At Shepherdswell, we recognise that many children will have, at some point during their school life, needs that are additional to the ‘norm’ and that on occasions these needs may be ‘special’, requiring specialist input/support. Our aims include the early identification of all children who need special consideration to support their physical, sensory, social, emotional, communication or cognitive development. We aim to ensure that these children are given appropriate support, allowing them full access to the National Curriculum; high quality teaching, differentiated for individual pupils, is the first step in responding to pupils who have or may have SEN. Teachers have a responsibility for maximising achievement and opportunity of vulnerable learners.

If you are concerned that your child may have SEN, your child’s class teacher should always be your first port of call. They are responsible for:

  • Identifying, planning and delivering any additional help your child may need within Quality First Teaching.
  • Personalising teaching and learning for your child as detailed on the class provision map or child’s personalised plan.
  • Checking on your child’s progress.
  • Liaising with the SENCO.
  • Ensuring the schools SEN policy is followed in their classroom for all pupils, including those with SEND

At Shepherdswell, children’s academic progress is monitored 6 times a year.  We also use a range of assessments at various points during the year as necessary and include: Phonic Screening in Year 1; Reading age assessments during the 1st or 2nd term and language assessments as necessary, including Speech Link, Language Link, Language for Learning.

Where progress is not sufficient, even if a special educational need has not been identified, we put in place extra support to enable the pupil to catch up. This may include small group or 1-1 work in maths/literacy; differentiated daily phonic groups, reading or specific intervention programmes designed by the class teacher &/or SENDCO.

Some pupils may continue to make inadequate progress, despite high-quality teaching targeted at their areas of weakness.  For these pupils, and in consultation with parents, we will use a range of assessment and screening tools to determine the cause of the learning difficulty.  The purpose of this more detailed assessment is to understand what additional resources and different approaches are required to enable the pupil to make better progress.  These will be shared with parents, become part of the Class Provision Map, reviewed regularly, and refined / revised as necessary. 

At this point we will have identified that the pupil has a special educational need (SEN) because the school is making special educational provision for the pupil which is highly additional and different to what is normally available.  If the pupil is able to make good progress using this additional and different resource (but would not be able to maintain this good progress without it) we will continue to identify the pupil as being ‘vulnerable’ to needing extra input and may add them to our Additional Needs register (AEN).  If the pupil is able to maintain good progress without the additional and different resources he or she will not be identified with special educational needs. When any change in the identification of SEN is noted, parents will be notified.

You can also arrange a meeting with the SENDCo whenever you feel is necessary, please make an appointment via the office.

SEND