How does St. Martin’s C of E Primary School provide for SEND pupils across the curriculum?

 

Our philosophy on supporting SEND pupils:

 

- All pupils are equally valued and the shared responsibility of all staff who understand the differing needs of each individual.

- Our curriculum has been devised to support all our pupils in cultivating skills, values and knowledge.

- All children have skills, talents and abilities. We encourage all our pupils to ‘Aim High,’ and we have a responsibility to ensure that every pupil has the appropriate teaching, learning and nurturing support to reach their potential.

- All pupils are entitled to a relevant and challenging education designed to enable individual pupils to participate fully in society and to contribute to, and benefit from it.

- Many pupils may experience difficulties which may affect their learning, and therefore, may have Special Educational Needs at some time in their school career. Our SEND register is fluid, with essential regular monitoring and assessment for all children.

- To maximise potential, education should be an equal partnership between parents, pupils and staff, with the involvement of other agencies when necessary.

 

This is how we ensure all children can access the curriculum:

 

- Differentiated ability groupings, with provision for flexibility to enable children to work with different people over the course of time, depending on their skills/confidence in the different areas.

- Children who have SEN or EAL needs are taught key vocabulary prior to/at the start of the topic.

- Seat children alongside good role models to support one another.

- Visual/practical prompts and/or resources. e.g. printing important slides from flipcharts to put by the side of the child, writing frames and scaffolding to provide children with text and picture prompts.

- Tasks are broken down into small chunks with visual reminders.

- Give children short breaks in between learning where necessary.

- Consistent practice by all staff for continuity and to avoid stress for the child.

- Teaching lessons using a range of different techniques.

- More frequent repetition and revisiting to help make knowledge stick and to develop confidence.

- Immediate intervention/Pre-teaching in response to/in preparation for learning.

- Resources to scaffold/model learning and enable pupils to access curriculum.

- Quality first teaching with specific reference to SEND pupils in planning.

- Recognition of a different pace requirement – small groups.

- Encourage children to ask for help and consider the resources that they will need to foster independence.

 

This is how it works:

 

- Reactive planning using ISP targets, then learning assistant/teacher assessment on a day-to-day basis.

- Teachers use assessment and discussions with colleagues to determine appropriate initial entry point for each child. We use smaller steps ISP targets to recognise what they have achieved and what they need to learn next. Children all have the opportunity to be further challenged within a lesson. All learning tasks are linked to the others - not just different tasks.

- Fluidity between lessons – recognising that children have different strengths and weaknesses.

- Small focussed groups/1-1 learning assistant/teacher support throughout school.

- High expectations.

- Close liaising between SENDCO, teachers, learning assistants, the child and their parents/carers and other agencies.

- Use of resources: kinaesthetic and concrete learning opportunities to make learning relevant, in addition to practical aids such as, coloured paper/overlays and wobble cushions.

- Breakfast club, after school clubs, lunchtime support.

- Opportunities for Paired learning/Mixed ability learning.

- Remodelling of targets/interventions which aren’t working. If not, why not?

- Use of external agencies to support us.

 

This is how we support:

 

- Individual assessments completed by outside agencies are read to ascertain children’s strengths and weaknesses. These assessments are shared with all staff working with this child.

- Rewards and motivators.

- Our planning documents include discrete focus on SEND/Free school meals (FSM)/pupil premium funded (PP) children.

- Positive use of mistakes/misconceptions- learning environment.

- Regular book scrutiny, learning walks, planning audits, pupil perceptions, staff audit with a focus on SEND pupils.

- Whole school professional development (e.g Autism training, Attachment Trauma and Emotional Coaching).

- Regular opportunities for parental meetings/support and communication in all year groups, plus parental knowledge that they can request additional meetings at any time.

- Family support, well-being interventions, drop-in sessions, targeted groups and individual sessions (e.g. Compass Buzz sessions with Mrs Murray)

 

This is what you might typically see:

 

- Happy, engaged and proud learners.

- Encouraging and nurturing adults.

- Interventions led by experienced staff members, often with specific training and expertise.

- Open ended tasks - low threshold/high ceiling tasks.

- A culture of it being okay to use resources/ask for further help.

- Paired/group work.

- A range of different activities including practical and use of technology.

- Engagement and perseverance.

- Self-motivated children.

- Children talking about, sharing and reflecting on their learning.

 

This is how we know how well our pupils are doing:

 

- Tracking (Tracker records, intervention records and class Pupil Progress Meeting records).

- Pupil progress meetings with relevant subject leaders and SENCO.

- Teacher assessment/targets.

- Marking and feedback (teacher, peer and self-reflection).

- Photo evidence and recording of practical sessions – annotated either by child (KS2) or teacher (KS1), so that the journey of learning is clear including mistakes/ misconceptions.

- Targeted use of learning assistants who note and record observations of individual children.

- Monitoring of children’s progress on their individual education plan (ISP) targets.

 

This is the impact of the teaching:

 

- Closing gaps and progress against a starting point.

- Confident children who can talk about their learning.

- Children who are enjoying their learning and look forward to coming to school.

 

This is how we use intervention:

 

- Clear targets are highlighted and prioritised and small group/1-1 learning assistant support then put into place.

- We use teacher and self-assessment to quickly identify any child who requires additional support in specific areas.

- Then they receive pre-teaching or immediate intervention to ensure they have sufficient skills in place to access the next teaching.

 

This is how we provide challenge and extra opportunities for our SEND pupils:

 

- Differentiation planned from very start of lesson.

- Small group work to further challenge.

- Invitations to participate in extra-curricular activities.

- Opportunities to participate in inter-school challenges and events.