SEN Support

Welcome to the Learning Support Team

We have a team of 15 staff, currently consisting of the SENCO, two deputy SENCOs. 9 raising achievement assistants and an administration assistant. Meet the team below and explore our FAQ pages.

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Mrs R Hanvey

SENCO

Ms S King

Deputy SENCO

Mrs R Parnell

Deputy SENCO

Contact the team

If you have any questions or require support, please do contact the team using SENAdmin@swanshurst.org.

This is monitored regularly by the SEN administrator and the most appropriate member of the team will get back to you within 7 days.



Frequently Asked Questions

Click to find out more.

How do we communicate your child's needs to teaching staff?

If your child is identified as having a ‘special educational need or disability’ that is long term and substantial in accordance with the 2014 SEND Code of Practice, they are placed on the school’s SEND register as receiving ‘SEN Provision’ and are given the code ‘K’.

There are three waves of provision:

  • Wave 1 (K1): Needs are met through additional advice given to adapt Quality First Teaching

  • Wave 2 (K2): Student has a pupil profile that gives staff specific strategies for adaptive teaching for their specific needs. Group intervention may take place.

  • Wave 3 (K3): Student has a pupil profile and will have regular agency involvement or adaptations made to timetable to enable their needs to be met.

Pupils with an Education and Health Care plan (EHCp) are given the code E. These are awarded by the Special Educational Needs Assessment Review team (SENAR) where a child’s need is significant, long term and the school requires additional support to meet their needs.

Example of a SEN Passport

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What is the local offer?

www.localofferbirmingham.co.uk

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Birmingham.gov.uk | Support in the local community

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The local offer lays out the SEND offer for Birmingham City Council. There are 3 sections:

  • Parents and Carers

  • Children and Young People

  • Professionals

The parents and carers section has the following menu:

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What is the difference between an IEP and an EHC?

EHC (Education and Health Care Plan)

If a child has a special educational need or disability, either the school or the parents, or the young person themselves if they are over the age of 16 may apply to have an assessment for an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCp)

Section 36 (8) of the Children and Families Act 2014 says:

‘The local authority must secure an EHC needs assessment for the child or young person if, after having regard to any views expressed and evidence submitted under subsection (7), the authority is of the opinion that—

  • (a) the child or young person has or may have special educational needs, and
  • (b) it may be necessary for special educational provision to be made for the child or young person in accordance with an EHC plan.’

Guidance as to whether the Local Authority would then decide to assess for an EHC depends on whether the evidence shows that the young person’s additional needs are holding them back in nursery, school or college, and the educational setting is unable to provide enough support to meet those needs.

When we apply for an EHCp, we as a school must provide evidence that the young person is unable to make the expected progress due to their special educational need or disability and that additional support from the local authority is required. This is usually in the form of financial support in order to pay for additional resources that must be bought in specially for that young person.

 

IEPs (individual Education Plans)

An IEP is a document produced by the school that details the provision that an individual pupil requires in the school. There is no set format for these.

At Swanshurst School, we call them Pupil Profiles and they contain the information that staff need to adapt the learning specifically for that pupil.

Targets and intervention records are held on our provision map separately.

Please see FAQ on ‘How we communicate your child’s needs with staff. Pupils who are wave 2 (K2) and wave 3 (K3) have a pupil profile. Pupils who have an EHC also have an additional Pupil profile for staff that summarises their needs and provision required for staff in the classroom.

Four Broad Areas of Need: Cognition and Learning

Cognition and Learning

Children and young people may learn at a slower pace than their peers, even with appropriate differentiation.

Learning difficulties cover a wide range of needs, including moderate learning difficulties (MLD), severe learning difficulties (SLD), where children are likely to need support in all areas of the curriculum and associated difficulties with mobility and communication, through to profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), where children are likely to have severe and complex learning difficulties as well as a physical disability or sensory impairment.Specific learning difficulties (SpLD), affect one or more specific aspects of learning. This encompasses a range of conditions such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia.

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Support in the classroom:

  • Writing frames and task boards
  • Small intervention groups for pupils with identified literacy and / or numeracy needs including Fresh Start, Reading Buddies, Phonics books, word wasp, Toe by Toe and Alpha to Omega, numeracy programs.
  • Paired Reading / reading buddies
  • Coloured overlays where visual stress has been identified
  • Raising Achievement Assistant support in some lessons where needs have been identified
  • External Agency support: Educational Psychologist, Pupil and School Support, Speech and Language Therapist
  • Pre and / or post tutoring before or after school
  • Revision Support and Homework Club after school
  • Supported Curriculum for pupils identified as high need

Four Broad Areas of Need: Social, Emotional and Mental Health

Social, Emotional and Mental Health

Children and young people may experience a wide range of social and emotional difficulties which manifest themselves in many ways. These may include becoming withdrawn or isolated, as well as displaying challenging, disruptive or disturbing behaviour. These behaviours may reflect underlying mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression, self-harming, substance misuse, eating disorders or physical symptoms that are medically unexplained.

Other children and young people may have disorders such as attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder or attachment disorder.

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Support in the classroom:

  • Keep a predictable structure to the lesson

  • Ensure pupils can make small gains and look at the positives.

  • Name emotions  - ‘I can see you are angry……’

  • Give calm down time before talking about why a pupil may be upset.

  • Accept that pupils may not wish to talk but reassure them you are there to help.

  • Use phrasing like ‘I wonder if.., Maybe we could…., let’s try’ instead of direct instruction that may be interpreted as unachievable demands.

  • Support pupils preferred method of self-regulation e.g. doodling or fiddle toys. Use pupil interests to support self-regulation

  • Make expectations clear and break down int steps how these can be achieved.

  • Keep your voice calm and words concise and clear.

Four Broad Areas of Need: Communication and Interaction

Communication and Interaction

Difficulty in communicating with others. This may be because they have difficulty saying what they want to, understanding what is being said to them or they do not understand or use social rules of communication.

These difficulties occur with both verbal information and written information.

Children and young people with ASD, including Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism, are likely to have particular difficulties with social interaction. They may also experience difficulties with language, communication and imagination, which can impact on how they relate to others.

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Support in the classroom:

  • Rephrase questions to support processing

  • Make language explicit avoiding unnecessary language and idioms.

  • Give processing time for language to go in and for language to be expressed.

  • Support word finding difficulties by giving the first sounds of the word to aid retrieval. Be explicit about what key vocabulary you want in the answer.

  • Use word maps to link words you would use together.

  • Give plenty of time to talk before writing. Support pupils to fully form a spoken sentence before writing it. Provide scaffolding to support coherent sentence order (narrative)

  • Use task boards and chunk up information .

  • For pupils with DLD, encourage use of prepositions and a wide range of adjectives with the key words.

  • Give specific roles in group work and put key words and diagrams on the table to support meaningful discussion.

  • Understand that pupils with autism may also have sensory processing difficulties and need to withdraw to self regulate and adjust the environment where possible for them.

Four Broad Areas of Need: Physical / Sensory

Physical and / or Sensory

Children and young people require special educational provision because they have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of the educational facilities generally provided.

These difficulties can be age related and may fluctuate over time.

Many children and young people with vision impairment (VI), hearing impairment (HI) or a multi-sensory impairment (MSI) will require specialist support and/or equipment to access their learning, or rehabilitation support. Children and young people with an MSI have a combination of vision and hearing difficulties

Some children and young people with a physical disability (PD) require additional ongoing support and equipment to access all the opportunities available to their peers.

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Support in the classroom:

  • Strategic seating in the classroom.

  • Assistive technology such as a specialist hearing equipment, enlargers, ipads and laptops to enlarge text.

  • Ensure subtitles are on videos and ensure a HI pupils can see you clearly to lip read.

  • Print Power point slides for VI pupils in the appropriate font size.

  • Ensure that a strong black pen is used on the board and there are no reflections from the view of the VI pupils

  • Support group work in a smaller quieter room if needed.

  • Advice for physical and sensory varies greatly from pupils to pupils so read specific advice

Access Arrangements

What access arrangements may be appropriate for a student?

Note that all access arrangements require evidence that the special educational need disability or impairment is long term, substantial and persistent. In addition, a history of need must be established to show that the access arrangement is required.

  • Additional time of up to 25% - this equates to an additional 15 minutes per hour of exam.
  • A reader – in the exam, students raise their hands and indicate to the invigilator what they want them to read out loud for them. A reader is not allowed for the English language exam where reading is being examined. Students who require a reader may however, have 50% additional time for this section.
  • A reading pen / computer reader – a reading pen is a device , approved by JCQ that enables the student to hear single words or small sections of text to be read. A computer reader can read larger amounts of text.
  • Scribe – an invigilator writes what the student says word for word for their answers
  • Word processor with spell check disabled
  • Supervised rest breaks – if a student needs to take a break in the exam, for example because of anxiety or a medical need, the time taken for the break can be added to the end of the exam.
  • Prompter – if a student loses concentration easily, the invigilator can prompt the pupil to refocus, maybe by a gentle tap on the desk.
  • Bilingual dictionary – this must directly translate the word only and must not contain definitions or pictures.

What evidence is required for access arrangements?

  • Additional time - If a student’s needs come under the ‘Cognition and Learning’ broad area of need, assessments must be carried out by an assessor to show that processing speed is below average. For the other broad areas of need, a diagnosis along with an established history of need can be provided as evidence.
  • Reader / reading pen / computer reader – established history of need where the student is regularly relying on hearing text read aloud for understanding and / or decoding coupled with low reading scores
  • Scribe – assessment of writing that shows writing to be illegible in over 25% of the words written AND a word processor is not a suitable alternative  reasonable adjustment.
  • Rest breaks, prompter and bilingual dictionary require history of need but are at the centres’ discretion

The SENCO holds the qualification to assess for access arrangements and has the final say on what access arrangements are awarded to a student.

For temporary conditions, for example a broken arm during an exam season, we can apply access arrangements for a fixed, short period of time.

 

Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) guidance on access arrangements:

Access arrangements are agreed before an assessment. They allow candidates with specific needs, such as special educational needs, disabilities or temporary injuries to access the assessment and show what they know and can do without changing the demands of the assessment. The intention behind an access arrangement is to meet the needs of an individual candidate without affecting the integrity of the assessment. Access arrangements are the principal way in which awarding bodies comply with the duty under the Equality Act 2010* to make ‘reasonable adjustments’

Where can I get more information about how to help my child?

Here are some useful websites….

DLD (Developmental Language Disorder)

oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/cit/resources/dld/

dldandme.org/

speechandlanguage.org.uk/help-for-families/developmental-language-disorder-awareness/

thedldproject.com/developmental-language-disorder-dld/

 

Autism

autismwestmidlands.org.uk/

autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism

autismspeaks.org/sensory-processing-disorder

For resources, animations and webinars on a range of matters relating to autism: https://thegirlwiththecurlyhair.co.uk/

 

Dyspraxia

bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyslexia/neurodiversity-and-co-occurring-differences/dyspraxia

nhs.uk/conditions/developmental-coordination-disorder-dyspraxia/

 

Dyslexia

bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyslexia/about-dyslexia/what-is-dyslexia

dyslexia.uk.net/what-is-dyslexia/

 

Dyscalculia

bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyscalculia

 

General Support

familylives.org.uk/advice/your-family/special-educational-needs

localofferbirmingham.co.uk/home/parents-and-carers/

Which agencies do we work with?

Agencies that specifically support special educational needs

  • The Communication and Autism Team (CAT) support pupils with Autism (or who are on the autism pathway) to understand their diagnosis and to support us to ensure that our provision is working for your child.
  • Pupil and School Support (PSS) offer assessments and support for pupils with cognition and learning needs who are struggling to access learning in the classroom.
  • The Educational Psychologist (EP) supports pupils with complex social, emotional and mental health needs where additional advice is needed following high levels of support already put in place by the school.
  • Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) works with pupils with speech difficulties, developmental language disorder (DLD) and other receptive and expressive language difficulties. They are able to diagnose DLD where we agree this is appropriate.

If we feel that it is appropriate for your child to see any of these agencies, written consent from the parent / carer will need to be given in advance of the meeting.

Support for dyslexia is overseen by the SENCO who is a BDA accredited teacher of dyslexia.