SEND
At Primrose Hill C of E Primary Academy, all children are valued equally, regardless of their abilities or needs. Our aim is for all children to achieve their full potential and become rounded individuals by giving them a broad and balanced curriculum. The school recognises that every child is different and will have their own interests and needs. Staff will use this as much as possible to help children within their learning.
SEND or Special Educational Needs and Disability is when pupils need additional or different provision to enable them to achieve their potential. It is when one or more of the following is a barrier to their learning:
- Language and Communication
- Social, Mental and Emotional Health
- Cognition & Learning
- Medical, Physical or Sensory Needs
At Primrose Hill C of E Academy progress and attainment of all pupils is reviewed four times per year by the Senior Leadership Team and teaching staff, at which time provision may be adjusted to meet identified needs. If a child continues to have difficulty after intervention or has a high level of difficulty when they join us, they may be considered to have special educational need (SEND) and be placed on the SEN register. If you, as a parent have concerns, you should firstly speak to your child’s teacher and afterwards, may wish to contact the SENDCo. Our SENDCo is Miss P and can be contacted on sendco@prh.dgat.org.uk.
All relevant parties, including parents, are consulted as part of the school’s decision to place on the register. We value the dialogue between staff and parents and implement regular formal and informal meetings where all parties may raise concerns.
If your child goes onto the SEN register, a My Plan will be created by their class teacher. This document will include targets for your child, as well as information as to how all adults, including parents, can help them to achieve their potential. The My Plan will be reviewed a minimum of 3 times a year in consultation with children, parents and the class teacher. The SENDCo will attend review meeting when asked to do so by parents or teachers. If you would like the SENDCo to attend parents evening, please let the class teacher know.
Any child who requires help may be referred, with parental consent, to one of the support services e.g. Speech Therapy, Educational Psychology, School Nurse, Occupational Therapy and Advisory Teaching Service. If multiple agencies are involved in providing support/guidance to help your child a My Plan+ may be written. This would be carried out by the SENDCo with parents, the child and class teacher contributing.
If your child does not make progress after receiving such graduated support, we will discuss with you the possibility of putting your child forward for an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP). An outcome of this process may be that objectives will be set for your child and some additional funding may be available to support his/her learning in school. School will support you through this process but we will also advise you of other independent agencies who can also provide additional support to you.
We offer a range of interventions within the school to help children.
These include:
- Daily reading
- Nessy
- Precision teaching
- Pastoral support
- NELLI
- Plus 1 and power of 2 maths intervention
- Number stacks
- Project X code
- Lexplore reading
We also work with the SEND team at Gloucestershire County Council and The Gloucestershire SEND Local Offer can be found on:
https://www.glosfamiliesdirectory.org.uk/kb5/gloucs/glosfamilies/family.page?familychannel=2_1_2
The SEND Local Offer is a resource that is designed to support children and young people with special educational need and/or disabilities and their families. It describes the services and provision that are available both to those families in Gloucestershire that have an Education, Health and Care Plan and those who do not have a plan but still experience some form of special educational need. The SEND Local Offer includes information about public services across education, health and social care, as well as those provided by the private, voluntary and community sectors.
Gloucestershire Graduated Pathway
Once a pupils has been identified with potential special educational needs the Gloucestershire Graduated Pathway will be employed.
This approach includes:
- Clear assessment of the pupil’s needs
- Planning with the pupil (where age appropriate) and the pupil’s parents, the interventions and support to be put in place, as well as expected impact on progress, development and behaviour.
- Implementation of interventions, with support from the SENDCo
- A clear date for reviewing interventions and support and making any necessary adjustments
- Targets will be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/relevant, Time scaled. Targets will be set by staff, parents, outside agencies and pupils using child-friendly language.
Gloucestershire graduated pathway (external link)
Video introduction to EHCP and graduated pathway (external link)
Pupils transferring schools
When a child on the SEN register transfers to our school or joins us from an Early Years Setting, discussions with the former setting are held and records are received and read. As the parent, your child’s class teacher will discuss targets and concerns with you and similarly, do contact the school if you wish to discuss any concerns. If your child is transferring to another school, all records will be delivered to the receiving school and a meeting or discussion with the receiving school will be arranged. Should the child be transferring to a secondary school and have an EHC plan, a transfer review is held during year 5 where parents and children meet staff from the receiving school and the needs of the child are discussed.
We recognise that having a child with additional needs can be challenging. We aim to support you and your child and strive to work together to achieve the best possible outcome for every child at our school.
Should your child attend this school and you feel dissatisfied with any element of our SEND provision, initially speak to the class teacher. If you feel the issue has not been resolved please arrange a meeting with the SENCo or the Head Teacher. If you continue to feel dissatisfied, the school has a SEND Governor who can advise you. Her name is Anita King, please contact the school’s office to gain contact details or arrange a meeting.
Pastoral Support
The school also offers pastoral support through our pastoral support worker who can offer help and guidance to children and families with their emotional wellbeing. If you need any advice on this please contact sendco@prh.dgat.org.uk.
Young Minds Matter | Mental Health Support Teams in Schools
We are delighted that our school has been given the opportunity to take part in a national programme to help make mental health support for children and young people more available when they need it.
The Mental Health Support Teams’ (MHST) main role will be to provide earlier care for children and young people who may be experiencing mild to moderate or early symptoms of mental health problems, which tend to be outside the scope of traditional NHS services. Providing this additional resource to support early intervention, appropriate signposting and delivery of focused, evidence-based interventions will improve collaboration between schools and mental health services and enable earlier and more effective mental health support for children, young people, their families and carers. The YMM programme will link a number of approaches, including working across the system to deliver a comprehensive training programme to increase knowledge and understanding of mental health, trauma and implementation of restorative practice, building resilience.
What are the Core Functions of a Mental Health Support Team (MHST)?
· Work with teachers and school staff to identify children and young people with emerging mental health needs, as part of a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing;
· Build relationships across services to ensure joint delivery of care;
· Pilot a cultural and arts led approach as an alternative and contemporary approach;
· Provide appropriate assessment of need, signposting and referral functions to a range of relevant services;
· Provide evidence-based interventions for children and young people who present with mild to moderate mental health problems in a school or college setting;
· Provide consultation and advice to other staff in schools and colleges around understanding children and young people’s mental health;
· Form part of an integrated referral system with specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services to support children and young people who may present with more complex needs, or who require a more dedicated or intensive intervention.
What is a Mild to Moderate Mental Health Problem?
A moderate mental health problem is when a person has more symptoms that can make their daily life much more difficult than usual. Examples of this can be, but not limited to:
· Low mood
· Exam stress
· Mild anxiety
· Low self-esteem
· Friendship issues
· Daily worries & upset
What Capacity Will They Have?
Each MHST will cover a population of 8,000 children & young people with the aim to support at least 500 per year as of Phase 2 (January 2020). On completion of training, EMHPs will have capacity to support up to 30 children at any time, including school holidays. The wider MHST team will also provide universal support via assemblies or PHSCE, targeted group work around specific needs and specialist CAMHS assessments. Teams will also work with schools to support parents and offer a comprehensive support package to teaching staff, working alongside multiagency colleagues such as SENCOs, Police, Early Help, School Nurses, Education Inclusion Teams etc.
If you have any questions or concerns or would like to make a referral to the service, please contact Miss P on sendco@prh.dgat.org.uk.
