Northside School's Special Educational Needs Information Report 2022/23

Headteacher: Mrs. Elizabeth Longworth

Deputy Headteacher/Inclusion Manager: Mrs. Mulvihill-Ellis

Chair of Governors: Mrs. Anahita Milligan  

SEND Governor: Mrs. Sangeeta Samuel

Introduction

This Special Educational Needs (SEND) Information report highlights some of the key points identified in the Code of Practice 2015 (section 6.79). For more information, please see the school’s SEND policy.  

What is the Local Offer?

The LA Local Offer

The Children and Families Bill requires Local Authorities and schools are required to publish and keep under review information about services they expect to be available for the children and young people with Special Educational Needs/Disabilities (SEND) aged 0-25. This is the ‘Local Offer’.

The intention of the Local Offer is to improve choice and transparency for families. It will also be an important resource for parents in understanding the range of services and provision in the local area.

Barnet’s Local Offer can be found here.

What kind of special educational needs provision is accessible for children at Northside Primary School?

At Northside Primary School we support children with a variety of needs. The four broad ‘areas of need’ are Communication and Interaction; Cognition and Learning; Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties; and Sensory and Physical Needs.

How do we identify children who may have a SEND need?  

At different times in their school life, a child or young person may have a special educational need. The Code of Practice 2015 defines SEND as follows:

‘A child or young person has SEND if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her. A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she; a) Has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others the same age or b) Has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions.’

Where pupils, progress is significantly slower than that of their peers or fails to match their previous rate of progress, despite high-quality teaching targeted at specific areas of difficulty, it may be that the child has SEND. Information will be gathered, an Initial Concerns and Identification of Needs forms will be filled in by the adults working with the child including seeking the views of parents and the pupil, as well as from teachers and assessments. If greater support is considered necessary a SEND Support Plan will be written by the class teacher, with input from the child parents and any external services that may be involved.

Admissions into Northside Primary School for children with Special Educational Needs

We are an inclusive school and follow the London Borough of Barnet Admissions criteria. For further information please the Admission policy or contact LB of Barnet Admissions Team on 020 8359 2000.

What should I do if I think my child may have Special Educational Needs?

 If you have any concerns regarding your child’s progress or well-being, then please speak to either your child’s class teacher or Mrs. Mulvihill-Ellis, the Inclusions manager at lmulvihill@northsideprimary.co.uk to discuss your concerns. You can also call the school on 0208 445 4730. 

What are the arrangements for consulting young people with SEND and/or parents of children with SEND and involving them in their child’s education?

The class teacher is regularly available to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns you may have and to share information about what is working well at home and school so that similar strategies can be used.

· The Deputy Headteacher/Inclusion Manager is available to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress or any concerns/worries you may have.

· All information from outside professionals will be discussed with you with the person involved directly, or where this is not possible, in a report.

· Personal progress targets and interventions will be reviewed with your involvement every term.

 · A home-school contact book may be used to support communication with you when this has been agreed to be useful for you and your child.

Your child will be involved in the target setting process with the class teacher, which makes up the targets on the Support Plan. Targets are regularly reviewed with yourself (during termly parents’ evenings) and with your child during pupil conferencing times with their teacher.

What are the arrangements for assessing and reviewing children and young people’s progress towards outcomes?

If a learner is identified as having SEND, we will provide support that is ‘additional to’ or ‘different from’ the differentiated approaches normally provided as part of high-quality teaching. When providing support that is ‘additional to’ or ‘different from’ we engage in the following process as highlighted in the Code of Practice: Assess, Plan, Do and Review.

Assess – this involves taking into consideration all the information from discussions

with parents or carers, the child, the class teacher and assessments.

Plan – this stage identifies the barriers to learning, intended outcomes, and details

what additional support will be provided to help overcome the barriers. Decision will

be recorded on an Intervention Plan and will form the basis for termly review

meetings with, held as part of Parent/Teacher Consultations and pupil conferencing.

Do – providing support – extra assistance for learning or learning aids – as set out in

the plan.

Review – measuring the impact of support provided, and considering whether

changes to that support need to be made. All of those involved – learner, the

parents or carer, teachers and Inclusion Manager - contribute to this review. This

stage then informs the next cycle, if necessary. Meetings with Teachers,

Teaching Assistants (TA's) and Learning Support Assistants (LSA’s) to discuss the progress of learners are held regularly, as well

as termly Pupil Progress Meetings with the senior Leadership Team (SLT).

What adaptations are made to the curriculum and the learning environment of children and young people with SEND?

Additional support or ‘intervention’ will be tailored to meet the child’s needs and will target the area of difficulty. This support may be provided in class, on a 1:1 basis or as part of a small group of learners with similar needs. A teacher or trained teaching assistant may run these ‘interventions’. The support provided and its impact in class, will be monitored closely and shared regularly with the child and with their parents or carers. For a small number of learners, their needs may require access to technology e.g. Modified ICT equipment, recording devices etc.

We have a calm space to allow children with social, emotional and mental health needs to use when they are feeling dysregulated, as well as providing each class with resoucres to help the pupil's focus on their learning (e.g. wobble cushions to sit on, therapy putty and fidget tools). We also use the Zones of Regulation to support their understanding of emotions and how to identify and manage their feelings. All staff wear the Zones on their lanyard and all children who require it, have their own to refer to.

Within class, Quality First Teaching is embeded to provide children with individualised learning and resoucres/support to be able to progress and complete tasks. This may include support from an adult, support from a peer, stem sentences to allow a child to complete writing independently, word banks, phonic mats, manipulatives in maths and modelled pieces of work to understand the learning. Classroom displays are kept to a minimum, to prevent cognitive and sensory overload, only focusing on the current learning. 

All areas of school life are inclusive, indeed it is one of our core values. Teaching is tailored to provide both challenge and support, encouraging everyone to achieve their potential through a curriculum that is both broad and balanced. We aim to achieve this by helping children overcome barriers to learning by matching tasks to pupils’ needs, adjusting the curriculum and thus enabling full participation. All the while including them within all aspects of their class and school life.

While the majority of learners with SEND will have their needs met in this way, some may require an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) assessment to determine whether it is necessary for the Local Authority to make provision in accordance with an EHC plan.

How do we assess the Impact of Interventions?

The interventions used will be those that are proven to make a difference for most learners. A baseline assessment will take place at the beginning of an intervention – this will provide the point of reference for measuring progress made by a child – and a target outcome set. Regular reviews will take place to ensure that the intervention is having the intended effect. Should progress be less than anticipated, consideration will be given to adapting the frequency and/or intensity. The termly reviews will involve children and their parents or carers, as well as class teachers, and a record kept of agreed actions.

Where difficulties persist despite high-quality interventions and appropriate adjustments, advice and support may be requested from other professionals, with the parent’s consent. This might involve: Speech &Language Therapy services, Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist, an Advisory Support Teacher or Educational Psychologist or health services such as a Paediatrician.

Where a child has an Education, Health and Care plan (EHC), there will be an annual review held in addition to the termly review meetings, taking into account the views of the child, their parent or carer and all other professionals involved with the child.

How are the teachers in school helped to work with children with SEND, and what training do the teachers have?

Part of the Inclusion Managers role is to support the class teacher in planning for children with SEND.

· The school provides training and support to enable all staff to improve the teaching and learning of children, including those with SEND. This includes whole school training on SEND issues, for example Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Social, Emotional and Mental Heath (SEMH) or speech and language difficulties.

· Individual teachers and support staff attend training courses run by the Local Authority and outside agencies that are relevant to the needs of specific children in their class.

· Trainers are also invited to deliver training to the whole staff in school.

It may be necessary to involve agencies from outside the school to support a SEND learner, in which case the school after consultation with the parents may refer to the appropriate service.

Teachers are responsible and accountable for the progress and development of all the pupils in their class.

High-quality teaching is our first step in responding to pupils who have SEN. This will be differentiated for individual pupils.

We will provide the following interventions:

Speech and Language Therapy, using the advice from therapists we will support the children’s sound production, as well as expressive and receptive language.

Precision Teaching, One of the most effective teaching strategies for ensuring high levels of fluency and accuracy is Precision Teaching. Precision Teaching involves short one-minute tasks to build skills by practicing them regularly.

Talkboost and Language Enrichment, are targeted and evidenced-based interventions, which supports language delayed children in EYFS and KS1 to make significant progress with their language and communication skills.

Lego therapy, is a social skills programme for children and young people to work together to build Lego models and through this have the opportunity to develop social skills such as turn-taking, collaboration and social communication.

Motor Skills Groups, for both fine and gross motor skills delivered by specially trained staff.

Social Skills Groups, for children who struggle to communicate and interact with their peers. 

Life Skills Groups, for children who reqiure additional support and teaching of basic life skills. These may include: cooking, walking to the shops, hygiene routines and road safety. 

How will we support children’s emotional and social development?

We recognise that some children have extra emotional and social needs that need to be developed and nurtured. These needs can manifest themselves in a number of ways, including behavioural difficulties, anxiousness and being uncommunicative. All classes follow a structured RSHE (Relationships, Sex and Health Education) curriculum to support this development. However, for those children who find aspects of this difficult we offer:

· Social skills groups are run for identified children

 · Support from trusted adults (including the safeguarding team: Mrs. Longworth, Mrs. Mulvihill-Ellis and Mrs. Crouchley)

 ·Support from external agencies running in consultation with school and parents (IAT, AAT, EP, Barnet Virtual School or an Art Therapist).

What are the school’s arrangements for supporting children with SEND in transferring between phases of education?

First, it will begin with consultation with parents/carers in how we can best meet the needs of the child through any change in Educational placement. We will link with teaching staff, support staff and other lead professionals as to how we can best support the academic, medical and social needs of the child. This may be through visits to the new school for both children and parents, with support from the SENCO or Learning Support Assistant. We will also create a link between the SENCO at a child’s new school to enable a transfer of background knowledge. Finally, we will work on a transition unit of work to make the child comfortable in leaving but happy to move to a new school. We ensure a transition booklet is created including photos of their new environment, photos of any key adults, timetables and any new expectations and rules.  

What are the arrangements for handling complaints from parents of children with SEND about the provision made at the school?

If you are not happy with the SEND provision at the school, please contact the class teachers or Inclusion Manager or the Headteacher, to share your concerns. If you wish to make a complaint about the school, please direct your grievance to the schools’ chair of governors. The complaints procedure is available on the school’s website. 

If you have questions or need help understanding how to use the Barnet Local Offer or someone to do the searching for you, you can talk to the Inclusion Manager (Lucy Mulvihill-Ellis) or email SENDDlocaloffer@barnet.gov.uk.

Barnet SENDDIASS (SEND Information, Advice and Support Service) can also help guide parents and young people through the local offer https://www.barnetlocaloffer.org.uk/organisations/27214-barnet-special-educational-needs-and-disability-information-advice-and-support-service-sendiass