The Special Educational Needs Department (SEND)

OUR VISION

At Sacred Heart Catholic Secondary School, we value all of our students. We believe that all children have an equal right to an education which enables them to fully develop their individual, social, emotional and academic potential. Our strong Catholic ethos underpins our SEN provision and enables us to ensure all our children achieve their ambitions. We provide our SEN learners with a support plan of pupil passports to complement the personalised quality first teaching they already receive. This coincides with early identification for specific interventions to allow maximum progress. Furthermore, we have high expectations of all our students to ensure they leave Sacred Heart Catholic Secondary School equipped for the bright future which awaits them.

• SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years
• Accessibility plan – Available here

Aims of School SEND Policy and Provision

• To ensure that all students have access to a broad and balanced curriculum including educational visits and extracurricular activities where possible.
• To provide provision for students with SEND matches the nature of their needs
• To ensure that SEND students are involved, where practical, in decisions affecting their educational experience, maintaining a child centred approach.
• To consult and work in partnership with parents of students with SEND
• To consult and involve outside agencies whenever necessary
• To integrate students with SEND into the life of the school providing additional support as needed to achieve this
• To provide a graduated response to SEND needs

Definition of Special Educational Needs

Pupils have special educational needs if they have difficulty accessing the curriculum which calls for special educational provision to be made for them.

Pupils have difficulty accessing the curriculum if they:

• Have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or
• Have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in mainstream schools.

The purpose of identification is to work out what action the school needs to take, not to fit pupils into a category. However, these four broad areas of need give an overview of the range which are planned for:

• Communication and interaction, including ASD, Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism.
• Cognition and learning, including MLD, SLD and PMLD.
• Social, emotional and mental health including ADHD, ADD and personality disorders.
• Sensory and/or physical, including visual impairment, hearing impairment and physical disability.

Identifying Special Educational Needs

Special Educational Provision may be triggered when students fail to achieve adequate progress, despite having had access to a differentiated programme. Parents and Carers and Staff will be informed that the child has special educational needs and appropriate provision will be identified to meet the student’s individual need(s).

Lack of adequate progress may be indicated by:

• Little or no progress despite the use of targeted teaching approaches and a differentiated curriculum.
• Working at levels significantly below age expectations, particularly in Literacy or Numeracy.
• Presenting persistent social and emotional difficulties, which have not been managed by appropriate strategies usually employed and external support is required.
• Sensory or physical impairments that result in little progress despite the provision of appropriate aids or equipment.
• Impaired communication or interaction, requiring specific interactions and adaptations to access learning.

Roles and Responsibilities

SENDCO – Kim Harris

Subject Leaders Across the Curriculum will Ensure:

• Ensuring appropriate curriculum provision and delivery clearly stated in their schemes of work.
• Ensuring appropriate teaching resources for students with SEND.

“All teachers are teachers of special needs”.

• Devising strategies and identifying appropriate differentiated methods of access to the curriculum, in conjunction with the SEND department.
• Recognising that central to the work of every teacher is the cycle of planning, teaching, assessing and evaluating that takes account of the wide range of abilities, aptitudes and interests of the students in their classes.
• Ensuring pupil’s pupil passports are considered in lessons.
• Monitoring progress of students with SEND.
• Be fully aware of the school’s procedures for SEND.
• Raising individual concerns to the SEND Department.

What our Teaching Assistants do:

• Support students with SEND and the wider school population.
• Plan and deliver individual intervention programmes where appropriate.
• Monitor progress against targets
• Assist with drawing up individual plans for students and supporting information sheet development, as required.
• Contribute to the review of progress, either in person or with a written report.
• Work with small groups in or out of the classroom, under the direction of the class teacher.
• Support SEND pupils on Educational visits and all other pupils where possible.
• Jointly plan with teachers, where appropriate.

A Graduated Response is adopted for students identified as having SEND. The level and type of support is provided to enable the student to achieve at least adequate progress. Provision is identified and managed by the SENCO but will be planned and delivered by teaching and support staff.

Graduated Response

• Wave 1 – Quality first teaching by all teaching staff.
• Wave 2 – Is initiated where students have failed to make adequate progress as identified by the SENCO through the assessment arrangements as in 3.1.

Criteria for Wave 2 include:

• Low Numeracy/Literacy scores
• Teacher’s observations
• Primary teacher’s comments
• Concerns from staff or parents

Provision from within the school’s resources is identified to help meet the student’s needs. Interventions may include:

• Additional learning programmes such as Fresh Start, Rapid Readers and Lexia.
• Smaller group sessions and extraction groups for English and Mathematics.
• Small intervention groups for dyslexia, spelling, reading comprehension difficulties and social skills.
• Appropriate teaching groups/sets.
• Group support on a regular basis.

Wave 3

Where students fail to make adequate progress, despite additional provision at Wave 2, the school seeks advice and involvement from external support services such as the Language and Learning team and CAHMS.

They are requested to:

• Provide specialist assessments.
• Give advice on teaching strategies or materials.
• Provide short-term support or training for staff