SEN

Inclusion Manager

Mrs. M. Cunningham

Contact: melanie.cunningham@st-james.richmond.sch.uk

Special Educational Needs and Disability

At St. James’s we believe that all children have the right to be happy in school and access a broad and balanced curriculum.  We enable a cooperative and productive partnership with pupils, parents, carers and teachers to enable this to happen.

Definition of SEN: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Code of practice, Department for Health and Education, January 2015

“A child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her which is different from, or additional to, that normally available to pupils of the same age.”

Aims of SEND provision at St James’s Primary School

• The achievements of each and every child are valued.
• All children are supported to access a balanced and broadly based curriculum.
• Every child is supported to enable them to meet their full potential.
• The needs of most children will be met by high quality, differentiated teaching in the classroom.
• In some instances, carefully planned interventions will be introduced to meet specific, individual needs.
• The impact of these interventions will be measured over time.
• St James’s will always seek to work in collaboration with pupils, parents and teachers to ensure each child’s needs are met.
• Provision will be mapped to ensure that staff deployment, resource allocation and choice of intervention leads to excellent learning outcomes.
• Staff will keep up to date through well targeted, continuous professional development.
• St James’s enables a cooperative and productive partnership with the Local Authority and other outside agencies to ensure there is a multi-professional approach to meet the needs of each child.

From September 2014, all schools are required to publish details of their SEN Information Report, detailing support for pupils with special educational needs and/or a disability. This is referred to in our Inclusion Policy which can be found at the bottom of the page.

In addition, schools must provide a link to services which Richmond Local Authority offer to children with special educational needs and/or a disability.

Local Offer is the term that the Department for Education (DfE) have chosen to describe the collection of information about the support that local authorities must make available to help children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families. The purpose of the local offer is to enable parents, carers, children and young people with SEND to see clearly, from a single and regularly updated source, the services available to local families and how to access them. The offer covers services from birth to 25, across education, health and social care. It describes state-funded, charitable and private services, and includes services outside the local area (e.g. schools) which are used by local families. Put simply, information on "Local" services and support on "Offer" is gathered together and made easy to find in a "Local Offer”.

https://www.afcinfo.org.uk/local_offer