Special Educational Needs
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Removing Barriers to Learning: Quality First Teaching and Support for All
Information about Special Educational Needs at Goudhurst & Kilndown Church England Primary School for Parents and Carers |
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Inclusive Teaching and Learning We are committed to inclusion. We endeavour to make every effort to achieve maximum inclusion of all pupils whilst meeting their individual needs as learners.
What do we mean by Special Educational Needs? Children have Special Educational Needs if they have a learning difficulty that calls for special educational provision to be made for them. They may have:
They may have difficulty with one or more of the following:
We know that children learn and develop in different ways so we use different teaching styles, resources and plan different levels of work, along with many other approaches. This is called Quality First Teaching.
How do we identify children who need extra support? We aim to keep the time between identifying where support is needed and responding with the right provision to a minimum. Home and pre-school visits help with early identification and enable us to plan for future provision. As well as this we liaise with parents, health professionals and early years settings (nurseries) to build a sound evidence base. Once in school, your child will be assessed in a number of different ways, including class observation. From these assessments your child’s teacher will be able to see what they are good at, where they need help and how best you can help at home.
What happens if your child is identified as needing support? If your child needs support in one of the four areas mentioned, the class teacher, together with the SENCO will decide the type and level of support, which may change throughout their time at school. We will always keep you informed and part of the process.
What does the SENCO do? SENCO = Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator If your child needs support, the SENCO will:
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What could the support look like? The support could be within class, as part of a small group or one to one help. The class teacher and SENCO will best assess which type and level of support needed.
For your child this action will be enough to help them to overcome any difficulties and help them make good progress. Sometimes, additional advice from outside specialists is needed, which could include advice from specialist teachers, educational psychologists, speech and language therapists or physiotherapists. In this case we work alongside parents and professionals to carry out further assessments and form an individual provision plan.
How do we identify children who need extra support? We aim to keep the time between identifying where support is needed and responding with the right provision to a minimum. Home and pre-school visits help with early identification and enable us to plan for future provision. As well as this we liaise with parents, health professionals and early years settings (nurseries) to build a sound evidence base. Once in school, your child will be assessed in a number of different ways, including class observation. From these assessments your child’s teacher will be able to see what they are good at, where they need help and how best you can help at home.
What happens if your child is identified as needing support? If your child needs support in one of the four areas mentioned, the class teacher, together with the SENCO will decide the type and level of support, which may change throughout their time at school. We will always keep you informed and part of the process.
What is a Personalised Plan? This is essentially what your child’s class teacher and the SENCO plan to do to help your child. It will include short term targets, extra support detail (i.e. how often the support is being given) and when the school will next look at progress.
These plans are reviewed throughout the year and then discussed with parents at Parent’s Evening. Your child would also be discussed at regular Pupil Progress meetings throughout the school year.
Contacts If you have a concern about your child’s learning then your child’s class teacher is the first person to talk to as they plan for ways to give support in class, whether that support be one to one or in a group.
You can also contact our SENCO Aimee Day: senco@1010federation.org
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Whole School Provision Map
Glossary of Provision
Sensory Circuits
Sensory Circuits is a series of activities designed specifically to wake up all the senses in readiness for the busy day at school. Sensory circuits help to improve: balance, coordination, awareness of body position and sensory integration. It leads to improvements in alertness and co-ordination in class and a “just right” state of mind through a series of alerting, organising and calming activities. This intervention takes place daily from 8.45am – 8.55am.
Balance Education and Movement (BEAM)
A physical activity programme aimed to support children’s core muscles, posture and coordination skills. This helps the child develop classroom skills, such as the ability to sit still, to concentrate and listen, and hand-eye coordination. It was devised by paediatric physiotherapists and occupational therapists. As part of the programme members of the School therapy service visit the groups to review children’s progress and liaise with school staff.
Speech and Language groups
These 1:1 or group sessions are for children who either have a speech or communication difficulty. Their difficulty can be either in their receptive and/or expressive language. Activities are run by our Speech and Language Therapist every Thursday, with follow up sessions carried out throughout the week.
NELI
The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) has been found to improve children's language and early literacy skills and is a program designed for children in reception year (4-5 years). The programme takes place daily for 20 weeks for a selected group of children.
Ginger
Ginger Bear helps to teach and develop spoken language and social interaction skills to selected children, aged 4-5, in reception. We deliver it over 40 sessions, daily, and aim to develop the "rules" of interaction with the help of the character Ginger the Bear, who features in all the activities we do. Skills we teach include: eye contact, taking turns, sharing, greetings, awareness of feelings, following instructions, listening, paying attention, and play skills
Speech and Language Link groups
Speech Link and Infant and Junior Language Link are computerised assessment packages that give teachers and teaching assistants the ability to screen for the child’s understanding of the spoken language. It offers information and resources to implement appropriate support programmes and strategies which are used with identified children.
Reading/Comprehension groups
An intervention to help improve a child’s reading accuracy plus their understanding of different types of texts. A variety of fiction and non-fiction books are used, including play scripts and poetry. Questions are answered verbally and in a written format.
English Booster
This intervention supports children who require additional help with a particular concept in class
Handwriting - Write from the Start 1 and 2 –The Teodorescu Perceptuo-Motor Programme
To help develop fine-motor and perceptual skills for effective handwriting, such as hand-eye co-ordination. This is achieved through various activities such as colouring, tracking and drawing. Through this they will develop the control required for exact placement of the pencil on a specified point, skilled control over movement and the correct pressure required.
Maths booster
This intervention supports children who require additional help with a particular concept in class.
Timestable Rockstars
TTRS is a carefully sequenced program of daily timetables practice designed to improve speed of recall. Each week concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practised every third week or so.
Numbots
A highly engaging platform that helps pupils add and subtract. Regular use helps improve understanding, recall and fluency in mental addition and subtraction, so that children can move from counting to calculating.
Lego Therapy
A practical activity involving 3 children. The children are given set roles-an engineer, a supplier and a builder and they work together to build a Lego model.
It helps children to develop problem solving skills. It also develops their speaking and listening skills, as they are encouraged to provide directional language, receive and follow instructions. They learn to tolerate being corrected by others and to engage in interaction with their peers.
Social Skills Group
Supported by our Speech and Language Therapist, we use ‘Talkabout’ to deliver a twice weekly intervention to children in Key Stages 1 and 2. The Talkabout Resource supports children, through practical activities and games, to develop their understanding of social situations, body language, conversations and assertiveness.
Drawing and Talking
Our Mental Health First Aider (Emma Khan) is fully trained to deliver the Drawing and Talking intervention. Drawing and Talking utilises drawing as a way to help pupils express their feelings differently and helps support children with their anxieties or worries. Sessions take place weekly for selected children across all year groups.
Fegans Counselling
Provided by the Weald Family Hub, fully trained Fegans counsellors deliver 1:1 counselling to children who are struggling with their mental health. Our Fegans Counsellor comes in to deliver sessions every Monday.
The Haven Nurture Group
During Nurture time, children learn skills that they can use every day, both in and out of the classroom. The Nurture Group gives children the opportunity to recognise, understand and deal with different feelings, as well as learning simple relaxation and concentration techniques to improve their focus and listening skills. The Nurture Group takes place at lunchtimes on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. Our aim is for them to become equipped with the tools, by using the strategies taught, to manage and regulate their emotions and wellbeing themselves.
Play Therapist
Play therapists help children to make sense of difficult life experiences, or complex psychological issues through play. Our Play Therapist visits every Wednesday morning.
ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant)
We have a fully qualified ELSA (Emma Khan) in school who helps to support the emotional needs of our pupils. Sessions focus on emotions, social stories, bereavement, therapeutic stories, anger management, friendship solutions and self-esteem. Our ELSA has protected time to deliver sessions every Wednesday morning/afternoon.
Lightning Squad Reading Intervention
FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad is a reading tutoring programme where pupils work in pairs with a tutor to improve their reading skills, fluency, comprehension, spelling and phonics. Pupils work through 65 specially written, engaging and illustrated stories. The intervention takes place over a six week period to catch-up their reading skills, with daily 30-minute tutoring sessions in school.
Keyboard skills/Touch Typing skills
We use Touch, Type, Read and Spell, a structured progressive programme which introduces keyboard skills and touch typing to aid and improve touch typing speed as well as supporting with reading and spelling. The program is especially effective in supporting pupils with special educational needs including Dyslexia. This intervention is commonly run as an early morning intervention from 8.30am-8.45am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
Beanstalk
Our trained Beanstalk volunteer comes in to support with reading on a 1:1 basis every week.
Wordshark
Wordshark is a computer program that combines the fun and excitement of bright, multi-sensory games with the serious task of learning to read and spell. The 55 colourful games are carefully designed to teach and reinforce reading and spelling using 9,000 pre-recorded words. You can also add your own word lists. The varied combinations of games and word lists create both variety and motivation. The program is especially effective in helping students with special educational needs including Dyslexia. This daily intervention is commonly run as an early morning intervention from 8.30am-8.45am.
Mindfulness
We use the ‘Mindful Kids’ resource which includes mindfulness games, visualizations and exercises, divided into 5 categories, to help children feel grounded, find calm, improve focus, practice loving-kindness and relax.
Clever Fingers
Clever Fingers is an activity package created and designed, by Occupational Therapists. It is used to support children with poor fine motor skills and difficulties in: dressing, using a knife and fork and scissors, as well as handwriting. Children work for about 10 minutes, either individually or in a small group, from a “Clever Fingers Box” which has been put together to meet the child’s individual needs. Activities include threading, posting, construction toys and plasticine moulding.
Switch-on Reading Intervention
Switch-on Reading is an intensive 10-week literacy intervention. It is delivered on a one to one basis by Teaching Assistants who have been trained in the approach
Accelerated Reader
Accelerated Reader is a program which encourages our pupils to independently choose and read books at their own level and pace. Each book they choose has online ‘reading practice’ quizzes to allow children to demonstrate their understanding of what they have read. Our teachers use these quizzes to track each pupil’s progress and set appropriate goals.
Memory Magic
A computerised program that helps children improve their memory skills, teaching flexible memory strategies and provides practice in applying these strategies.
Additional Resources:
Clicker 8
A computerised programme for reading and writing. It encourages self-correction, promotes reading independence with talking books and provides students with picture support for sentence building. The program is especially effective in supporting pupils with special educational needs including Dyslexia.
Social stories
These are personalised stories which are drawn up with the child to suit their particular need and/or anxieties. The child will read this daily and at specific times of need. They are used to: prepare children for change and new events, help them overcome anxieties, help them become aware of what is required in set social situations and reinforce good behaviour.
SEN&D Information Policy
Useful weblinks
To provide services for families to help them to do well, stay safe and resolve problems at the earliest possible opportunity, before they become more serious. You can access these services locally at a time and place that suits you. You can find further information, including a parent lealef, via the following link.
Based in St Mary's Church, Goudhurst, its aim is to connect the community with people, projects and organisations that support young people and their families who are struggling with issues of mental health and is focussed on becoming a key local network of support for the Wealden villages.
Information about dyslexia services
Gives children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities and their families information about what support services the local authority think will be available in their local area.
Main Core Standard Guide (Parent Version)
A leading UK charity for people on the autism spectrum (including Asperger syndrome) and their families. They provide information, support and pioneering services, and campaign for a better world for people with autism
Parent Information, Advice and Support Kent (IASK) - free, impartial and confidential information, advice and support about special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) for children, young people up to age 25, parents and carers. For parents.
