Harrow Gate Primary Academy Annual SEND report – October 2015

An update on new SEND system

Since the implementation of the new SEND Code of Practice in September 2014 Harrow Gate Primary have been making the necessary changes to move to the new system:

  • The SEND register has been changed in line with the new categories identified in the Code of Practice i.e. Children who had previously been on the register as School Action or School Action Plus are now under the category of SEN Support. Statemented children remain as such until their statements are converted to Education Health and Care plans.
  • All children on the SEND register have been re-catogorised under the four new SEN categories: Cognition and Learning, Communication and Interaction, Sensory and Physical and Social, Emotional and Mental Health.
  • At the same time as re-catogorising the children on the register, current teachers have been asked to consider if the children who are on the register are actually authentic SEND. Over the academic year 2015-16, teachers and the SENCO will work together to ensure that the register is made up of only authentic SEND. This will be done once carefully planned intervention has been put in place and progress has been closely monitored.
  • A procedure has been developed to inform parents formally when their child has been added to or removed from the SEND register. This takes the form of two set letter templates that teachers need to make small adaptions to for each child that has been added to the register.
  • School have implemented a One Page Profile for each child on the SEND register which highlights the areas of strengths for each child and provides information for how people within school can meet their needs. These are kept in a class based SEND file so that any visitors can have access to this One Page Profile.
  • School have reviewed their Provision Mapping process and documentation. Each class teacher carries out provision mapping with the SENCO following the Assess, Plan, Do, Review model. ‘I can’ targets are added to this document and shared with the child and parent. These targets are reviewed at the end of the provision mapping period (a term).These provision maps are kept in the SEND file for the class teacher and other visitors to the class to access. In addition to this the SENCO has introduced Strategy Sets for all of the main areas of SEND in the school for teachers to use for individual child as a tool to know how to meet individual needs within the classroom environment. The main focus for SEND in the academic year 2015-16 is to ensure that quality first wave 1 intervention is at its best for the SEND children of Harrow Gate Primary Academy and these strategy sets and the provision mapping with the SENCO should support teachers in providing this.
  • As part of the provision mapping process there has been a section added to the mapping document for children who are causing concern. During the provision map meeting teachers and SENCO use data, classroom experience, books etc to generate discussion about any children who are a cause for concern due to a lack of progress in any specific area (these children would also be highlighted during pupil progress meetings). These children are then recorded on the provision map and intervention/ different provision is planned. These children will then be monitored and reviewed to see if there is evidence that any of these children are showing signs of being authentic SEND. If, after appropriate assessment and evaluation, evidence provided shows that the child is authentic SEND then they are added to the SEND register.
  • SENCO has planned within the SEND Action Plan to raise the profile of seeking parent and child view. The One Page Profile is one part of this. Parent views have been sought to add to the One Page Profile at the SEN parent meetings, targets have been shared at this meeting and advice given about how to support the child with the targets at home. Teachers have provided parents with opportunity to discuss their child’s needs and this has been recorded on the SEND discussion templates and Parent questionnaires were circulated. The response so far to these questionnaires has been very positive (full analysis of these questionnaires will be shared when they have all been returned)
  • School have published out ‘School Offer’ on the website but this is in the process of being updated since the introduction of ‘A Quiet Place’ into school which is to develop the emotional intelligence of all children in school but will specifically target those in most need of support in this area.
  • In order to support the families of children with SEND, school have reorganised and raised the profile of the use of CAF. When there is a shared opinion of the CAF Lead and the SENCO that the family would benefit from a CAF by bringing all professionals together to work in a child centred way to meet the needs of the child.
  • Information has been shared with staff that there is an expectation that everyone is responsible for SEND children in Harrow Gate Primary School. The SENCO has developed a SEND Audit to assess staff knowledge and understanding of SEND procedures and ways to support different categories of SEND. From this audit the SENCO will be able to organise appropriate CPD needs so that Harrow Gate Primary staff are in the best way equipped to meet the needs of SEND children across school.

How the school identifies pupils with SEND

As a school we accept the principle that pupils’ needs should be identified and met as early as possible. Within Early Years this is particularly essential.

There are four areas of need as stated in the SEND Code of Practice, 2014. Whilst these four areas broadly identify the primary need of a pupil we also consider the needs of the whole child, which may also impact on a pupil’s progress

· Communication and Interaction (C and I)

· Cognition (Cog)

· Social Emotional and Mental Health difficulties (SEMH)

· Sensory and/or Physical. (S/P)

Whilst these four areas broadly identify the primary need of a pupil we also considerthe needs of the whole child, which may also impact on a pupil’s progress

· Disability

· Attendance and punctuality

· Health and welfare

· English as an additional language (EAL)

· Being in receipt of the Pupil Premium. (PP)

· Being a Looked After Child (CLA)

· Being a child of a service woman/man.

The SENCO works closely within the senior leadership team, using whole schooltracking data as an early identification indicator.

We use a number of additional indicators of special educational needs

· the analysis of data, including EY baseline data and end of EY

data, SATs, annual and termly pupil assessments

· The following up of teacher concerns

· following up parental concerns

· tracking individual pupil progress over time

· Information from previous schools on transfer

· Information from other services

The SENCO evaluates the information presented and from that decides if the child meets the criteria for authentic SEND or if we need to highlight this child as a child of concern and closely monitor the child’s progress over a specific time with identified adaptions to provision. If after that period of time, following quality first teaching and appropriate precision intervention, the child continues to meet SEND criteria they would then be added to the SEND Support list. This list is reviewed each term when a detailedanalysis of the list takes place. For some pupils a more in depth individualassessment may be undertaken by the school or other educational or healthprofessionals.

The pupils' progress

SEND progress for the academic year 2014-15 was inconsistent across school.

Year / Reading / Writing / Maths
% of SEND making at least expected progress / % of SEND making at least expected progress / % of SEND making at least expected progress
Year 1 / 76% / 76% / 88%
Year 2 / 57% / 57% / 78%
Year 3 / 75% / 67% / 67%
Year 4 / 88% / 75% / 75%
Year 5 / 64% / 73% / 45%
Year 6
These children have now left. / 59% / 88% / 53%

Nationally SEND data end of 2013/14 Academic year: (data for 2014/15 has not been released yet)

  • reading progress was 79%
  • writing progress was 82%
  • maths progress was 74%

Based on the national level of progress there are significant areas of concern with regards to SEND progress and action is being taken within the Academy Action Plan to address this.

For the academic year 2015/16 the focus for improving SEND progress follows the whole school focus of improving quality first teaching through the development of learning constructs across the whole of the school.

CPD has already been provided to support staff with providing improved quality first teaching with regards to SEND children and support will continue throughout the year based on individual teacher needs which will be highlighted in part by the SEN audit and also through leadership monitoring in school.

A Quiet Place has been introduce to help children be ‘learning ready.’

SEND funding

School hold SLAs with CATS for play therapy and social, emotional and mental health assessment (2 days per week) and with the Speech and Language Therapy service (1 day per week)

A large investment has been made into developing ‘A Quiet Place’ in school. This is for all children, not just SEND children so only a small proportion of the cost is SEND funded.

Currently we have seven children receiving 1-1 support for various different needs across the whole of the school. These children receive top up funding from SEN Section but the additional cost is required to come from the SEND budget.

Part of the cost of the two Learning Mentors in school are funded from the SEND budget due to a proportion of their work being focused around supporting children with certain SEND needs (predominately those childrenwith social, emotional and mental health difficulties and communication and interaction difficulties.)

Resources have been bought for individual needs:

  • orthopedic equipment;
  • fidget toys;
  • motor difficulty tools;
  • dyslexia friendly tools such as coloured overlays.
  • High interest, low level reading books

Staff development

Staff development is a key responsibility for the SENCO under the new Code of Practice and CPD has already started for supporting the teaching and learning of SEND children in school.

In September the SENCO delivered training based on NASEN materials by Kate Browning, SEN Advisory Consultant.

High Quality Teaching - ‘The first step in responding to pupils who have or may have SEN’

This training was to support staff with providing quality first teaching support, provision and intervention within the classroom for our SEND children. Monitoring the impact of this training is part of the monitoring focus for the year.

In addition to this training, the SENCO developed resources based on the work of Jean Gross in her book ‘Beating Bureaucracy in Special Educational Need,’ where Strategy Sets were developed for each of the main areas of SEND found in a main stream school. These sets provide support for the class teacher on ways to support the needs of the individual children with SEN within the classroom. Teachers have been asked to complete these Strategy Sets for the children in their class with SEND and then to use the strategies to provide the best possible in class provision for SEND children to allow them to make the at least good progress.

In the Autumn term the SENCO will complete a SEN Audit allowing all staff to highlight their strengths and areas for support within SEND. The SENCO will then be able to provide the bespoke CPD required to ensure that all staff have the knowledge and understanding to be able to provide quality first provision for all children with SEND.

Appropriate staff members have attended training to support two children with hearing impairment. The course focused on strategies to use in school to include the two children in whole class learning.

The SENCO and two Learning Mentors are currently accessing training from A Quiet Place around meeting the needs of children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. This training is to support a new provision that school have introduced in November 2015 called A Quiet Place. The aim of this provision is to develop the emotional intelligence of all children in school with specific targeted work around highlighted needs of individual children.

Work with external agencies

Harrow Gate Primary Academy work with a wide range of outside agencies in order to meet the needs of the children with SEND. These include:

Educational Psychologist to assess the needs of referred children and to provide recommendations of how to develop the provision to meet these needs. The EP work also supports school when requesting additional funding, Educational, Health and Care Plans or additional resourced provisions. School pay an SLA for 9 EP sessions per year. It is becoming increasingly apparent that this is not a sufficient amount of time for all of the children who require EP involvement so SLT are currently looking at ways to increase this capacity.

CATS (Child and Adolescent Therapy Service) to carry out assessment of children’s social, emotional and mental health needs and to work therapeutically with referred children. School currently have an SLA with CATS for 2 days per week were the therapist works with 10 children and their families on difficulties that are highlighted through the initial assessment.

Speech and Language Therapist: school have an SLA for the speech and language therapist to work in school one day a week. During this time initial assessments are carried out for children referred by school to the service, therapy takes place and review assessments are completed. The current therapist works very collaboratively with staff encouraging staff to join therapy sessions to gain knowledge and understanding of the child in their class and their needs, as well as supporting teachers through discussion.

Health Visitors work closely with school when children arrive in our EY with SEND. They support school with working effectively with the parents to meet the child’s needs.

CAMHS to assess children’s social, emotional and mental health difficulties and then to provide school with advice about how to meet these children’s needs in school. There are varied levels of effective working with CAMHS, dependent on the CAMHS key worker. Some workers are keen to work with school, however others are less inclined to share information and to work collaboratively for the good of the child.

Hearing Impairment Team work in school for one afternoon a week to support two children with significant hearing difficulties. The SENCO has termly meetings with the teacher from the service so as to update school on progress, areas for concern and to support school with effectively strategies to allow these girls to access their learning in a main stream setting. In addition to this the teacher from the team has informal discussions with the class TA and teachers on a weekly basing. The hearing team teacher and the SENCO have worked collaboratively to support the parents of the children.

Preventions are an agency which school occasionally works with when children are referred to their service to try to prevent children getting involved in criminal activity. School provide background information on the children and then meet regularly to hear updates on progress and to be given recommendations for strategies that school could implement.

Alliance have worked intensively therapeutically with one child in school. This has been an additional cost to school as the TAMHS hours had previously been used for another child.

The CAF Team: school have utilized the new CAF Team (Common Assessment Framework which is a system that is used to support families where a child has an unmet need) arrangement where all schools are allocated a CAF Team support worker. This worker has support school in further developing our CAF system and to support in particularly challenging CAF meetings.