At Marfleet Primary we are committed to giving all our children including those with SEND needs the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. We recognise that some children need additional support above and beyond everyday teaching and as such we strive to be flexible and adaptable in our approach to teaching all children, regardless of their needs.
As a school we follow the guidance set out in the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice 2014. This means we follow a graduated approach to intervention when supporting our children. By creating individual support plans, called SEND Pupil Passports, a child’s needs and support is clearly defined and accessible to all staff.
Marfleet strive to provide high-quality, inclusive education for all our children. For some of our younger children we have recently developed a special nurture provision which we have aptly named ‘The Blossoms’. Here support is tailored to meet their needs in an environment that is geared towards their needs. Support in our nurture provision is delivered through short, small group interventions with a focus on developing basic skills.
We very much value the input and support from our parents. Parents are invited to attend SEND review meetings every term where their child’s support is discussed and in partnership we agree on the best ways forward. Sometimes, we need to access support from beyond our school resources and we may make referrals to outside agencies. These include: Speech and Language, iPASS, outreach services and Educational Psychology. The advice received is clearly communicated with parents and fed into a child’s SEND Pupil Passport.
All Ebor Academy Trust schools have a similar approach to meeting the needs of pupils with Special Educational Needs and are supported by the local authority (LA) 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 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities being met in a mainstream setting wherever possible.
WHAT IS THE LOCAL OFFER?
The LA Local Offer
- The Children and Families Bill was enacted in 2014. From this date, Local Authorities and schools are required to publish and keep under review information about services they expect to be available for the children and young people with Special Educational Needs (SEN) aged 0-25. This is the ‘Local Offer’.
- The intention of the Local Offer is to improve choice and transparency for families. It will also be an important resource for parents in understanding the range of services and provision in the local area.
The School SEN Information Report
This utilises the LA Local Offer to meet the needs of SEN pupils as determined by school policy, and the provision that the school is able to meet.
OUR ENVIRONMENT
At Marfleet primary Academy, we are committed to providing our pupils with a broad, balanced and enriched curriculum which is accessible to all and promotes inclusion. All our pupils are included in all aspects of school life and are equally valued in school. We create environments that are safe and calm so that our pupils feel comfortable to be in school and to enable them to flourish. Our staff work closely as a team to provide consistency of approach and strategies that we have in place for our pupils.
Because all children learn in different ways, we have tailored our classroom environments so that they can meet a range of needs. All of our classrooms provide:
- Visual supports (including dyslexia friendly, speech and language friendly and autism friendly approaches)
- A distraction free learning zone
- Sensory Processing strategies (movement breaks, noise reducing headphones, move and sit cushions, fiddle toys etc.)
- Access to multi-sensory and hands-on learning
- Use of IT and alternative methods of recording where needed
- Use of de-escalation strategies
- A Restorative Practice Approach with daily check-ins and Effective Questions
- A preventative rather than reactive approach
- Positive praise – and lots of it!
- Staffing ratios appropriate to the level of support needed.
- Work alongside various external SEND agencies including: Hull Integrated Physical and Sensory service (IPaSs), North Cott autistic outreach service, Educational physiology services
IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
Every teacher here at Marfleet works towards the achievement of every child through excellent quality first teaching. We call this our Universal offer. If any child is struggling in class for any reason, strategies and or intervention will be put in place at a Targeted level to support with this after discussions with parents/carers. Advice would be sought from the SEN team and progress would be tracked to see if these strategies were proving to be successful.
If a child is still struggling in school and needs additional support, it may be that they need more Specialist level intervention and resources putting in place. Again, parents would be very much involved in this discussion and would work with the school to plan this. At this stage, your child would be receiving ‘SEN Support’ and the SEN Team would be closely involved to support staff, your child and the family. The majority of children at this level with have some Assistant Teacher Support. Each child’s support package will look different depending on their level of need. As we are keen to promote independence and develop young people’s life skills for the future, where a child has AT support, we discourage the concept of 1:1 ‘velcroed’ support. Through careful planning, we will ensure that each child’s needs are met through a balanced approach of 1:1, group work and monitored independent time.
SEN SUPPORT: DEFINING SEN AND SEN PROVISION
The new SEN Code of Practice (2014) defines children as having special educational needs (SEN):
A child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.
A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she:
- has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or 16
- has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions .
The SEN Team oversee the provisions and interventions we have in place for all our pupils at Marfleet primary. Along with the Senior Leadership Team, they monitor the effectiveness of provision through observations and data analysis and provision will be adjusted as required to ensure pupils are fulfilling their full potential. Children will always be supported to engage in activities available to pupils who do not have SEN.
If you have any questions regarding Special Educational Needs at Marfleet, I will be happy to talk to you. I can be contacted via the school office.
Mr Frankish
SENDCo
For further information please speak to the office on 01482 781943 or email admin@mp.ebor.academy
