Special Educational Needs

Ordinarily Available SEND Provision

Ordinarily Available (OA) provision is support that is available to all pupils at this school with special educational needs. It is the offer we can provide to all pupils with special needs through our delegated budget that does not require additional specialist support. Each child with Special Education Needs or a Disability can expect the following:

Adaptive Teaching

Adaptive teaching tailors instruction to meet the diverse needs and abilities of individual children. It involves using various strategies, tools, and technologies to adjust the content, process, and products of learning activities. Adaptive teaching seeks to integrate children into every lesson and all aspects of school life by modifying lessons and eliminating or minimising barriers that hinder the learning of children with SEND. Its primary goal is to ensure that children with SEND can be included and learn alongside their peers in the classroom. Most pupils’ needs can expect to be met through high quality adaptive teaching. 

     Targeted Provision

Sometimes a child may need a specific targeted support that is different from the other children in the class. The class teacher is responsible for planning special needs activities (provision) but may ask other adults in the school to help deliver this extra help. This provides specific focused support that differs from the general class instruction. This approach aims to help the child progress more quickly, reducing or preventing the widening of the achievement gap with their peers. 

We also have an enhanced Montessori provision specifically designed for children with specific or additional needs. The Montessori influenced environment is a calm but busy environment where the children are involved in small group or individual activities. The equipment and environment is designed to develop children’s concentration, co-ordination and independence. Access to our Montessori provision is based on need and places available at any one time.

One Planning

Every pupil with a One Plan will have their plan reviewed each term. The One Plan outlines adaptive teaching strategies and targeted support as needed, and sets desired outcomes based on the additional provisions provided. Where a child has a significant difficulty in learning and requires additional or different support to children of similar age, they may have special education needs. If we believe a child has SEND, we will discuss the child’s parents and set up a plan. This plan is called a One Plan. 

Specialist Advice

All our teachers can offer advice in relation to children with special educational needs, We also have a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENC0) and and Assistant SENCo who can offer assistance and assist with applying for more specialist support.

Ambition and expectations

All children with SEN receive a broad and balanced curriculum tailored to their needs.  This means placing a greater emphasis on certain aspects of the curriculum so that children with SEN are equipped with the skills to access the curriculum. This could be additional speech and language provision or help with self-regulation or social skills.

We adopt a non-labelling approach and early identification of need and early intervention and recognise nationally that some pupils with SEN can meet and exceed national expectations. Our curriculum is ambitious for all pupils,  regardless of starting points and the challenges they face. We encourage all pupils to participate fully in school life, including clubs, activities and opportunities and plan extra-curricular activities and educational visits to fully include all pupils  including children with SEN and physical disabilities.

Learning environment

We believe children learn best in an orderly environment that has been prepared to enable them to explore and do things for themselves. We take our inspiration from the Montessori approach where the learning environment is organised and structured to promote a sense of order. It is never cluttered. Everything has its place and has earned its right to be placed in the classroom, making it easier for children to locate materials and engage in activities. This orderliness contributes to a sense of calm and security, allowing children to focus on their activities without unnecessary distractions. Low shelves display a variety of learning materials, neatly arranged, allowing children to choose their resources independently.

Speech and language and communication

The careful use of language in the classroom is of paramount importance as it significantly influences the learning environment, pupil engagement, and overall educational outcomes.Teachers consider the quantity and pace of talking and use strategies to support this in the classroom so that pupils with language difficulties are not disadvantaged. For example, the use of pauses, modelling, visual cues. This is because precise language helps children understand instructions and expectations clearly, reducing confusion and errors.

Pedagogy

We recognise the importance of direct and explicit instruction and building on what children already know in small steps. We have equipped the school with high quality specialist resources so children engage in concrete practical learning before internalising concepts in the abstract form. Children with special educational needs can expect tasks to be simplified and broken down into small steps with ample opportunities to practise previously taught content until it is understood and fluent.

Respect for the child

All our staff receive training and are expected to be respectful and build relationships with all pupils. They build relationships with each and every child and learn what makes each child special and unique. This requires empathy and seeing the world through the eyes of the child. 

The adult does not define children by their appearance, background, label or behaviour. Adults are more interested in the fact a person is able to dress themselves than making a judgement on what they are wearing. This shows a deep respect for the child and reflects the school’s vision that ‘we are each unique and beautiful’. 

The child is believed to have an absorbent mind capable of effortlessly absorbing information from their environment. For example, when talking about a flower found in the garden with a toddler, it is named as daisy, rose or sunflower because children have an enormous capacity to absorb the new words at this period in their life and facilitates proper linguistic development whilst laying a solid foundation for future learning. 

By creating environments that inspire curiosity, exploration, and discovery, we can unlock the full potential of the absorbent mind and empower children to become lifelong learners and creative problem solvers.

Responsive adults

Our teachers and support staff are keen observers who know when to intervene, when to offer direct instruction, when to scaffold or model learning, when to step back and watch learning unfold to get a better understanding of the child.

Adults ensure learning is well planned and sequenced  so that children acquire the knowledge in an orderly systematic way with ample opportunity to practise, apply and build on prior learning in a meaningful way.  They identify gaps in learning and provide appropriate learning opportunities by breaking learning down into small steps using practical concrete learning. Feedback is precise and supportive.

Specialist Support

If a child requires additional support beyond that we can provide from the resources we receive for SEN, this is referred to as specialist support because their learning needs are greater than what the school can provide through provision that is ordinarily available. If we believe a child may be eligible to receive more specialist support from an external agency such as the Speech and Language Therapy Service, an Alternative Provision placement or even through an Education Health Care Plan, we may be able to facilitate this if a child meets the eligibility criteria. 

Access to SEN provision

All pupils identified with special education needs will access special needs provision regardless. This provision is defined as either different from or additional to what other children in the class typically receive. 

Special educational provision that is ordinarily available at this school is based on a fixed amount of notional SEN funding the school receives per year.  This means the amount of ordinarily available SEN provision including targeted provision or adaptive teaching especially that which requires an additional adult in the classroom, may vary as it is determined by the resources available to us at any one time.

Please download a copy of our SEND Information Report for further information (below):