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 monitor children’s progress regularly to allow us to put support in place as early as possible. We liaise with school staff, parents and outside agencies such as Health Visitors or Early Help so that we can identify any additional needs from a child starting Nursery as a 2 year old if necessary. We also:
- Work in partnership with parents/carers, pupils
- Consult with relevant external agencies
- Use assessment tools & materials, including the 2 year progress check.
- Use observations
- Use Short Notes
- Liaise with previous schools/nurseries.
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
Assessment takes place continually with your child. It is done informally on a daily basis through observations and marking of work and formally through termly assessments. A tracking system is used to identify any gaps in children’s learning and to plan for interventions to support this.
A concern may be identified as part of this process and the class teacher and SENCO would discuss this and what needs to happen next. Parents/carers would be involved as soon as possible. A Short Note would be completed with concerns detailed, agreed next steps and hoped for outcomes. The next steps may include the involvement of other agencies such as consulting an Educational Psychologist, or referring the child to Speech and Language Therapy. This is so that help and advice can be sought to enable the child to be supported in school.
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.
As a school we currently have three children with EHC plans. They are supported within school through adapting the curriculum, planning individualised learning for them, using specialised resources, and through a high level of support to meet their needs.
For more detailed information see the Local Offer
Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEN
At Cockton Hill Infants’ School we may use some assessments to identify SEN and the area of need. We carry out an initial baseline of your child when they start the school and use this to track their progress termly. We may need to do further assessments such as speech and language assessments, Educational Psychology assessments, cognition and learning assessments or movement assessments. These may take place if your child has been referred to an outside agency such as Speech and Language Therapy.
Assessments are shared with parents over the course of the academic year through open days and reports. You will be invited into a meeting to discuss the outcome of any assessments or reports that have been provided by an outside agency.
For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found in the School Policies section of our website.
