Special Educational Needs at CarletonGreenC.P.School
As part of our commitment to inform parents about our work at school we wanted to give parents an annual report on our work for children with Special Educational Needs. This evaluation will now appear yearly in our Summer Curriculum Newsletter.
Special Educational Needs are addressed by all staff on a daily basis however, over the course of the last year we have focussed on the following key areas.
Resources
An audit of resources was carried out to assess if the resources in school covered all the necessary curriculum areas, were up to date and were well organised to allow staff access. After the audit orders were placed to up date some key areas e.g. resources to support fine and gross motor skills and new resource lists and maps were devised and circulated to all staff. Staff have had meetings to look at these resources and discuss how they can best be used to support a range of needs in school. These resources are not only for those children on the SEN register and may be used for other children if they are appropriate to their learning needs.
Tracking Systems
This initiative has actually been carried out whole school and involves tracking children’s progress term on term and year on year. By doing this staff can see if children are making sufficient progress year on year/term on term and identify those who may need extra support whether in the short or longer term. The result of implementing this tracking has been improved knowledge of children’s progress and school’s ability to pin point help to specific children in school. We have seen when children have found learning difficult and have then implemented intervention strategies to hopefully help these children back on track in terms of progress. In terms of SEN, the new tracking is used to show evidence of need and support applications to the Local Authority for children who meet county criteria for extra support.
Outside Agencies
Special Educational Needs in children often go beyond learning needs and as a school we seek advice off a number of outside agencies so that we can support all children to the best of our abilities. We have been focussing on developing our relationship with these agencies so that there is professional dialogue and we understand the work these agencies do and vice versa. As a school, we are very pleased with our relationship with these agencies e.g. Physiotherapy, Child Health, Lancashire SEN office and this has brought positive benefits for the school community. Examples of this include our Monthly School Nurse Drop In for Parents; Advice for children with Medical care plans in school and agencies coming to work in school with children so that advice is tailored directly to individual children’s needs.
Paperwork
New SEN paperwork has been developed in school. Our paperwork is now straightforward, centered on the needs of the child and addresses the key elements needed to record our support of their needs. This has been well received by the school community and outside agencies.
In future reports we will be including progress of our work towards targets associated with the recent Disability Equality Scheme, promoting access for all regardless of any disability or need. Our current focus is on ensuring all school policies take account of the new legislation so that there is a continued shared emphasis on inclusion.
If you would like to talk to someone in school about Special Educational Needs please feel free to contact Miss Oaten, the school SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator).