SEND

Welcome to our Special Educational Needs and Disabilities information page. Hopefully you will find everything that you need.

Should you require any additional information or have any questions please see Mrs Lambert (Special Educational Needs Coordinator/Head of School) in the first instance, then Mrs Patton (Executive Headteacher) should you require any further support.

admin@soa.dsat.education

What are SEND?

Children have additional educational needs if they have a learning difficulty that calls for additional educational provision to be made for them. ‘Children have a learning difficulty if they:

• Have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age.

• Have a disability that prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in schools within the area of the local authority.

• Are under compulsory school age and fall within the definitions above or would so do if special educational provision was not made for them.’ (Code of Practice September 2014)

There are now four broad areas of SEND, these are:

• Communication and Interaction

• Cognition and Learning

• Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties

• Sensory and/or Physical Difficulties

Some children may have needs in one or more of these areas.

What changes have been made in line with the new Code of Practice 2014?

The Department for Education have changed the way disabled people and those with special educational needs are supported. They have introduced a number of changes to the Special Educational Needs statementing process which became law in September 2014 through the Children and Families Act.

All staff in our school have been informed of these changes through training and we have made changes to the way in which we identify, monitor and record SEND information. For example, we have moved away from IEPs and we now use 'Support Plans'. These plans contain all the information that we have within school so please ensure that the pupil data held in the office is up to date. Statements will continue to be held in this form up until the next Annual Review. Following the review, we will report the outcomes back to the authority and, in line with their transition process, they will transfer them across onto a 'Education and Health Care Plan'. If your child is currently on a Statement you should have received additional guidance from the authority. If this is not the case, please contact Mrs Barratt.

How do we identify, assess and monitor additional needs?

At St Oswald's Church of England Academy we follow a graduated support procedure. This consists of:

1. Assess

2. Plan

3. Do

4. Review

This is a cycle of provision that we utilise at each stage of the process.

What happens if the school feel that my child has additional needs?

First of all any concerns and/or issues that have become apparent to school staff will be discussed with the parent/guardian. Should these concerns remain then guidance will be sought from the Special Educational Needs Coordinator. Together we will formulate a plan of action, with timescales for review. These plans usually follow the following steps:

So what provision is available at St Oswald's Church of England Academy?

Our Local Offer provides information on the provision that we offer at our school. Doncaster's Local offer booklet provides information about what different services are available in the area. A copy of this booklet can be found here:

http://www.doncasterchildrenandfamilies.info/thelocaloffer.html

SEND Graduated Approach – May 2021

Our school follows the SEND Graduated Approach, set out by the Local Authority, to respond to pupils’ needs across the four broad areas of need identified in the SEND Code of Practice (2015).

The identified areas of need are Cognition & Learning, Communication & Interaction, Social, Emotional & Mental Health and Physical & Sensory.

Our SEND pupils’ are identified within the 4 graduated approach bandings;

The 4 bandings are built into every learner’s Educational Support Plan (ESP) so their level of need can be constantly reviewed and shared with parents and professionals.

The continuum of need used to identify our SEND pupils is used alongside the Early Help Thresholds for help and intervention to ensure all of our pupils’ and their families are receiving the most appropriate support and provision.

Our Vulnerable/SEND pupils’ are identified within the Early Help 4 levels of need;

There are a number of useful contacts which can be accessed during the period when the school is closed:

PDF of A-Z of Helplines & Support

Early Help

Early Help is a way of ‘thinking’ and ‘working’ through a collaborative approach between services with families. It is about prevention and earlier intervention, by providing support to families when a need is identified or as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life. This can be from the point of conception through to the teenage years, to prevent or reduce the need for statutory services.

Early help can also prevent further problems arising, for example, if it is provided as part of a support plan where a child has returned home from a period of care, or protection through Children’s Social Care. It is about working with the family by identifying their strengths whatever they may be and involving wider family members and friends building resilience to sustain change and to find their own solutions in the future.

Find out more on the Doncaster Safeguarding Children Partnership website, where you can fill in an online form if you have a concern about a child or have an Early Help enquiry. If you need information or advice about a child or young person before completing the form, call Early Help from 8.30am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday, on 01302 734110.