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:
- Work in partnership with parents/carers, pupils
- Consult with relevant external agencies
- Use assessment tools & materials
- Use observations
- Use Short Notes
The Woodlands consider the paperwork from the referring/previous school. The SENCO will contact schools for further information regarding a pupil’s previous school experience and the SEN provision in place.
At the Woodlands, we welcome and value contact with parents/carers. Our Pastoral Mentors will ‘signpost’ parents/carers to the appropriate people to help such as the SENCO. The learner’s parents/carers are involved in SEN at The Woodlands:
- At the young person’s admission meeting where parents/carers can share SEN information
- At placement review meetings
- Through joint work on SEN Support Plans and SEN Support Plan reviews
- Contact by text, phone, or face to face as and when needed, usually with the named Pastoral Mentor in the first instance.
We will let families know about any concerns about the pupil’s learning through texts/phone calls as needed and invitations to come to talk about issues as they arise. Meetings are arranged promptly, and someone is usually available at short notice to see parents/carers if they wish to come into The Woodlands to discuss issues. We also liaise closely with learners’ home schools where they are with us on short-term placements.
When a pupil on roll is identified as having special educational needs, The Woodlands will consult with relevant external agencies to gain a clear understanding of the pupils’ needs. The Woodlands have service level agreements with a range of County Durham’s SEND and Inclusion services including educational psychology, Emotional Wellbeing and Effective Learning (EWEL), Cognition and Learning and Autism and Social Communication (ASC). In addition, The Woodlands also have a service level agreement with Future Steps Occupational Therapists.
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:
- 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
As part of this approach, every child with SEN, who are receiving additional support to quality first teaching, 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 this process.
The Woodlands will consult with external providers to ensure appropriate interventions and strategies are in place to meet the pupils needs.
The SEN Support Plans are reviewed on a termly basis with parents, pupil and relevant external agencies.
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.
Some learners may be identified as needing an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan). If they are with us on a short-term placement, then the responsibility for making a request to the local authority to start an EHCP assessment stays with the home school. In this situation, the SENCO will work closely with partner schools to offer support and provide additional written evidence. If the young person has been permanently excluded, then the SENCO will initiate the request and use information obtained from other services such as CAMHS and educational psychology. The process is very person-centred and parents and carers/ learners are involved at every stage.
For more detailed information see the Local Offer
Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEN
In deciding whether to make special education provision to support educational, social, physical or emotional needs, we:
- Consider paperwork and information shared from previous schools
- Work in partnership with parents/carers, pupils
- Consult with relevant external agencies
- Use assessment tools & materials
- Use observations
If your child has SEN, it may be important for us to carry out formal assessments to identify their strengths and identify their needs accurately. To do this, we will use a range of methods depending upon their needs. When your child enters our school, their current attainment is assessed to give us a ‘baseline’ from where they will progress. Depending upon their needs, other assessments may be needed. These could include:
- Speech Therapy Assessments – which may focus on sound production, language understanding, or other relevant assessments to your child’s needs
- Education Psychology Assessments – which may include memory, understanding, reasoning, logic, and general skills assessments
- Cognition and Learning Assessments
- Emotional Wellbeing and Effective Learning Assessments
The outcomes of all assessments are shared with parents and carers at our termly reviews. If other agencies are invited to work with your child, you will be invited to attend a meeting where the outcomes of these assessments and their next steps will be shared with you.
Your child’s school achievements may be assessed against the levels expected for children who are working on the National Curriculum (i.e., the same as the majority of other children in their year group), or they may be assessed against other measures for children who are not ready to work on National Curriculum Levels (i.e., the steps before the National Curriculum).
For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found on our website.