Our Assistant Head teacher has overall responsibility for SEND and inclusion – this means that we regularly discuss SEND issues in the Leadership Team meetings. We keep support for children with SEND under review. As SENDCo, she also plans the programmes of support for individuals and small groups of pupils with SEND. She keeps a register of children we identify as having a SEN and/or a disability. She also keeps a record on our Provision Map of all the different ways that we provide extra support (for example, support for reading, communication and number) for children with SEND.
We carefully monitor the progress and well-being of children with SEND and the quality of our provision, including teaching and support. For example senior leaders observe lessons and hold discussions with teachers and support staff. If something is not working well, we change and improve our provision – we describe these changes in our School Improvement Plan.
The Governing Body challenges us to make sure we constantly improve the quality of provision for children with SEND and the outcomes that they achieve. We have a governor who takes responsibility for SEND matters. He meets with our SENDCo once a term and makes visits to classrooms looking at learning and teaching. He reports termly to the full GB. We fully involve our governors when we review and revise our SEN policy and our Local Offer at the end of each school year. The governor with responsibility for SEND is Anthony Mirams.
We learn from other schools: We are a learning community and believe that it is important to work with other schools to make sure that our knowledge, expertise and skills on SEND issues are up to date.
We undertake visits to local schools, such as Kentish Town Primary and Netley Primary School and Centre for Autism, to look at aspects of their practice. Our Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator (SENDCo) attends both the Local Authority SENDCo forum and Camden Learning’s SEND Hub, which keep schools up to date with national developments, local projects on inclusion and best practice.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS – (Leadership, management and governance)
Q. What funding does the school have for my child with SEND?
A. We receive funding from the Local Authority at the start of the financial year for supporting children with SEND. The funding arrangements are complex. The school gets an amount of money for each child in the school. This is the core budget and it is used to make general provision for all children in the school including children with SEN. On top of this we get an additional amount of money to help make special educational provision to meet children’s special educational needs. The amount is agreed with the local authority (Camden) and is based on a formula. Finally, on top of this, if we can demonstrate that a child with SEN needs more than £6000 of special educational provision, we can ask Camden to provide top up funding to meet the cost of that provision for a particular child. What this all means in practice is that the school has to juggle the money and the requirements of each child with SEN. There is a limit to the pot of money which can sometimes mean difficult decisions about the level of provision for a particular child. However, the school tries to be as creative as possible in making the best use of the money we have, to meet the different needs of all our SEN children.
Q. How are the school’s resources allocated and matched to children’s special educational needs?
A. We have to make sure that we use this funding as effectively as possible. Our SENDCo consults parents/carers, the child and the class teacher before making a decision about each support programme. We review with parents/carers how well each child is doing and agree changes if we need to.
Q. What happens if my child’s needs change as he gets older?
A. The starting point is to discuss these changes with the SENDCo. If the level of need is becoming higher, parents can work with the school and request an assessment for an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP). You can find more details about assessment for an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) on the Camden Local Offer website.