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

When deciding whether to make special education provision to support educational, social, physical or emotional needs, we work in partnership with the child and their family.

There are a range of ways this can be done, for example:

• Termly parent consultations
• Ongoing discussions with a class teacher via conversations at the school, telephone or email
• Direct contact with the SENCo via the school, telephone or email
• Through a review of a child’s One Planning or the Annual Review of their EHC Plan
• Internal observations and assessments to identify specific areas of need
• Consultation with relevant external agencies.

With the permission of parents we may seek additional advice from outside specialists such as health professionals, specialist teachers or educational psychologists who would:

• Carry out further assessment of the child’s needs.
• Provide advice to schools on how to best support the child.
• Suggest resources that would help the child make progress.
• Signpost to external support networks
• Use assessment tools & materials
• Observations

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 based on:

• Views of the child and parents/carers
• Teacher assessments and observations
• Children’s current attainment
• Children’s previous progress and attainment
• Tracking of progress and comparisons with age related expectations
• Internal specialist assessments
• Assessments by external agencies (if appropriate)

Plan: the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes by:

• Setting time limited outcomes and targets for the child
• Planning adjustments, interventions and support
• Setting a date for review

Do: put the provision in place to meet those outcomes and ensure all staff who work with the child are made aware of the plan.  Teachers are responsible for:

• Differentiating and personalising learning and the curriculum.
• Facilitating the delivery of ‘additional and different’ provision for a child with SEN
• Linking interventions to classroom teaching

Review: the support and progress.

• The quality, effectiveness and impact of the provision will be evaluated by the review date.

As part of this approach every child with SEN will have an individualised SEN Support Plan which is known in Essex as a ‘One Plan’. This outlines the child’s needs and outcomes as well as the provision needed to meet those needs.  The views of the Parents/carers, staff and the child are all integral to this process.

A small percentage of children and young people with significant and/or complex needs may require a statutory needs assessment that could lead to an Education, Health and Care Plan.

For more detailed information see the local offer

Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEN

For further information, please view our SEN Information Report, SEN Policy and Accessibility policy which are all available in the policy section of our website.