All Pupils with Additional Needs

There are a number of reasons why a child may be identified as having SEN:

They are having significant difficulty with their learning and making far less progress than would be expected.
They have a specific learning difficulty, for example dyslexia.
They have emotional or mental health difficulties.
They have difficulties with social communication and interaction.
They have sensory and/or physical needs, for example a hearing or sight impairment

For all children at St Mark’s RC Primary who have an additional need we:

• Recognise that the family is the expert on their child and work in partnership with them.
• Deliver high quality teaching, adapting the curriculum and our resources to ensure children can access the learning.
• Employ a fully qualified Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) to lead on SEN provision across the school.
• Assess and review the learning of our SEN children, using that information to inform future planning and teaching.
• Provide teaching assistants in class who work with SEN children and also, importantly, support other children so that the teacher has more opportunities to work with the SEN children.
• Hold regular meetings for teachers and teaching assistants with the SENCO, to review children, interventions and resources and to adapt provision where necessary.
• Support our families with children with SEN, formally through review meetings and informally through our “open door” approach. Families are also advised of other services and organisations which may offer further advice and support.
• Work closely with outside agencies to ensure each child’s needs are fully identified and understood and to learn from specialists how best to support our SEN children. (Link: Outside Agencies)
• We evaluate intervention groups and strategies on a termly basis.
• Regularly evaluate our teaching resources to ensure they are accessible to all SEN children.
• Ensure our school activities and trips, as far as is possible, are accessible to all our SEN children.
• Hold termly review meetings with families for children with a higher level of SEN.
• Provide on-going SEN training and information for teachers and teaching assistants
• Liaise closely with pre-school settings, other school and high schools at transition times to ensure SEN pupil information is clearly communicated and recommendations heard, so that every move is as smooth as possible.