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SEND Information

The four broad areas of special educational needs are: 

  • Communication and Interaction
    This area of need includes children with Autism Spectrum Condition and those with Speech, Language and Communication Needs
  • Cognition and Learning
    This includes children with Specific Learning Difficulties, Moderate Learning Difficulties, Severe Learning Difficulties and Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties
  • Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties
    This includes any pupils who have an emotional, social or mental health need that is impacting on their ability to learn
  • Sensory and/or Physical Difficulties
    This area includes children with hearing impairment, visual impairment, multi-sensory impairment and physical difficulties.

Below is more information on each of the 4 broad areas of Special Educational Need

Communication and Interaction

Communication and interaction:

Children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) have difficulty in communicating with others. This may be because they have difficulty saying what they want to, understanding what is being said to them or they do not understand or use social rules of communication. The profile for every child with SLCN is different and their needs may change over time. They may have difficulty with one, some or all of the different aspects of speech, language or social communication at different times of their lives. Children and young people with ASD, including Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism, are likely to have particular difficulties with social interaction. They may also experience difficulties with language, communication and imagination, which can impact on how they relate to others.

Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties

Children and young people may experience a wide range of social and emotional difficulties which manifest themselves in many ways. These may include becoming withdrawn or isolated, as well as displaying challenging, disruptive or disturbing behaviour. These behaviours may reflect underlying mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression, self-harming, eating disorders or physical symptoms that are medically unexplained. Other children and young people may have disorders such as attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder or attachment disorder.

Cognition and Learning

Support for learning difficulties may be required when children and young people learn at a slower pace than their peers, even with appropriate differentiation. Learning difficulties cover a wide range of needs, including moderate learning difficulties (MLD), severe learning difficulties (SLD), where children are likely to need support in all areas of the curriculum and associated difficulties with mobility and communication, through to profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), where children are likely to have severe and complex learning difficulties as well as a physical disability or sensory impairment. Specific learning difficulties (SpLD), affect one or more specific aspects of learning. This encompasses a range of conditions such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia.

Sensory and/or Physical Difficulties

Some children and young people require special educational provision because they have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of the educational facilities generally provided. These difficulties can be age related and may fluctuate over time. Many children and young people with vision impairment (VI), hearing impairment (HI) or a multi-sensory impairment (MSI) will require specialist support and/or equipment to access their learning, or habilitation support. Children and young people with an MSI have a combination of vision and hearing difficulties.

Accesibility

We are committed to providing a fully accessible environment which values and includes all pupils, staff, parents and visitors regardless of their education, physical, sensory, social, spiritual and emotional needs. We are committed to challenging negative attitudes about disability and accessibility and to developing a culture of awareness, tolerance and inclusion. 

What we do to prevent pupils with disabilities from being treated less favourably: 

We are a Rights Respecting School and so making the rights of every pupil is at the heart of what we do. This is done through our PSHE programme, school council, assemblies and class discussions. In addition, the building is assessed for accessibility which means that entrance to the school is level, except for one gentle ramp and movement around the school only has one small split level which is accessible through a lift. We also have a disabled toilet facilities. The facilities to assist access are outlined in our Accessibility Plan which you can find in the School Policies section of our website.  Our Accessibility Plan and the short, medium and long term actions, will be reviewed and adjusted on an annual basis and a new Accessibility Plan will be produced every three years. The Accessibility Plan contains relevant actions to:

  • Improve access to the physical environment of the school, adding specialist facilities as necessary.
  • Increase access to the curriculum for pupils with a disability. This covers reasonable adjustments within teaching and learning, specialist aids and equipment and the wider curriculum of the school, such as after school clubs, visits etc,
  • Improve the provision of information to pupils, staff, parents and visitors with disabilities.  All information will be made available in various formats within a reasonable time frame.
  • Improve and make reasonable adjustments to the delivery of written information to pupils, staff, parents and visitors with disabilities. Examples might include letters home, hand-outs in class and information about the school and school events. The information will be made available in various preferred formats, for example braille, large print, accessible fonts and all within a reasonable time frame.

Useful Links

There are many other places to seek help and advice for emotional and well-being services. Here are some places where that is possible. If you need any advice, please contact the school.