This page will help you understand how provision is made at Chaucer for students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

At Chaucer School we very much pride ourselves in providing students the opportunity to progress academically and holistically.

Children learn at different speeds and in a variety of ways. There will be a wide range of ability within your child’s year group. Some children will need some extra support or provision to help them meet their targets and be happy with us at Chaucer School.

You are welcome to contact us at any point to discuss your son or daughter’s progress. Please feel free to make the most of parents’ evenings and other events to talk to us.

At Chaucer School we aim to be as inclusive as possible and wherever are able to remove barriers to learning.

How does Chaucer School help every student?

Every child is an individual. They all develop and learn at different rates. This means that different teaching styles will be used in the classroom to support individual children with their learning.

We provide a cycle of planning, teaching, assessment and evaluation that takes account of the wide range of abilities, aptitudes and interests of children.

Most children will benefit from these different approaches and will make appropriate progress but some may need more support.

What if your child needs more support?

If you or the school are concerned that your child is not making adequate progress, it is possible that they may have special educational needs. This will be referred to the SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) and the Learning Support Team.

Meeting Need – Graduated Approach

Identifying and Assessing Need

Any parent can raise a concern about their child directly with the SENCo, this concern may be addressed by further investigation in school, referrals to specialist services or advice given to parents about next steps for them to take to progress their concerns.

Members of school staff can also refer a concern the to the SENCo who will note the concern and carry out further assessment of the area of difficulty in school. This will always involve parental discussion and may also involve specialist services and assessment from professionals such as Educational Psychologist.

Once the student’s needs have been assessed and identified the level of need will be determined and therefore the type of provision needed will be explored.

Categories of Need

• Communication and Interaction
• Cognition and Learning
• Social Emotional and Mental Health
• Sensory Impairment and/or Physical Disability

What might happen then?

If needed, we will put in place the appropriate level of provision to support your child to make progress and access the curriculum. This could include one or some of the following:

• Teaching staff having information to support your child (e.g. size and font of texts, differentiated work, colour of overlay, seating arrangements). This is communicated through a Learner Profile.
• Catch up Literacy and Numeracy
• Targeted withdrawal from lessons to work on specific areas (e.g. self-esteem support)
• In class support in specific lessons
• Access Arrangements for internal and external exams (these include extra time and, in rare cases, a scribe)
• Social and Communication groups
• Time out passes
• Sensory support passes
• Support at unstructured times (breakfast club, break club and lunch club)

If your child needs support to physically access the curriculum, the support could include some of the following:

• Lift passes
• Learning Support lunch and break passes
• Early lunch passes
• Use of laptops to allow easier recording and presentation of work
• Buddies to support access throughout the building
• Care plans and fire evacuation plans
• Sloping boards, pen grips, coloured overlays
• Medical passes

Level of Need – Provision

The level of need 1-5 and type of provision needed follows once the category of need has been identified, this will be decided by the SENCo and discussed with parents at every stage.

Level 1 Quality First Teaching

Area of need and Teaching Strategies are shared with all staff through the SEND register teachers make the necessary adjustments and adaptations to their teaching strategies to fully include students in all lesson.

Level 2 One Page Profile / Short term intervention

If a student is not making the expected progress through accessing Quality First Teaching, then a more detailed one-page profile may be produced with bespoke differentiation needed.  There may be an identified need for short term school intervention teaching in small group setting. Progress will be reviewed termly there will be opportunity to meet to discuss SEND progress at parents’ evenings and additional meetings or telephone contact where necessary.

Level 3 - Outside Agency involvement /Personalised Outcomes / My Plan

Sometimes it is necessary to involve external specialist services to provide advice and support. We may want to ask for help from, for example:

• An educational psychologist
• A speech and language therapist
• Other health professional

This will help to gather information and co-ordinate support to determine a more personalised provision. This means there will also be a termly support plan in place that will form the basis of the termly plan, do review process and allow personalised outcomes set and progress reviewed with the student and family on a termly basis.

A My Plan document may be needed if school is considering a request to assess by the Local Authority.

Level 4/5 Statutory Assessment - EHC Plan

For students with complex needs it is sometimes necessary to carry out statutory assessment when all other stages of support have been delivered without success, and the student needs a curriculum that is additional and different the curriculum being taught. The SENCo or parent can request a statutory assessment, if the Local Authority are provided with suitable evidence that the student meets their criteria they will carry out the assessment which may result in the student being issued with an Education Health Care Plan.

This is a statutory document which outlines the child’s needs and provision to meet their need. The school will need to ensure they are meeting the needs through the provision outlined in the document and are working with the child to support them to achieve the personalised outcomes. These will be reviewed on a termly basis with the student and parents.  The plan will be reviewed each year with the student and parents to ensure it remains up to date and that it needs to be maintained.

Criteria for exiting SEND Register

Where a student makes sufficient progress based on the assess, plan, do and review cycle it may be agreed that a student needs no further support and at this point would be taken off the SEND register. Further support can be introduced at any point should progress reviews indicate this is needed.

Our SENDCO is Mrs A Jackson - Assistant Headteacher & SENCo (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator)

For Additional information please see the links below.