SEND

School staff at Oatlands Junior School are trained to meet the needs of all the children. If they feel that your child needs extra support, they will contact you to talk this through. Staff recognise that you know your child best and will want to talk through their concerns and observations and how best to support your child. We also recognise and understand that you see your child in a wide range of environments and may have concerns of your own. If you have any concerns your child's teacher is usually the best person to raise these with.

It is important to remember that many children just need a few simple changes to make a big difference.

If you have any concerns about your child and the progress they are making at school:

• make an appointment to speak to your child's class teacher to discuss your concerns
• following these discussions, if it is felt that your child would benefit from additional and different support or provision, the teacher may discuss it with the Inclusion Leader before deciding on the best course of action for your child
• the teacher will meet with you again and discuss a plan for your child and explain how the school will provide additional and different support or provision to help meet your child’s needs
• school will closely monitor the impact of the plan, review and adjust it at least every term (or earlier if necessary), taking information for this from your child, the class teacher and support staff, assessments and yourself where appropriate
• school will keep you informed about the additional support your child is receiving, and the impact this is having, by sending you the reviewed and adjusted plans

Following an initial meeting with the class teacher, and where it has been established that your child requires additional support or provision, you can expect Oatlands Junior School to put this in place to ensure that your child has the best chance of success.

At Oatlands Junior School, we will:

• Discuss your child's needs with you. This will usually involve a discussion with the class teacher, although it may also be appropriate for the Inclusion Leader, Learning & Teaching Assistants or other staff to be present at these discussions.
• Identify your child’s need and put in place extra support and / or provision. This may be in the form of:
  • small group work around a specific learning need so your child can make rapid progress
  • specialist programme of support or intervention around a learning or an emotional need
  • a parallel curriculum developed with specialist support
  • support from outside of school, e.g. Speech and Language Therapy (SALT), HKRC SEND HUB, Early Help Team, Educational Psychologist (EP), The Healthy Child Team,
  • a 'My Support Plan’ with that identifies:
  • the specific need(s) / barrier to learning faced by your child,
  • assessments and evaluated impact of support and interventions,
  • child and parent voice,
  • information provided by external agencies,
  • termly targets,
  • a plan for additional and different support or provision,

Staff at Oatlands Junior School will keep you informed about the progress your child is making. This could be through:

• parent consultation meetings
• specially additional arranged meetings with the class teacher
• copies of 'My Support Plan’
• Annual Review meetings for children with an EHCP
• Early Help Plan meetings
• annual reports

At Oatlands Junior School, we ensure that our staff are trained in general SEND issues. For example:

• how to identify children with SEND
• understanding our legal duties
• sharing good practice
• keeping up with relevant educational research
• having an overview of typical SEND needs and the strategies to support the needs
• liaise with external agencies to provide specific support / advice / training when necessary

Staff will monitor the impact of additional support for children with SEND. We keep a register of children who are receiving additional and different support and / or provision. This is known as the SEND Register. This register is continually reviewed. When the targets have been achieved and additional support is no longer required, a child may be removed from the register.

Some children will be on the SEND Register only for short periods of time. Children with more complex needs, may be on the register and receiving additional and different support for much of their time at Oatlands Junior School.

We constantly monitor and review the type of additional and different support / provision provided in our school to ensure that it is having the required and expected impact. Staff in school are adept in identifying when support / provision is ineffective and will adapt and change this as necessary.

On occasion, it is necessary for the school to access further advice, information and recommendations from external agencies. We work closely with many external agencies who provide us with additional guidance and support us so that we can best meet the needs of all the pupils in our school. 

These agencies include:

• Doctors & paediatricians
• Early Help Support
• Social Care
• Occupational Therapy
• Speech & Language Therapy
• Young Carers
• Compass Phoenix Health & Wellbeing Service
• IDAS Domestic Abuse Support
• CAMHS
• NYCC SEND Hubs Specialist Teachers

We understand and recognise that it can feel very stressful and upsetting when you feel that your child has a complex need which will require them to have additional and different support for a longer period of time, within an educational setting. While the process of diagnosing some medical or physical issues are clear and easy, for example, asthma or diabetes; the process for diagnosing more complex or neurodevelopmental disorders can take much longer.

No-one at Oatlands Junior School is trained, qualified or able to make a diagnosis. What we can do is identify symptoms or barriers your child is experiencing within our school setting. We can put strategies in place to support your child, and help to minimise the impact the symptom or barrier is having on your child’s ability to be a happy and successful learner. We can provide information for you to pass on to medical practitioners to support a diagnosis for your child.

At Oatlands Junior School, support will be put in place regardless of whether your child has a diagnosis. Often a diagnosis does not change the support a child gets in school.

To pursue a medical diagnosis for your child, you will firstly need to discuss your concerns with your GP. Often, this discussion will lead to a consultation with another member of the medical body, usually a paediatric consultant. School is often consulted and asked for further information to support a diagnosis for complex needs such as ADHD, ASD, Childhood Mental Health Needs etc. With this is mind, it is useful for you to inform the school, via the class teacher or Inclusion Leader, when you are pursuing or investigating a diagnosis so that we are able to gather information for this in a timely manner. Unfortunately, demand for initial assessment, diagnosis and external support for complex needs is very high and waiting times for these can often be very long.

EHCP stands for Education, Health and Care Plan. This is a legal document which outlines a child’s Educational, Health and / or Care needs; the provision required to meet these needs and who is responsible for providing this.

Usually, a child with an identified and assessed SEND can have their needs met through additional and different support and / or provision within their classroom. Class Teachers differentiate their provision and curriculum to help all children, including those with SEND, access learning within the classroom. Where a teacher is supporting a child to work towards closely monitored individual targets set out in a 'My Support Plan’, this child is placed on to the SEND Register. This is known as SEN Support.

On occasion, it can become apparent that a child or young person requires even more support than the school can currently provide. Once a SEND has been identified and a 'My Support Plan’ has been in place, this is reviewed, adjusted and new targets are worked towards. This cycle is referred to as – ASSESS, PLAN, DO, REVIEW. If it becomes apparent that, even with additional and different support, a child is not making expected progress then the school can ask the Local Authority to carry out an EHC needs assessment.

An EHCP is provided by the Local Authority for children with very complex and high level additional needs, where it has been proven that they are unable to make progress without significant changes to their educational provision.

If you feel that your child has significant difficulties and will require an EHCP, please discuss this with your class teacher who can arrange a meeting with the Inclusion Leader. North Yorkshire County Council have recently introduced banding for EHCP’s which outline the needs and provision required for children who are assessed as requiring an EHCP. It is often useful to discuss these with the Inclusion Leader prior to making this decision.