SEND

At Bailey’s Court Primary School, we pride ourselves in the support that we are able to provide for children with special educational needs and disabilities. It is very important to us all that all children are able to reach their full potential. We work closely as a school with parents and outside agencies to provide additional support when needed to ensure that all of our children are successful developing as well rounded individuals.

Should you have any questions or concerns related to special educational needs or disabilities please do not hesitate to contact us.

Emma Proffitt

SEND and Inclusion Leader

SEND Support

All South Gloucestershire maintained schools have a similar approach to meeting the needs of pupils with Special Educational Needs and are supported by the Local Authority to ensure that all pupils, regardless of their specific needs, make the best possible progress in school. All schools are supported to be as inclusive as possible, with the needs of pupils with a Special Educational Need or Disability being met in a mainstream setting wherever possible, where families want this to happen.

Please click on one of the questions to find out more about SEND support at Bailey’s Court Primary School.

 

Class teacher

Responsible for:

  • Being the first point of contact for any parent who is concerned about their child’s progress or well-being in school. The teacher is available to talk about any concerns and meet with parents to discuss additional SEND support if needed.
  • Checking on the progress of your child and identifying, planning and delivering any additional help your child may need (this could be things like targeted work, additional support) and letting the SEND and Inclusion Leader know as necessary.
  • Writing support plans, and sharing and reviewing these with parents at least three times a year.
  • Ensuring that all staff working with your child in school are helped to deliver the planned work/programme for your child, so they can achieve the best possible progress. This may involve the use of additional adults, outside specialist help and specially planned work and resources.
  • Ensuring that the school’s SEND Policy is followed in their classroom and for all the pupils they teach with any SEND.


Special Educational Needs and Inclusion Leader – Miss Emma Proffitt

Responsible for:

  • Coordinating all the support for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) and developing the school’s SEND Policy to make sure all children get a consistent, high quality response to meeting their needs in school.
  • Ensuring that you are:
    • involved in supporting your child’s learning
    • kept informed about the support your child is getting
    • involved in reviewing how they are doing
  • Liaising with all the other people who may be coming into school to help support your child’s learning e.g. Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychology etc…
  • Updating the school’s SEND register (a system for ensuring all the SEND needs of pupils in this school are known) and making sure that there are excellent records of your child’s progress and needs.
  • Monitoring the progress of children with SEND, three times a year.
  • Providing specialist support for teachers and support staff in the school so they can help children with SEND in the school achieve the best progress possible.


Headteacher – Mr. Andrew Lynham

Responsible for:

  • The day to day management of all aspects of the school, this includes the support for children with SEND.
  • He will give responsibility to the SEND and Inclusion Leader and class teachers but is still responsible for ensuring that your child’s needs are met.
  • He must make sure that the Governing Body is kept up to date about any issues in the school relating to SEND.


SEN Governor – Mr. John Underhill

Responsible for:

  • Liaising with the SEND and Inclusion Leader on a regular basis and reporting back to the Governing Body that the school is meeting its statutory duties for SEND provision.


Local Authority SEND team

Responsible for:

  • Supporting teachers, teaching assistants, children and parents in the Local Authority.

Parents can contact South Gloucestershire SEND team and find out further information on the South Gloucestershire Local Offer at www.southglos.gov.uk/localoffer

Class teacher input using differentiated class teaching to meet the needs of all children on a daily basis.

For your child this would mean:

  • That the teacher has the highest possible expectations for your child and all pupils in their class.
  • That all teaching is based on building on what your child already knows, can do and can understand.
  • Different ways of teaching are in place so that your child is fully involved in learning in class. This may involve things like using more practical learning.
  • Specific strategies (which may be suggested by the SEND and Inclusion Leader or outside agencies) are in place to support your child to learn.
  • Your child’s teacher will have carefully checked on your child’s progress and will have decided that your child has a gap in their understanding/learning and needs some extra support to help them make the best possible progress.


Specific group work with a smaller group of children.

These groups are known as intervention groups. Your child may be taught in intervention groups for a number of sessions during the school week.

  • Run in the classroom or outside.
  • Run by a teacher or most often a teaching assistant who has had training to run these groups.


For your child this would mean:

  • He/ She will engage in group sessions with specific targets to help him/her to make more progress in key areas identified as priorities for their professional development.
  • A Learning Support Assistant/teacher or outside professional will run these small group sessions, overseen by the class teacher.


Specialist intervention run by outside agencies e.g Speech and Language therapy or Occupational therapy groups

Sometimes children have been identified by the class teacher/SEND and Inclusion leader as needing some extra specialist input in school from an agency outside the school. This may be from:

  • The Speech and Language therapy (SALT) Service, Educational Psychology team, Behaviour Support, Inclusion Support and Traveller Support.


This would mean:

  • You may be asked to come to a meeting to discuss your child’s progress and help plan possible ways forward.
  • You may be asked to give your permission for the school to refer your child to a specialist professional e.g a Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. This will help the school and yourself understand your child’s particular needs better and be able to support them better in school.
  • The specialist professional will work with your child to understand their needs and make recommendations, which may include:
    • Making changes to the way your child is supported in class e.g some individual support or changing some aspects of teaching to support them better
    • Support to set targets which will include their specific expertise and provide advice where appropriate
    • A group run by school staff under the guidance of the outside professional e.g a social skills group
    • A group or individual work with outside professional


    Specified Individual support

    This is usually provided via an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). This means your child will have been identified by the class teacher/SEND and Inclusion Leader as needing a particularly high level of individual or small group teaching, which cannot be provided from the budget available to the school.

    Usually your child will also need specialist support in school from a professional outside the school. This may be from:

    • Local Authority outside agencies such as the Speech and Language therapy (SALT) Service.


    This could mean:

    • The school (or you) can request that the Local Authority carry out a statutory needs assessment of your child’s needs. This is a legal process which sets out the amount of support that will be provided for your child.
    • After the school have sent in the request to the Local Authority (with additional information about your child, including some from you), they will decide whether they think your child’s needs (as described in the paperwork provided), are complex enough to need a statutory assessment. If this is the case they will ask you and all professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs.
    • If your child’s needs meet the criteria, the Local Authority will write an EHC Plan.
    • The EHCP will outline the number of hours of individual/small group support your child will receive from the Local Authority and how the support should be used and what strategies must be put in place. It will also have long and short term goals for your child.
    • The additional adult, provided through Local Authority funding, may be used to support your child with whole class learning, run individual programmes or run small groups including your child.
    • If you have concerns about your child’s progress you should speak to your child’s class teacher initially.
    • If you still have concerns about your child’s progress, you should speak to the SEND and Inclusion Leader or Headteacher

    If the school has concerns about the progress your child is making, or about their well-being, they will set up a meeting to discuss this with you in more detail and to:

    • listen to any concerns you may have too.
    • plan any additional support your child could receive. This may be written a support plan.
    • discuss with you any referrals to outside professionals to support your child. 

    Provided by the school:

    • SEND and Inclusion Leader
    • Pastoral Support Worker
    • SEND teaching assistant


    Provided by External Agencies:

    • Educational Psychology Service
    • Sensory Service for children with visual or hearing needs
    • Behaviour Support
    • Speech and Language Therapy
    • Inclusion Support
    • Traveller Support
    • School Nurse
    • Occupational Therapy
    • Physiotherapy
    • Paediatrician
    • The SEND and Inclusion leader’s job is to support the class teacher in planning for children with SEND.
    • The school has a training plan for all staff to improve the teaching and learning of children including those with SEND. This includes whole school training on SEND issues such as Dyslexia.
    • Individual teachers and support staff attend training courses run by outside agencies that are relevant to the needs of specific children in their class.
    • Your child’s progress is continually monitored by his/her class teacher.
    • His/her progress is reviewed formally at least three times a year and a National Curriculum level given in reading, writing and maths. 
    • If your child is in Year 1 and above, but is not yet at National Curriculum levels, a more sensitive assessment tool is used which shows their level in more detail and will also show smaller but significant steps of progress. 
    • At the end of each key stage (i.e. at the end of year 2 and year 6) all children are required to be formally assessed using Standard Assessment Tests (SATS). This is something the government requires all schools to do and the school’s results are published nationally.
    • Children with SEND will usually have a support plan which will be reviewed with your involvement, at least three times a year.
    • The progress of children with a EHCP is formally reviewed at an Annual Review meeting with all adults involved with the child’s education.
    • The SEND and Inclusion Leader will also check that your child is making good progress within any individual work and in any group that they take part in
    • The class teacher is regularly available to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have. The class teacher can share information about what is working well at home and school so similar strategies can be used.
    • The SEND and Inclusion Leader is available to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have.
    • All information from outside professionals will be discussed with you, with the person involved directly, or where this is not possible, in a report.
    • Support plans will be reviewed with your involvement, three times a year.
    • Homework will be adjusted as needed to your child’s individual needs.
    • A home/school contact book may be used to support communication with you, when this has been agreed to be useful for you and your child.
    • School can provide you with information about Parent Support groups which can help you as a parent of a child with SEND.
    • The Pastoral Support worker (based at school) can work with and support parents and children on a number of issues including self esteem, friendship issues, anger management, emotional issues and parenting support.
    • The building is accessible to children with physical disability via ramps.
    • We ensure that equipment used is accessible to all children regardless of their needs.
    • Extra-curricular activities are accessible for children with SEND.

    School will seek advice for each child’s additional accessibility needs and make any necessary adjustments to the environment where possible.

    We recognise that transitions can be difficult for a child with SEND and take steps to ensure that any transition is a smooth as possible.

    • If your child is moving child to another school:
      • We will contact the school and their SENDCo ensure they know about any special arrangements or support that needs to be made for your child.
      • School will ensure that all records about your child are passed on as soon as possible.
    • When moving classes in school:
      • Information will be passed on to the new class teacher in advance and a planning meeting will take place with the new teacher. All support plans will be shared with the new teacher.
      • Your child will visit their new teacher along with the rest of their class during the summer term.
      • If your child would be helped by further visits or a transition book to support them understand moving on, then arrangements will be made for this to happen.
    • In Year 6:
      • The SEND and Inclusion Leader will contact the SENDCo of their secondary school and ensure he/she knows about any special arrangements or support that needs to be made for your child.
      • Your child will do focused learning about aspects of transition to support their understanding of the changes ahead.
      • Where possible your child will visit their new school on several occasions and in some cases staff from the new school will visit your child in this school.
      • School will ensure that all records about your child are passed on as soon as possible. an

    Throughout the school year, the school will provide a range of opportunities for parents to find out about your child’s progress including:

    • Parent Consultation Meetings in the Autumn and Spring term.
    • Opportunities to visit your child’s learning in class during the Open Afternoons each term.
    • End of Year Reports to parents.
    • Opportunities to discuss your child’s report in the Summer term.
    • Meetings to agree and review support plan targets.
    • A yearly meeting for any child with a EHCP, involving parents, school and any relevant external agencies, to review the child’s progress.
    • Informal meetings with school staff as requested