We will be guided by the following sections of the SEND Policy:
4.1 The Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (0-25 years) 2014 states that:
“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 has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she:
- has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others the same age: or
- has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or post 16 institutions.A child under compulsory school age has SEND if he or she is likely to fall within the definition above when they reach compulsory school age or would do so if special educational provision was not made for them.
Many children and young people who have SEND may have a disability under the Equality Act 2010- that is “…a physical or mental impairment which has a long term and substantial adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activities”.
This definition includes children and young people with long term medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes epilepsy and cancer. Children and young people with such conditions do not necessarily have SEN but where a child requires special educational provision over and above the adjustments, aids and services required by the Equality Act 2010, they will additionally be covered by the SEND definition.
The names of children with special needs are kept on the SEND List, updated and monitored at least once every term, when the SENCO updates the list with the support of all staff.
At Haydn, we only add children to the SEND List if they have a diagnosis of an additional need: dyslexia, ASD, Visual Impairment or if their achievement is still significantly below expected levels despite having accessed appropriate interventions for at least a year.
We strive to keep the SEN List fluid, with children ideally not staying on the list for long, unless they have very specific and significant additional needs.
EAL children who are not achieving at expected levels are not added to the SEN List until they have been in school and exposed to English for more than two years.
All interventions and provision maps are assessed and scrutinised at least termly by all staff. Children should ideally not be exposed to the same intervention for more than approx 12 weeks (ie one term) unless there are very good reasons for such a decision.
4.2 Many of the children who join our school have already attended an early education setting. In many cases children join us with their needs already assessed.
All our children are assessed when they join our school, so that we can build upon their prior learning. We use this information to provide starting points for the development of an appropriate curriculum for all our children, Quality First teaching always being our key aim for every child to be exposed to throughout their time at Haydn.