How we identify, assess and review children with special educational needs

Most children and young people in mainstream schools will have their special educational needs met through good classroom practice. This is called Quality First Teaching.

Early Identification of Need

In deciding whether to make special education provision to support educational, social, physical or emotional needs, we:

• Work in partnership with parents/carers, pupils

• Consult with relevant external agencies

• Use assessment tools & materials

• Use observations

• Use Short Notes

SEN Support

Where a pupil is identified as having a special educational need we follow a graduated approach which takes the form of cycles of “Assess, Plan, Do, Review”.

This means that we will: 

• Assess a child’s special educational needs

• Plan the provision to meet your child’s aspirations and agreed outcomes

• Do put the provision in place to meet those outcomes

• Review the support and progress

Write a Support Plan in a meeting with the parent, class teacher and SENCO and young person, writing specific learning outcomes which are SMART and are reviewed on a regular basis. The outcomes should be agreed with the parent and child and it is written into the Support Plan what steps, resources and support will be given to help achieve the outcome.

If after two cycles of Support Plans the child still makes little or no progress, we would look to make a referral to an outside agency to get advice and support about how best to help that child and investigate whether the child has a Special Educational Need which is preventing them to make progress in line with their peers. This is only done with full parental consent.

A small percentage of children and young people with significant and/or complex needs may require an assessment that could lead to an Education, Health and Care Plan.

An application for an Education, health and care assessment will take place if the school feels a child has a SEN which they feel they need extra support and funding for in order to provide the necessary, appropriate education for that child. This would be if a child had needs significantly different from their peers or needs which were very complex and needed extremely specific support for.

In school currently there are children with a variety of needs.

Details of Identification and Assessment of Pupils with SEN

Staff use the SEN planning toolkits which can be found on the Families Information Service site to ensure they are meeting the needs of the SEN children in their class. These offer support and suggestions for strategies they can use with children based on their specific learning needs.

Termly assessments assess the progress of the class. As children with SEN progress at a slower rate objectives are broken down into smaller, more specific steps so teachers can be sure that SEN children are indeed making progress.

Parental concerns are responded to sensitively and appropriately. Where necessary, staff will support parents to complete any paperwork needed to support their child. Parents are always informed about the Local Offer and how they can find out what support is available for their child.

Senior Leaders carry out regular lesson observations of staff to ensure teaching is of the highest quality and children with SEN are being planned for appropriately.

At Aycliffe Village Primary School, our behaviour policy aims to support pupils in making the right choices and see what consequences their behaviour has on themselves and others around them. All children at Aycliffe Village Primary School are respected and listened to by staff who use a restorative approach once an incident has occurred to try and ensure a child understands what they have done and how their actions have affected others.

Staff have regular training from outside agencies as the need arises. Provision is constantly changing with the needs of the children and action is taking promptly by the Headteacher to ensure that staff have the necessary training and understanding of specific Special Educational Needs to give our children the best education possible.

In the lead-up to National tests, the necessary measures are taken place to ensure children with SEN have the right access arrangements to achieve the very best they can. Permission is sought to give children additional reading time or to have a reader for maths tests.

For further information please view or download our Accessibility Plan which can be found in the School Policies section of our website.