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

This involves the effective inclusion of all pupils in high-quality everyday personalised teaching. Such teaching will, for example, be based on clear objectives that are shared with the children and returned to at the end of the lesson; carefully explain new vocabulary; use lively, interactive teaching styles. Approaches like these are the best way to reduce, from the start, the number of children who need extra help with their learning or behaviour.

At St Charles we follow a graduated support approach which is called “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

As part of this approach, we will produce a SEN Support Plan that describes the provision that we will make to meet a child’s special educational needs and agreed outcomes. Parents and carers will be fully involved in this process.

A small percentage of children and young people with significant learning difficulties might need an assessment that could lead to an Education, Health and Care Plan. Full details can be found on the Local Offer website.

Children are identified as having SEN through a variety of ways including the following:

• Liaison with Nursery/previous school
• Child performing well below age expected levels
• Concerns raised by parent/carer
• Concerns raised by teacher, for example, behaviour or self-esteem is affecting performance • Liaison with external agencies
• Health diagnosis through school nurse / paediatrician

Measuring Children’s Progress

Pupil assessment is an on-going process and forms an essential part of teaching and is designed to promote the raising of achievement.

Thorough observation and assessment of all children enables staff at St. Charles’ to identify children who have potentially have special educational needs.

Pupil assessments provide important information for pupil review and support meetings. Assessment data is also used to gather evidence for referral to external support agencies.

As a school we measure children’s progress in learning against National expectations and age related expectations. The class teacher continually assesses each child and notes areas where they are improving and where further support is needed. As a school, we track children’s progress from entry at Reception through to Year 6.

Children who are not making expected progress are picked up through meetings with the Class teacher and Deputy / Headteacher to discuss what further support can be given to aid progression.

If you would like to discuss your SEND requirements in detail please contact the school to arrange an appointment.