Children and young people with learning difficulties will learn at a slower pace than other children and may have greater difficulty than their peers in acquiring basic literacy or numeracy skills or in understanding concepts, even with appropriate differentiation. They may also have other difficulties such as speech and language delay, low self-esteem, low levels of concentration and under-developed social skills.  

Children and young people with a learning difficulty are at increased risk of developing a mental health problem. They may need additional support with their social development, self-esteem and emotional well-being.  

Children and young people with severe learning difficulties (SLD) have significant intellectual or cognitive impairments and are likely to need support in all areas of the curriculum. They may have difficulties in mobility and co-ordination, communication and perception, and the acquisition of self-help skills. Children and young people with SLD are likely to need support to be independent. Those with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) have severe and complex learning difficulties as well as significant other difficulties such as a physical disability or a sensory impairment. They are likely to need sensory stimulation and a curriculum broken down into very small steps. These children and young people require a high level of adult support, both for their educational needs and for their personal care.

Most children and young people in mainstream schools will have their special educational needs met through good classroom practice. This is called Quality First Teaching.

Early Identification of Need

In deciding whether to make special education provision to support educational, social, physical or emotional needs, we:

Use a graduated approach to identify any needs. The first thing we need to do when we feel we have identified a child as having SEN is to work in partnership with our parents to establish the support we feel their child needs here at school.

We will use appropriate screening assessment tools, and ascertain pupil progress through:

• Evidence obtained by teacher observation/assessment.
• Working with outside agencies including medical professionals.
• Assessing the child’s performance in National Curriculum against age related expectations.
• Monitoring the pupil’s progress in relation to objectives in the National Maths and English Curriculum.
• Use of standardised screening and assessment tools..

SEN Support

Where a pupil is identified as having a special educational need we follow a graduated approach which takes the form of cycles of “Assess, Plan, Do, Review”.

This means that we will take a graduated approach with the steps outlined below:

• Assess a child’s special educational needs
• Plan the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes
• Do put the provision in place to meet those outcomes
• Review the support and progress

ADD INFO FROM DROP DOWNS – QFT, SHORT NOTES ETC

As part of this approach every child with SEN will have an individualised SEN Support Plan that describes the child’s needs, outcomes & provision to meet those needs.  Parents/carers and child/YP (where appropriate) views are integral to the this process.

A small percentage of children and young people with significant and/or complex needs may require an assessment that could lead to an Education, Health and Care Plan.

An Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP):  Children who are considered as having significant difficulties may be entitled to apply for an Education, Health and Care Plan.  These were formally known as statements.  From September 2014, statements ceased to be issued and EHCPs are issued in their place.   EHCPs are set up by the Local Authority but are monitored by the school, parents/carers and external professionals where appropriate at least annually.  Interim meetings are held with parents on at least two other occasions throughout the year.

An application for an EHCP can be made by the school or by a parent. If a parent wishes to make an application for the Local Authority to consider an EHCP they can be supported in this process by the school or by SENDIASS – the information and support group which exists to support parents and carers of children with SEND. They can be contacted on the Durham SEND Information Advice and Support Service website.

For more detailed information see the Local Offer

Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEN

We identify the needs, initially through Quality First Teaching and then after needs have been identified support is put in place and monitored.:

• Assessments are made against the four areas of need and if an SEN is identified, parents are informed through a short note.
• If a need is identified then a short SEN plan will be implemented
• All assessments are carried out through Quality First Teaching and through any additional support that is given. We then record on in-school tracking system to monitor the progress of the pupil.
• Parents are informed through regular reviews of short SEN plans.
• Parents can approach the school and, though ‘playground discussion’ or more formal appointments and raise any concerns. We will deal with any issues as the need arises.

In order to respond to individual needs we ensure:

• All pupils have access to the appropriate curriculum.
• Needs are reviewed regularly through the SEN and EHC plans.
• These reviews are carried out with parents/carers and pupils.
• Additional support can be through
• In class support
• Small groupings
• 1:1 support at times
• Outside agencies i.e. sports coaches, movement team.
• Regular lesson observations and book scrutinies are carried out and SEN is a focus for the observations, to ensure that the provision is meeting the need
• Where there are particular needs that can cause risk, we would carry out a risk assessment.
• Through the National Curriculum assessments, we apply for and provide support during the tests for example extra time, or scribe or regular breaks to support the pupils during the tests.

For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found in the School Policies section of our website.

We enable all children to engage fully in all aspects of school life. 

• We ensure that all children with SEND are fully included in all activities of the school in order to promote the highest levels of achievement. Pupils may have different levels of support, as outlined above but they all have equal entitlement to the relevant curriculum.
• We ensure that all pupils are supported to have access to the school curriculum and all school activities.
• We ensure that every child has the same entitlement to a sense of achievement.

Pupils may have emotional and social developmental needs. Within school we have a trained mental health first aider and run various interventions to help children develop coping strategies. In the first instance, each classroom has a daily emotional check-in board that follows the ‘Zones of regulation’ principles. We then respond and support any further issues that may arise through:

• discussions with staff for initial support
• discussions with parents/carers to provide the link to their home
• Intervention from a Community of Learning worker who spends time on various programmes and support for individual need

Sensory Circuit

A sensory circuit is something that helps children to engage effectively with the day ahead by facilitating sensory processing in order to help a child regulate and organise their senses in order to achieve the optimum level of alertness required for effective teaching.

Sensory Circuit – Information for Parents

Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN.

We have a number of Teaching Assistants who are partly funded from the SEN budget and deliver programmes or interventions designed to meet groups of children’s needs.

• The budget is allocated on a needs basis. The children who have the most complex needs are given targeted support.
• All children, no matter what their needs are, receive daily Quality First Teaching. At Red Rose, we aim to keep children with SEND part of their whole class therefore support is often given in the form of a Teaching Assistant working alongside the children and teacher. Interventions are carried out throughout the day at times when the children do not miss their whole class teaching.
• If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes.

The budget is monitored through the SEN short support plans and any EHC plans.

This is used to support children and young people with SEND by:

• Some individual teaching, following dedicated programmes to address specific needs, e.g. reading and spelling difficulties, specialised handwriting resources.
• Small group focus work to address shared issues, e.g. fine and gross motor skills groups.
• Extra coaching from a PE coach to work on gross motor skills.
• Specialist interventions, e.g. Occupational Therapy.
• Learning Support Assistant support within the classroom, in order for the work to be further differentiated to meet exact needs.
• Additional resources to enable better access to the curriculum suggested by professionals.
• Thorough assessments undertaken by Educational Psychologists in order to pinpoint exact areas of difficulty that are then addressed.

If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes.