Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead 

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Local Offer and School SEN Information Report

The Royal First School

1.   Identifying special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

1.    What kinds of special educational needs and disabilities does the school provide for? 

At the Royal School (Crown Aided) First School we have experience dealing with a range of special education needs and disabilities. These vary from children who need additional support in the classroom to children who require an individual educational plan for a specific area of need. All children’s educational and pastoral requirements are taken into account when the teacher plans their lessons; they are differentiated and children’s’ progress is careful monitored and tracked. Children with SEN and disabilities are treated as favourably as the rest of the class in line with our equality policy. Any barriers to learning are supported or eradicated as soon as possible.

1.   How does the school know if children and young people have special educational needs and disabilities and need extra help? 

We have a provision mapping process where children’s educational needs and standards are carefully tracked over the year. We have a number of methods to help us identify if a child needs extra help. 

These include:

•    Information from your child’s pre-school or previous school.
•    The experience and expertise of our class teachers and support staff.
•    Whole school pupil progress meetings and advice from Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo).
•    Information from other services who have worked with your child e.g. physiotherapist.

The progress a child makes at school is carefully monitored. We use a series of tools to assess when a child needs additional support including phonics tracking, mathematics and reading assessments, spelling tests and tracking the children according to their age related expectations. 

1.    What should I do if I think my child/young person may have special educational needs/disabilities?

In the first instance talk to your child’s class-teacher or the Headteacher (SENDCo). Your concerns will always be taken seriously, as your views are very important to us. Teachers should be the first person a parent contacts as they take account of the needs of individual child in their classroom. They need to understand any concerns to ensure all children can learn and make progress.  If there are further steps to be taken the teacher will approach the Headteacher and a meeting will be arranged to discuss the matter further with the family. Work in this area is very much a partnership between the child, their parents and the school. 

1.   Support the school provides for children and young people with SEND

1.    What teaching strategies do you use to support children with special educational needs and disabilities? 

The governing body is responsible for ensuring that SEND funding is used appropriately and for monitoring teaching and accessibility. There is a designated SEN governor who works with the SENDCo.

We have a high pupil/adult ratio and children are supported by high quality teaching and support staff. Lessons take account of individual needs and progress is reviewed regularly. Pupils have access to good quality teaching and this is maintained through our regular assessment and monitoring procedures. During the lessons children with SEND will very rarely be taken out of the classroom but there will be a variety of interventions at other times in the day to support ‘catch up and keep up’ groups, individual programmes of learning or specific targeted groups. Children with SEND have an individual or a group educational plan to address their needs to ensure that work is differentiated and personalised.

1.   What additional support is available to help my child with their learning including specific interventions provided and adaptations to the curriculum and learning environment?

Our Headteacher, Mrs Harrall, has an MA in Inclusive Education and a Post Grad diploma in Speech and Language difficulties. Currently we have teachers and/or teaching assistants who have had training in the following areas:

•     Speech and Language 
•     Anxiety
•     Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
•     Mental Health 

We have Teaching Assistant (TA) support staff who work one-to-one with children depending upon their needs, We can deliver specific individual plans including individual exercises or within a small group. 

We may access support from other services, for example;  

•     Educational Psychology Service. Occupational Therapy
•     Speech and Language Therapist (SALT)
•     School Nurse
•     Autistic Spectrum Disorder Services (SHINE)
•     Early Years Services
•     Education Support, Behaviour and Attendance Service
•     Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), Counselling Services
•     Sensory Consortium Service for Children with Sensory Needs

1.    How is the decision made about what type and how much support my child/young person will receive?

We make a decision regarding the needs of a child using a number of factors including general summative/formative assessments, teacher observations, parents’ comments, professional guidelines and SENDCo recommendations. Children are highlighted if they start to fall behind and provision is put in place where appropriate to support the child’s needs.

1.   How will I (the parent) be involved in planning for and supporting my child/young person’s learning?

Our curriculum is carefully planned to integrate the demands of the core curriculum with a vibrant, empowering and effective programme of study. The basics are fundamental and structures are in place to ensure that all children make strong and continual progress regardless of needs. 

Ongoing tracking and assessment procedures, enables each class teacher to analyse the progress of the child. Pupils work in a variety of groupings, such as small supported groups, 1:1, mixed ability and similar ability groups. 

Parents are invited to at least two parent consultations; class meetings and a variety of curriculum meetings to support parents’ understanding of the school educational process.  If a child has an Education, Health, Care Plan (EHCP) or is on our SEND register there are additional meetings to share the child’s individual educational plan (IEP); how parents can contribute to the education for their child and how we can share target setting. There is plenty of opportunity to have regular feedback with a direct email link to class teachers and Mrs Harrall. We encourage parents to contact the teacher and keep in regular contact to ensure we have an effective home-school partnership. 

1.    How will my child be involved in his/her own learning and decisions made about his/her learning?

Together with an adult, children contribute to their own individual educational plans through a child-friendly programme to ensure that they are fully involved in the decisions about their learning. If appropriate, they are invited to attend the parents and teacher consultations to understand what their teacher feels are their key priorities and targets as well as hearing their key successes. 

1.       Children and young people’s progress

1.     How do you check and review my child/young person’s progress?

All children’s progress is constantly tracked through teacher and standardised assessments and progress is uploaded onto our monitoring platform. Children with SEND are tracked even closer through individual educational plans. These plans have individualised targets, which have been agreed by the child and parents and are regularly monitored to ensure progress. We use SMART targets, which are easily measurable, and achievable and are communicated to families on a regular basis. This forms part of ‘assess, plan, do, review’ cycle of SEN provision. If a child has an EHCP this is formally reviewed every six months to a year. 

1.   How do you involve my child/young person and parents in those reviews? 

Children can attend their teacher/parent consultations and they do get to contribute towards comments in their EHCP and review meetings. Time is taken to involve the children in this process as often as possible e.g. their comments at the beginning of the Plan. Review meetings are for the parents so any adjustments they wish to make would be encouraged and any support requested would be arranged. 

Children who are looked after have a Personal Education Plan and this is reviewed in a similar way through regular targets and the Annual Review together with support from the Local Authority and the Virtual School.

1.    How do you know if the provision for children and young people with SEND at your school is working? 

Targets and interventions always have a short implementation time with SMART goals so we can ascertain whether the intervention is making an impact. Often there is a starting point and a measurable purpose to the additional provision. Programmes are modified if they are not being successful. 

SEND children’s progress is monitored on an ongoing basis against the national curriculum and age related expectations.  This analysis leads to discussion with classroom teachers and feeds into the SMART targets on the child’s IEP.  Progress and attainment data is reported to the SEND Governor at least three times each academic year.

1.       Support for overall well-being

1.     What support is available to promote my child/young person’s emotional and social development?

We are an inclusive school and have low incidents of bullying behaviour. We have a therapeutic behaviour policy and employ restorative behaviour techniques where children are supported to resolve issues. We have regular Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons tailored to the needs of the children. Our Christian ethos and assemblies also support children’s social and emotional development by giving tools to empower pupils, both,  inside and outside the classroom. 

Mrs Harrall is our Senior Mental Health Lead. 

Support we can provide for a young child’s emotional and social development in school may include:

•       Emotional Literacy Support Assistants (ELSA) led sessions.
•       Social skills and friendship/buddy groups including lunchtimes
•       Behaviour programmes including rewards and consequences.
•       Medicines can be administered in school with signed parental permission. (There are nominated first aiders in school and several members of staff have paediatric first aid qualifications.) 

If your child has significant medical needs you will need to speak to the Headteacher to discuss how we can best support you and your child.  This might include drawing up a Individual Health Care Plan (IHCP).

1.       Preparation for new and next steps

1.    How will you help and prepare my child to join your school? 

We encourage parents and children to visit the school and meet their new teacher prior to joining the school. Staff will show the child and parents around school and be available to answer any questions. Where specific adaptations to school are required the Headteacher will liaise with parents/ carers and external agencies to ensure smooth transition into school. There are opportunities for children to visit the school and children with SEND will have a tailored transition programme suitable for their needs which may include social stories and a buddy support system. 

There is a close liaison with the child’s previous school to ensure good practice is transferred to the new setting. 

1.   How will you prepare my child young people to join their next year group/school/college/ stage of education or life?

The school has an established transition support system in place for the whole class, which includes visiting their next school with their peers, having a visit from a member of their next school and various open day events. Children with SEND have additional support, this includes:

•        The school Emotional Literacy Support Assistant will offer small group sessions or 1:1 transition support, where it is deemed a child would benefit. 
•        Transition sessions for pupils moving to new classes or new schools have been led by the Play Therapist or Behaviour Support. 
•        Additional, individual visits to transition schools are sometimes arranged and there is close collaboration between the staff team and our transition schools, including photographs etc.  

There are transition meetings where professionals can share the relevant information and paperwork to ensure that there is as smooth a transition as possible including Statement/EHC paperwork, Annual Review paperwork, progress levels, professional reports, Individual Education Plans, observation notes.

1.       Accessibility and specialist equipment

1.       How accessible is the school environment?  

(A link to the School’s  Accessibility Plan can be found in section 8b)

•      Is your school wheelchair accessible?  

Our school is partially wheelchair accessible e.g. with level access and some buildings/rooms accessible

•      Have adaptations been made to the auditory and visual environment? 

No

•      What changing & toilet facilities does the school have for children and young people with SEND?

We have one disabled toilet. 

•      Do you have disabled car parking for parents? 

We have one designated disabled parking space and there is a lot of free parking space just outside the school easily accessible for disabled car parking. 

1.   What if my child needs specialist equipment or facilities? 

We do our best to provide specific equipment required for a SEND child when the need arises. We do not have any specific rooms to support this but adequate seating, ICT and visual aids have been provided in the past. Specialist equipment recommended by the physiotherapist or occupational therapist has been funded by the school. 

1.    How will my child/young person be included in activities outside the classroom including physical activities, school clubs and school trips?

All children with SEND are included in all extracurricular activities. This is achieved through additional adult support, adapted environments and the needs of the child. Activities are discussed with parents and after reasonable adaptions then a suitable risk assessment is agreed. 

1.       Training for staff, specialist services and further support

1.    With regard to staff who support children with SEND, what expertise do they have and what training have they undertaken?

We have a SENCO (who is the Headteacher), with many years of experience working with a range of children with SEND.

We have a teaching assistant that works as an  ELSA. 

We take a whole school approach to training of SEND and we have a wealth of experience in Autism, ADHD, Speech and language needs, Dyslexia and a wide variety of specific medical needs. 

1.   What other agencies do you involve to meet the needs of my child/young person and how can I access support from these agencies?  

We involve professionals from health, social services, Local Authority support services and voluntary organisations and other specialist support e.g. Speech & Language therapy, RBWM Children and Young People Disability Service, Educational Psychologists, Behaviour Support, Shine Team (Outreach Autism Service), Specialist Teachers e.g. from the School Support Service, Berkshire Sensory Consortium Service,

We help and support our families to access these agencies. 

1.    Who should I contact to find out about other support for parents/carers and families of children and young people with SEND?

You can contact the Information, Advice and Support Service (IAS) for Windsor and Maidenhead who provide impartial information and advice on matters relating to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities for children and young people aged 0-25 and their families

Tel: 01628 683182

Email: IAS@rbwm.gov.uk

Website: http://ias-rbwm.co.uk/

Please follow this link to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s Local Offer for information about other services that might be available to support your child/young person: www.rbwm.gov.uk/localoffer

1.   Policies
2.    Are you aware/familiar with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (Special Educational Needs & Disabilities Act 2001) and the Equality Act 2010?

Yes

1.   Where can I find other school policies relating to SEND?

The following SEND policies are available on the school website at the following link: http://www.theroyalschool.org.uk

•      SEND Policy 
•      Accessibility Plan. 
•      Safeguarding Policy.  
•      Behaviour Policy. 
•      Equality & Diversity Policy.
•      Policy for Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions

1.   Additional Information
2.    Do you provide any other resources for children and young people with SEND? 

We make all reasonable adjustments that we are able to make to meet the needs of children with SEND.  

10 . Feedback and complaints

1.       What do I need to do if I have a concern or complaint about the school and its provision for my child/young person? 

Our complaints policy is on the website at the following link

http://www.theroyalschool.org.uk

It can also be obtained through the school office on 01798434274

1.   Glossary