, School Nursing, Educational Psychology, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Specialist teaching services
• keeping our school systems up-to-date so we know who in school has SEND and what support is being given
• making sure teachers and support staff have what they need to help children with SEND in the school achieve the best progress possible

Our SEND Governor is Mrs Sally Edmonson; she works with Mrs Pearce and provides a link for governors to be informed about SEND within school.

• the class teacher will review the Individual Support Plan with each pupil and ask if there is anything else they can help them with
• teaching assistants will monitor and take feedback regularly
• pupils with EHCPs will have annual reviews regarding the support they receive and and a discussion will be held to assertain how the pupil feels they can be better supported

• Our school is a mostly single storey, purpose-built one form entry school – this means we have one class in each year group. We have few steps or stairs inside the building and wide corridors
• We are wheel-chair accessible, we have toilets for people with disabilities and we ensure that equipment and adaptations are put in place to support each child’s individual needs
• The school has interactive whiteboards in every classroom and there is access to laptops and iPads for all children
• Our classrooms are communication friendly and staff use Makaton, British sign language phase 1 and PECs to support children who do not use speech to communicate

We recognise that transition – both into school and from Milnthorpe Primary on to other schools – can be both an exciting but worrying time for children and their parents. To help children feel welcome:

• we spend time in the Summer working with new parents/carers whose children will be taking a Nursery or Reception place
• depending on the situation, we can include visiting the family at home or seeing the child in an Early Years setting to make sure we are prepared to meet their needs on entry
• we encourage all new children to visit the school prior to starting where they are shown around the school and meet some key members of school staff
• for children with SEND, we encourage further visits to assist with getting used to the new surroundings

If you would like to find out more about admissions to Milnthorpe Primary, please click below

Admissions

• Most children with SEND are supported through the regular opportunities provided to all children – high quality teaching, excellent play opportunities and supportive and empathetic staff who want to listen to your child
• Some children do find the social and emotional aspects of school life to be more difficult than others; we work closely with parents to support them
• We provide individual and group-based support covering areas such as self-esteem/confidence, social skills and making friends, anger management, coping skills and learning to relax. 

• We want all of our children to grow into responsible adults, who respect themselves and each other
• Self-discipline is important for learning and behaviour, as is your child learning about cooperation and friendship. This atmosphere of mutual trust between students allows us to build the foundations of a clear stance against bullying. Children are carefully monitored and supported within an inclusive whole school approach (for more information please see our behaviour policy).To help make this happen, we feel it is essential for staff to establish a consistent approach to behaviour, including attitudes and behaviours for learning
• We want children to want to behave well, and to achieve, because they see the benefits for themselves
• We need to teach children about social and emotional aspects of development and we use a range of opportunities to do so. For example, every child in school has regular lessons from the PSHE/citizenship curriculum

We use a range of strategies to manage behaviour:

• the most important strategy to ensure good behaviour is to provide the highest quality teaching that fully engages your child
• we listen and attend to what children say and do, as this provides us with important clues for why they behave as they do
• we praise them when they have done well – the children have an opportunity to be recognised for their efforts through the school’s merit system
• children are provided with warnings if their behaviour is not in keeping with what is expected of them
• there are sanctions that teachers and support staff apply when a child is not making good choices
• our behaviour management approach allows children to have a fresh start each day, and that it is always the behaviour that is ‘undesirable’- not the child.

We cannot manage behaviour effectively without your support and it is essential that you understand and support the policies of the school with regard to learning and behaviour. We need you on board with our system for rewarding good behaviour and sanctioning challenging behaviour and to work together with us. Supporting your child’s learning at home to help them achieve their best is a very important part of the help we get from you.

Engagement with parents/carers is very important to us and we make use of a variety of strategies to do this:

• Weekly newsletters
• Website
• Parents’ evenings
• Parent Governor
• School productions
• An ‘open door’ policy for Mrs Pearce
• Text messaging service.

Your child’s class teacher is available to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have. We have regular parent-teacher meetings also, where you and the teacher share information about what is working well at home and in school so everyone uses strategies that work for your child. If your child has a School Support Plan, this is also a chance for you and the teacher to look at targets that have been set for your child, the support we gave and how progress has been made.

The SENDCO (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Co-ordinator) is always available to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns/worries you may have. All information from outside professionals will be discussed with you, or where this is not possible, provided in a report. Please make sure you keep your contact details up-to-date with the school office to make sure we can always get in touch with you for meetings, sending reports and so on.   

We do not discriminate against children with SEND, and all extra-curricular opportunities available for children without additional needs are available to those children with SEND. We have a range of excellent extended services – Sports clubs (netball, gymnastics, football, lacrosse, running), Art and Craft Club, Sewing Club, Code Computer Club, First Aiders and Choir.

It is important to us that those children with SEND access school visits and trips, which are such exciting and interesting learning opportunities for children. We conduct a review of each visit/trip beforehand to ensure we have everything in place to make it a success (e.g. some children with SEND may find periods of walking difficult, or find new environments upsetting); and we make adjustments to our plans to meet their individual needs.

• All children in Milnthorpe Primary are well supervised at all times
• We have an ethos where the older children help the younger children and we emphasise the social and community aspects of school
• Lunchtime is led by our lunchtime supervisors, who link with the SENDCO to ensure that children with SEND are fully included
• If needed, we provide a support/teaching assistant to support children with complex SEND who find playtime more challenging
• We also ensure that children who would find such an approach beneficial have jobs and responsibilities at lunchtime

All teachers adapt their teaching for every child – we aim to give each child the most personalised learning experience possible. As such:

• 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
• specially trained support staff can adapt the teachers planning to support the needs of your child where necessary
• specific resources and strategies are used to support your child individually and in groups
• planning and teaching is adapted on a daily basis, based on your child’s responses to the previous teaching and what needs to happen next.

You are always well informed about your child’s progress in learning and development, and you have regular opportunities to discuss him or her. For example,

• class teachers meet and greet all children every morning in the playground
• every term there is a parent-teacher meeting where you get the opportunity to speak to your child’s class teacher on an individual basis about your child’s progress
• at the end of each year, you receive a written report of your child’s achievements and their suggested next steps for learning
• there are opportunities where you can come in and learn more about children’s learning and progress in core subjects such as literacy and numeracy
• you are most welcome to make an appointment at any time in the school year to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have
• if there are significant concerns about your child – e.g. a sudden deterioration in their progress or emotional well-being – we do not wait until the end of term to discuss this with you. We meet with you to find out how he or she is at home, whether there have been any changes in family life and what we can do to help.

Milnthorpe Primary is deeply committed to ensuring that your child is educated by high quality, professional staff members who have the key skills and abilities to meet their needs. For example,

• all class teachers are qualified teachers who are well supported by specialist staff – the SENDCO and teaching assistants in working with your child. They work with the teacher in planning for children with SEND and provide in house training where needed
• the school also has a school development plan that addresses the identified training needs for all staff to improve the teaching and learning of children including those with SEND
• this may include whole school training on SEND issues or to support identified groups of learners in school, such as attention difficulties, dyslexia, etc. We are keen to provide whole staff training to disseminate knowledge, strategies and experience to ensure consistency of the school’s approach for children with SEND
• teachers and support staff also attend training courses run by outside agencies that are relevant to the needs of specific children in their class
• training takes place on a regular basis. If you would like to hear about the training which is currently taking place or has taken place by the staff members in the school, please speak to the Headteacher or the SENDCO
• our SENDCO has graduate qualifications in the educational provision for children with Autism, and our teaching assistants provide specialisms in Down Syndrome, British Sign Language, PECS, Reading Intervention, Speech and Language, Social skills, literacy and maths specialism, ASDC and fine / gross motor skills.

If you are worried about your child’s progress, please speak to the class teacher. We can then work together to identify what specific concerns you have, what we have observed in school and what we can do next.

We use a range of strategies to identify children who have SEND:

• some children come to school with their needs already identified by their previous setting/school or specialists working with them (e.g. community paediatrics, Speech and Language Therapy)
• we always contact these practitioners to find out what goals they have been working towards, how your child has responded and what needs to happen next
• for other children, we first provide high quality teaching and observe their response to this
• it is only when your child doesn’t make the expected progress after having had good quality teaching that we start to further assess whether your child has SEND
• we also use specialist assessments to help us pinpoint specific needs
• most importantly, we talk with your child and with you about their learning, what is working/where the gaps are and work together on setting targets 

In England, schools are responsible for checking whether a child is working at the level of a test (e.g. Key Stage 2 SATS) but is unable to access them. The Headteacher makes the final decision about this, for example if your child has:

• a physical or sensory disability (e.g. a visual impairment)
• spent lots of time in hospital towards the end of the Key Stage.

Specific arrangements can be put in place to enable children to access the tests. These are based primarily on typical classroom practice for children with particular needs (e.g. if our child uses enlarged print every day in class, this should be available for the exam). Detailed information about each access arrangement and how it can be used is available on the DfE’s website at www.education.gov.uk/ks2.

• SSPs are written and reviewed termly
• Specialist Teaching Services recommendations for types of provision and resources e.g dyslexia programmes
• SEN Coordinator and SEN Governor review the time given to each child's provision termly
• SEN Coordinator and SEN Governor review SEN progress termly

The best thing that can happen if your child has SEND is for them to have excellent classroom teaching, known as Quality First Teaching. For your child this would mean that:

• the teacher has the highest possible expectations for your child and all children in their class
• all teaching is based on building on what your child already knows, can do and can understand
• different ways of teaching are in place so that your child is fully involved in learning in class, this may involve things like using more practical learning
• specific strategies (which may be suggested by the SENDCO or outside staff) are in place to support your child to learn
• the teacher will have carefully checked on your child’s progress and will have decided that your child has gap in their understanding/learning and needs some extra support to help them make the best possible progress.

All children in school should be getting this as a part of excellent classroom practice when needed.

Your child may also benefit from specific group work with a smaller group of children. These kinds of groups, often called interventions, may:

• be run in the classroom or outside
• be run by a teacher or teaching assistant who has had training and is supervised to run these groups
• include clear assessment before and after to measure progress
• have specific targets or goals set for the children involved so they know what they need to do next and when they have achieved this.

This type of support is available for any child who has specific gaps in their understanding of a subject or area of learning. We also sometimes provide specialist groups or individual support as advised by external professionals if children would benefit from this approach. For your child this would mean:

• your child will have been identified by the class teacher (or you will have raised your concerns) as needing more specialist input in addition to Quality First Teaching or in place of intervention groups
• you will be asked to come to a meeting to discuss your child’s progress and help plan possible ways forward – for this we use an approach called Team Around the Child or Team Around the Family

You may be asked to give your permission for the school to ask for the involvement of a specialist e.g. a Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. This will help the school and you understand your child’s particular needs better and be able to support them in school. The specialist will work with your child and the teacher to understand their needs and make recommendations, which may include:

• making changes to the way your child is supported in class e.g. some individualised support or changing aspects of teaching to support them better
• support to set better targets which include the area of their specific expertise
• a group run by school staff under the guidance of the outside professional e.g. a social skills group
• group or individual work with an outside professional

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

We work with you, your child, their previous teacher and assessment results to find out what they already know, how they learn best and what is next in learning. We then use a variety of engaging and interesting teaching approaches to stimulate your child’s participation and engagement. Through observing their responses to teaching – both what is taught and how it is taught – we find out more and more about what they need and how best to provide it.

Once we have assessed what it is they are finding difficult and why, we make a School Support Plan together using a range of strategies and approaches to address any gaps. We then implement the plan and monitor it, reviewing at the end whether it is has made a difference. Usually, this approach is enough to support most children in making adequate progress; it is only when we are not making the difference we would expect that we may ask you for permission to bring in another expert to work with us in meeting your child’s needs.

There are a range of services that we draw upon – Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Paediatrics, school nursing, Educational Psychology, specialist teachers in literacy and numeracy, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), audiology and visual impairment.

You and the class teacher working together are critical to ensuring everything is happening. Every class teacher teaches all of the children in their class, including the children with SEND and they are responsible for your child’s progress. If we need to involve external professionals, we may need you to take your child to appointments, share information with the practitioners concerned and let us know what they have told you. We also need you to help keep your child motivated and engaged in their learning.

If your child requires specialist assessment and intervention, this is discussed at termly progress meetings with the SENDCO. The SENDCO checks to make sure external agencies are working together as they should be and makes requests for additional resources if they are needed.

You will notice positive changes in whatever areas of need had been identified; that is why our initial identification and assessment is so important. It may be improvements in their reading, spelling and writing; or that they are happier in school. Listening to what your child has to say, as well as what you notice in their behaviour at home, is important in knowing whether the provision we’re making is working.

It can be difficult, especially at the beginning of working together, to know exactly how much progress a child is going to make with extra support. It is important to have high expectations for them, and also to be reasonable and realistic in what we all think can be achieved each term or year.

What we do if an intervention isn’t working as we might have hoped depends on the reason for lack of expected progress. If the extra support isn’t working, it may be that we haven’t given it enough time, or it wasn’t the right intervention for your child or that we uncover another barrier to learning while were providing the support.  

The most important thing if you are worried is communication – talk to your child’s teacher or the SENDCO. We have to ensure that everyone has a shared understanding of what happening – do we all have the common goals and timeframes? Have we shared these with each other? Do we share high and realistic expectations for your child? Working together we will come up with a plan for what to do next, and hopefully that revised plan will lead to success for your child.

Again, it depends on what you are worried about – do you feel your child needs further assessment? Do you feel a different sort of specialist advice needs to be provided? Does your child need more time in a different intervention? Talking through your concerns with the SENDCO will help you identify what’s worrying you and what we can do about it. Remember that the option of requesting an assessment for an Education, Health and Care Plan is always open to you.

If you cannot reach agreement with the class teacher and the SENDCO, you can arrange to meet Mrs Hyde, Head teacher, and discuss with her your concerns and what could happen next. You can also seek advice from the Parent Partnership Service in the local authority.

If you think that your child needs more help than the school can provide, there is the option of asking the local authority for an assessment to decide whether an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan is needed. These plans used to be called Statements of SEN. Having an EHC Plan means your child needs a very significant amount of individualised support that cannot be provided from the budget available to the school. It also usually means their needs are very severe, complex and likely to have a lifelong impact on their learning and development.

For your child this would mean:

• The school (or you) can request that the local authority carry out an assessment of your child’s needs. This is a legal process which would set out the amount of support that will be provided for your child if they had an EHC Plan
• After the school have sent the request to the Local Authority (with a lot of information about your child, including from you), they will decide whether they think your child’s needs are complex enough to need an 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 assessment, they will ask the school to continue with school-based support
• After the reports have all been sent in, the local authority will decide if your child’s needs are severe, complex and lifelong. If this is the case they will write an EHC Plan. If not, they will ask the school to continue with school-based support and also set up a meeting in school to ensure a plan is in place to ensure your child makes as much progress as possible.

The best thing for you to do is to talk to the local authority about why they have made the decision they have. The Parent Partnership Service are also available to help you, and there are routes you can go down if you remain dissatisfied – please see Cumbria’s procedures for this. 

We firmly believe in using the Team Around the Child or Team Around the Family approach at all stages of a child’s time with us at Milnthorpe Primary. This means we work together with the family and all of the other practitioners working with them to plan, deliver and review an action plan that is based on the family’s priorities. Relationships are central to this approach – building connections between you and the school, as well as trust and openness.

At times of transition, whether into the school or on to secondary, we meet together as soon as possible to plan the kinds of experiences that the child and family would feel would best help making the transition go as smoothly as possible. It is particularly important for secondary transfer that we include the child as much as possible in the transition and they participate in making the decisions about what works for them.

When your child moves classes in school:

• information is passed in advance to the new class teacher and a planning meeting takes place. All of the individualised planning is shared with the new teacher so they know what has been tried, what’s worked and what’s next for your child
• he/she visits and meets with their new teacher before the end of the school year
• any external professionals working with your child advise the new teacher of the extra help your child needs to make progress

If your child is moving to another school:

• we contact that school’s SENDCO and ensure he/she knows about any special arrangements or support that need to be made for your child
• we make sure that all records about your child are passed on as soon as possible.

For secondary transfer:

• school staff work with you as early as possible to identify the choices for secondary school that you and your child would like, including accompanying you to visit a school if that would be helpful
• we advise you on the processes, deadlines and the paperwork that needs to be completed in advance
• we bring the team working with your family together to plan the transition approximately  a term before your child is due to leave, always trying to ensure we include staff from the new school in this meeting
• we work together with your child on focused learning about aspects of transition to support their understanding of the changes ahead
• where possible, your child visits their new school on several occasions and, in some cases, staff from the new school will visit your child here.

The school budget includes money for supporting children with SEND and the Head teacher decides on the SEND budget in consultation with the school governors, on the basis of needs in the school. All of the evidence and research suggests that one of the most effective ways of using funding for SEND is to use it to improve the quality of teaching. We use the funding we have in a variety of ways:

• helping every class teacher to improve their teaching so that they provide the best learning experiences for children with SEND
• purchasing resources such as programmes to help children struggling with reading
• establishing high quality small group interventions

We also have some personalised provision for children with severe and complex needs.

The Head teacher and governors discuss all the information they have about SEND in the school, including:

• the children currently getting extra support
• the children needing extra support
• the children who have been identified as not making as much progress as would be expected

They decide what resources/training and support is needed. This happens termly so that all of the information about children’s progress and achievement is used to make decisions about funding. All resources, training and support are also reviewed regularly and changes are made as needed. Please see below for what to do if you would like to raise a concern or a comment with the school.

• The first port of call is your child’s class teacher or the SENDCO
• The school website is also regularly updated, and is an important source of information for parents/carers, as well as links to other helpful sites – make sure you regularly check for updates

• Each local authority is producing their own local offer, you will be able to find out more information by looking on Cumbria’s website
• You can also contact Cumbria parent partnership team for impartial advice and the national charity Contact a Family click here

We hope that every parent/carer is happy with what is in place for their child. If you have anything you are not sure about, or have a concern with, the first thing to do is always discuss this with your child’s class teacher. In most instances, issues are resolved at this stage. However, if you remain unhappy you can also speak to the SENDCO (Sarabeth Pearce) or the Headteacher (Mr Hyde). There is a school’s complaints policy (see website).