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SEND Policy_

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Policy

Policy details

Date created - September 2021
Date reviewed - 05/12/2023
Date approved - 05/12/2023
Next review date - 05/12/2024
Policy owner - Hazel Garsden [North Manchester]

Philosophy

At Co-op Academy North Manchester we are committed to providing a high quality , equitable education and access to a broad range of learning experiences for all of our pupils, including those with SEND.

The key values and beliefs that underpin the academy’s SEND policy are:

● Equal value and respect for all

● Equal opportunity for all

● Recognition of individual differences with special regard for young people with SEND

● The development of skills for life through the provision of a wide range of enriching learning opportunities

● Being creative, forward-thinking, child-centred and research-led in our approach to meeting the needs of all pupils.

● Placing particular emphasis on the importance of collaboration between pupils, parents and carers and external agencies, services and provisions so that an individualised and holistic “team around the child” approach underpins decisions regarding provision for pupils with SEND.

Scope of the Policy

● This policy applies to all young people in the Academy who have additional or special educational needs. The policy applies equally to all pupils and their families whatever their gender, ethnic origin, home language, religion, disability, or social circumstances.

● This policy also has implications for all our partners in the SEND process e.g. partner academies, governing bodies, parents and carers and both statutory and voluntary agencies.

Aim

Our aim is to ensure that all of our pupils are able to access a broad and balanced curriculum, including those with SEND. We aim to achieve the best possible outcomes for our pupils and to foster the highest aspirations.

The SENDCo in the academy is Mrs Hazel Garsden who can be contacted on the school telephone number 0161 681 1592 or via school enquiries on noma-send@coopacademies.co.uk

Our objectives are:

To identify and provide for pupils who have special educational needs and additional needs as early as possible in their school career.
To work within the guidance provided in the SEND Code of Practice (2015), the Children and Families Act (2014) and the Equality Act (2010).
To ensure that the entire academy community is committed to an inclusive ethos where everyone takes responsibility for and actively promotes the inclusion of pupils with SEND.
To provide a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator (SENDCo) who oversee the implementation of the SEND policy and provision for pupils with SEND.
To share personalised guidance to staff, sought from external professionals where necessary, on strategies and approaches that will support the learning and inclusion of individual pupils with SEND.
To work collaboratively with pupils and their parents and carers so that informed decisions can be made about provision for pupils with SEND.

Admission arrangements

Admission arrangements will not be used to refuse admission to a SEND pupil (see admissions policy)

Facilities

● The academy is based on a large site built in 2012. The site is therefore accessible to any person who requires a wheelchair or walking aid. There are disabled toilet facilities throughout and a hygiene suite.

● The academy also has a dedicated Inclusion Area, comprising a range of spaces for teaching, intervention, assessment and therapeutic work for pupils with SEND.

Identifying Special Educational Needs

The SEND Code of Practice says a child has a learning difficulty if he or she:

● Has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age

● 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

● When determining if a child has SEND we will refer to the four broad categories of need as described in the SEND Code of Practice. These are:

1. Communication and Interaction (including Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Developmental Language Disorder, dysfluency)

2. Cognition and Learning (including general learning difficulties, dyslexia, dyscalculia)

3. Social, Emotional and Mental Health (including Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, anxiety, depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

4. Sensory and/or Physical needs (including physical disabilities, debilitating medical conditions and sensory processing disorders)

In addition to the four areas we will also consider what is not SEND but may impact on progress and attainment (including disability, attendance and punctuality, health and welfare, English as an Additional Language, pupil premium and children who are looked after).

Concerns related to a pupil’s behaviour will be recognised as potential underlying response to need.

In determining if a pupil should be placed on the SEND register, the SENDCo will, in consultation with the Inclusion Board, consider a wide range of factors that can impact on a child’s progress using all of the available qualitative and quantitative data.

Pupils will be placed onto the SEND register if:

· The universal academy offer of quality first teaching and pastoral support is not sufficiently meeting the needs of the pupil and enabling them to make progress.

· Following transition from another school (either primary or an in-year admission) we have been advised that a pupil has SEND.

Admission for Pupils with SEND

Prior to admission to Year 7 Primary school transition

Primary schools are requested to pass on information on each of our prospective pupils outlining their current identified needs and provision.
The SENDCo will organise visits to specific pupils based on the information provided and additional transition visits will be offered where appropriate to support the pupil’s transition.
At the new-pupil intake evenings and Open Evenings, the SENDCo is available to speak with pupils, parents and carers.
Where pupils are admitted to the academy in-year the Transition Manager will meet with parent/carers and pupils will undertake appropriate testing so that we can determine whether the pupil will need additional SEND support. Wherever possible, the child’s previous setting will be contacted for further advice and information to best support the child’s transition and integration into the academy.

Identifying Barriers to Learning

We ensure that every pupil in Year 7 is assessed for their baseline levels in a variety of areas on entry to secondary school so that we can best support and help them during their education at Co-op Academy North Manchester.

Pupil Passports are created in collaboration with the child and reviewed with the parent or carer so that the cycle of Assess, Plan, Do, Review (APDR) that underpins the SEND Code of Practice can be implemented for every child with SEND. This document will provide staff with an overview of the outcomes the child is working towards as well as key information about their strengths, barriers and strategies to support them.

Children who are behind the expected levels in English and mathematics are not automatically designated as having Special Educational Needs but are provided with the teaching they need to make the progress required. It is only after a pupil persistently fails to make adequate progress and additional support is required that a pupil may be said to have SEN.

On-going Identification

A wide range of qualitative and quantitative data will be considered by the academy’s Inclusion Board when determining pupils who may have potential unidentified SEND. To support the identification of pupils’ SEND needs, a range of assessments may take place, both within the SEND team and with external professionals, to pinpoint the exact nature of the child’s needs and begin the APDR cycles as appropriate.

A Graduated Approach to SEN Identification and Support

Special educational provision is education or training provision that is additional to or different from that made generally for other children or young people of the same age by the academy. We recognise that there is a continuum of special educational needs which should be reflected in a continuum of provision and that good practice in special needs goes to the very core of excellent learning and teaching.

Teachers and additional adults are responsible and accountable for the progress and development of the pupils in their class, including where pupils access support from teaching assistants or specialist staff. At Co-op Academy North Manchester high quality first teaching, adapted for individual pupils, is the first step in responding to pupils who have or may have SEND.

Our Teaching and Learning framework makes sure teachers:

Present information in ways that reduce cognitive load.
Questions and instructions are visible
Glossaries and vocabulary is pre-taught
Reader pens, scribes and access arrangements are used as normal working practice
Reading is taught explicitly using the most appropriate strategy
Understanding is regularly checked throughout lessons

We develop our teachers and additional adults to understand the needs of every child they teach, and to systematically and thoroughly review the progress each child is making.

Our teachers and additional adults are trained to understand the needs of each child in their class so that they can plan to meet those needs appropriately. For children with identified SEND this can mean adapting their teaching to ensure rapid catch up or in some cases simply ensuring that the child can access the curriculum fully. Teachers and teaching assistants have been trained to use the ELKAN model to identify speech and language needs.

We prioritise this training and have designed specific sessions for every teacher and relevant additional adult including those on the ECTand ITT programme. Bespoke whole school training is mandatory for all staff regularly to ensure that teachers are able to meet the needs of the children in their classes. In addition, weekly briefings take place to share information and advice with staff and support the inclusion of individual pupils with SEND.

We use the graduated approach to both identify and support pupils on the SEND register. This requires initial use of classroom and school resources to support the areas that the pupil needs support in, for many pupils, differentiation in the classroom supports them to progress.

Assess, Plan, Do, Review

Teachers may conclude that the adaptive quality first teaching strategies they are currently using with a pupil in the classroom are not resulting in the pupil making progress in line with their peers. Alternatively, any member of staff in the academy may be concerned about a pupil who they feel may have additional needs regardless of whether they teach them or not. Where any member of academy staff has a concern about potential SEND, they will complete a brief Google form outlining the nature of their concerns and which of the four areas of need they relate to. This information will then be triaged by the SEND team and further assessment and information-gathering will take place before a decision is made on next steps for the pupil.

Where it has been determined that a pupil requires additional SEND support, they will be added to the SEND register. Support from the SEND team will supplement the support pupils with SEND get from their subject teachers, who will still retain overall responsibility for their progress. Support from the SEND team includes as a minimum for all pupils on the register:

● the allocation of a key worker from the SEND team, who will rigorously monitor the child’s attendance, progress and conduct and liaise with staff and parents or carers as a first point of contact regarding the child.

● the creation of a regularly reviewed Pupil Passport, created in collaboration with the child, parents or carers and advised by external professionals where necessary.

● termly holistic formal reviews, conducted by the key worker with the child and parent or carer with the aim of determining where the child is in relation to the outcomes they are working towards and to celebrate their successes.

Co-op Academy North Manchester is committed to:

● taking a proactive, systematic, collaborative and timely approach to identifying and meeting the needs of pupils with SEND.

● ensuring that all pupils have access to adaptive high quality teaching that meets their needs.

● complementing high quality teaching with a range of targeted intervention.

● using the graduated response to refine pupils’ provision, celebrate their successes and escalate the levels of provision by requesting an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) where necessary.

● working sensitively with all stakeholders to achieve a common goal.

● being creative, forward-thinking, child-centred and research-led in our approach to meeting the needs of all pupils.

● creating a highly inclusive academy culture where all pupils can thrive.

Ensuring the Best Outcomes for Pupils on the SEND Register

The APDR cycle takes place as required. For the majority of pupils on the SEND register, this will take the form of their termly review. Where a child is having significant difficulty accessing learning, their needs are complex or external agencies, professionals, services or provisions are involved, the review process may be replaced by a ‘Team Around the Child’ approach and adaptations to the child’s provision made more frequently to resolve the situation and get the child the support they need as quickly as possible.

Outcomes for the child to work towards are set for each pupil on the SEND register and shared with staff through the pupil’s Pupil Passport. In line with the Manchester Local Authority EHCP Section E template, outcomes may relate to:

● education and training

● preparation for employment

● health and wellbeing

● friends, community, life and leisure

● preparation for independent living

Outcomes are reviewed along with the rest of the Pupil Passport content in the termly review meeting.

Teachers retain overall responsibility for the progress of the pupils that they teach, regardless of input from the SEND team.

Should the pupil be making good progress and have met the outcomes on their Pupil Passport over an agreed period of time, the SENDCo may decide, in agreement with the pupil’s parents, to remove them from the SEND register. Where a pupil is removed from the register, they will be added to the ‘Ever SEND’ monitoring list.

Where the APDR process determines that a child requires more support than can be provided by existing academy resources, an Education, Health and Care Plan will be requested from the Local Authority to provide additional funding to ensure that the academy can meet the child’s needs. In some cases, it may be determined through the EHCP needs assessment process that the child’s needs are too complex for the academy to meet and they require a specialist educational provision. Where this is the case, the academy will support pupils and their families to identify the correct provision and request this from the Local Authority. The academy will also signpost families to independent support services, such as SENDIASS, where appropriate.

When determining the best course of action for pupils with SEND, consideration will also be given to other non-SEND factors such as:

● being a Looked After Child or Previously Looked After Child

● involvement from Child Services or Early Help

● being a recipient of Pupil Premium funding

● attendance and punctuality

● having English as an Additional Language

● contextual factors in the child’s life

Pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)

An EHCP is a document from the Local Authority that sets a range of outcomes for the child to work towards and a list of provisions that must be put in place in order for the child to achieve their outcomes. Before a child with an existing EHCP is admitted to the academy, the academy must be consulted to ensure that we can provide everything set out in the EHCP with the amount of additional funding that the EHCP provides.

Some of the provision specified may be procured by the child’s parent or the young person using a Personal Budget, including by a direct payment. Where a direct payment is to be used to deliver provision on the school premises, the Local Authority must seek the agreement of the academy for this arrangement through a formal written notice.

Local authorities have a duty to review EHCPs at least every twelve months, and the academy must cooperate in these reviews. Reviews must focus on the child or young person’s progress towards achieving the outcomes specified in the EHC plan and must also consider whether these outcomes and supporting targets remain appropriate.

Reviews of EHC plans must include a focus on preparing for adulthood and transition planning must be built into the plan. In particular, where a young person is nearing the end of their time in formal education and the plan is likely to be ceased within the next 12 months, the annual review should consider good exit planning.

The Local Authority can require a maintained school, non-maintained special school, academy, alternative provision academy, PRU school or independent school approved by the Secretary of State under Section 41 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to convene and hold the review meeting on their behalf. In most cases, reviews should normally be held at the educational institution attended by the child or young person.

Reviews are generally most effective when led by the educational institution. They know the child or young person best, will have the closest contact with them and their family and will have the clearest information about progress and next steps. Reviews led by the educational institution will engender the greatest confidence amongst the child, young person and their family

Supporting pupils and Families

At Co-op Academy North Manchester we believe that the best outcomes are achieved where the academy and its parents/carers work in partnership. To support this aim the academy will:

Promote mutual respect as the basis for communication between the academy and families. This should include sensitivity to family’s needs, desires and understanding and allow an open and honest relationship to develop.

Work closely with parents and carers to ensure they understand the special educational needs their child has including the implications of these needs, how the academy will support the child and what they can do to support the child at home.

Communicate regularly with parents and carers informing them of progress, any concerns which arise and any process requirements such as annual reviews and encourage families to be actively involved in relevant planning appropriate to their child’s needs

Ensure that all communication is in an accessible form.

Ensure parents and carers are aware of other support available for their child and additional sources of help and information, for example, voluntary organisations and childcare information services through Manchester’s Local Offer.

Provide opportunities for mediation and discussion where necessary.

Meet parent and carer preference for an academy place subject to the requirement that:

● the individual child’s special educational needs can be met

● the education of other young people will not be adversely affected

● that Local Authority resources are efficiently used.

Ensure that APDR processes seek and take account of the parent or carer and child’s views.

Value families as the prime educators of their children and recognise that families have valuable knowledge of their child, which service providers should encourage them to share.

Support parents and carers through transition periods e.g. primary to secondary and secondary to FE.

Supporting Pupils at School with Medical Conditions

At Co-op Academy North Manchester we recognise that pupils with medical conditions should be properly supported so that they have full access to education, including school trips and physical education. Some children with medical conditions may be disabled and have medical needs in addition to SEN and where this is the case the school will comply with its duties under the Equality Act (2010).

Please see the ‘Supporting Pupils with Medical Needs in the Academy’ Policy for further details.

Monitoring and Evaluation of SEND Provision

At Co-op Academy North Manchester SEND provision is reviewed on a regular basis through:

● Lesson observation

● Data and progress reviews through the APDR cycle

● Pupil, parent and staff voice activities

● Annual review meetings

● Parent Evenings

● Quality assurance of interventions and external provision

● Line management meetings and reporting to governors

● Monitoring by external reviewers/consultants

● Monitoring of attendance/behaviour/assessment data

Training and Resources

SEND provision is funded through the notional SEND budget initially and any additional funding attached to the child is planned for in liaison with the child’s parents or carers.

Staff training needs are identified through rigorous monitoring and evaluation of SEND provision and performance management of all staff with a teaching and learning or pastoral role.Where a training need is identified that impacts on meeting the needs of a pupil with SEND, this will be addressed swiftly so that all staff are equipped to confidently meet pupils’ needs. Staff are encouraged to take a proactive role in developing their wider knowledge of SEND as well as attending pupil-centred inclusion briefings.

All teachers and associate staff undertake induction on taking up a post at Co-op Academy North Manchester and this includes a meeting with the SENDCo to explain the systems and structures in place around the school’s SEND provision and practice and to discuss the needs of individual pupils where relevant.

The academy’s SENDCo regularly attends both Trust and Local Authority network meetings in order to keep up to date with local and national updates in SEND and is a member of Nasen.

Roles and Responsibilities

Principal

The Principal is responsible to the Governors for formulation of a whole school policy regarding SEND, ensuring that Manchester’s SEND Policy is complied with, keeping governors informed of SEND issues, negotiating with the LA regarding SEND issues and ensuring that the academy is fulfilling its responsibilities as defined by the Code of Practice.

Vice Principal (Personal Development and Inclusion):

Leads on inclusion and line manages the SENDCo.

SENDCo:

The SENDCo has overall responsibility for aspects of the SEND policy.

Assistant SENDCo:

The Assistant SENDCo supports the work of and deputises for the SENDCo.

Deputy Assistant SENDCo

Provides further capacity within the SEND team.
Works closely with pupils in KS3.

SEND Teaching Assistants:

Higher Level Teaching Assistants, Level 3 Teaching Assistants and Emotional Literacy Support Assistants each take on the role of key worker for a specific cohort of pupils with SEND.

SEND Link Governor: (Needs adding!)

Ensures high quality SEND provision at the academy through challenge and support.

Complaints

The academy responds to all complaints in line with our general complaints procedure.

If parents or carers of a pupil with SEND have a concern or complaint, the Principal will (assuming the complaint is not about the SENDCo) ask for the SENDCo to respond to the matter in line with the academy’s complaints policy.

If the complaint is regarding the SENDCo, the Principal may pass this to the Vice Principal to investigate.

If the complaint cannot be resolved informally, then the Principal will go through a formal process, as outlined in the Complaints Policy.

Linked Policies

The Special Educational Needs and Disability Policy is part of the Academy’s Inclusion Policy and should be viewed in conjunction with other Academy policies, in particular the policies for Teaching and Learning and Behaviour for Learning .

The Academy’s SEND Information Report also contains further details of SEND provision.

Compliance

This policy complies with the statutory requirement laid out in the SEND Code of Practice 0 – 25 (2015) and has been written with reference to the following guidance and documents:

● Equality Act 2010: advice for schools DfE

● SEND Code of Practice 0 – 25

● Schools SEND Information Report Regulations

● Statutory Guidance on Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions April

● The National Curriculum in England

● Safeguarding Policy

● Accessibility Plan

● Teachers’ Standards