Special Educational Needs & Disabilities - SEND 

'Special Educational Needs' is a term for children experiencing significantly greater difficulty than their peers. Children with a disability may also have special educational needs but for others, cognition and learning are unimpaired. We will make reasonable adjustments in provision for children with SEND. 

Most adjustment and additional support is around the key skills of literacy and numeracy as these impact on children's learning and achievement in all subjects. 

Support can also be put in place for difficulties such as: 

• Speech, language and communication difficulties which include autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), behavioural, emotional and social difficulties or attention deficit (ADD/ADHD); 

• Physical or sensory impairment (mobility, motor control, visual or hearing).

SEND Provision - Kingsmead Primary School

INTENT - What do we we want for our children with additional needs?

At Kingsmead Primary School, we believe that all children are entitled to receive a high quality and ambitious education regardless of their needs or disabilities.  It is vital that our pupils are equipped with the tools needed to become independent, inquisitive learners both in and outside of the classroom. 

Through our quality first teaching and our assess, plan, do and review procedures, we aim to:

• Provide access to a broad and balanced curriculum for all learners;

• Ensure that needs are identified as early as possible and support is put into place;

• Minimise barriers to participation in school life and access to the curriculum;

• Develop children’s independence and life skills;

• Build positive partnerships between school, families, external agencies and other professionals to ensure there is a collaborative approach to support children with SEND;

• Regularly monitor the progress of children with SEND and review outcomes;

• Provide good quality and relevant staff training;

IMPACT - What will children experience? Who will they become?

As a result of the provision pupils receive at Kingsmead Primary School, children will:

• Feel happy, safe, secure and nurtured within school;

• Have positive relationships with staff and other pupils based on mutual respect;

• Have the same opportunities and experiences as their peers, regardless of their starting point;

• Demonstrate high levels of engagement in all aspect of school life;

• Make progress from their starting points;

• Develop independence and skills to support them throughout life;

• Benefit from the advice and guidance from external agencies as it is utilised effectively and support for the pupil is adapted accordingly;

• Have staff that feel knowledgeable and informed about their needs and how best to support them;

• Transition smoothly and feel happy and safe when moving between year groups and key stages.

SEND funding

We are a Cheshire West and Chester community school

Element 1 funding is provided by central government via our local authority for all children enrolled in school. It is used to enable us to provide intervention and support for some and so help all our children keep up in class.

Element 2 funding is provided where a child's needs have been assessed as significant; this is funded through the school’s delegated SEN budget. 

Element 3 funding is for that very small minority of pupils whose needs cannot be met through the school’s delegated budget and top-up funding or an Education Health and Care Plan [EHCP] from the Local Authority is needed.

Universal support—Received by all children including reasonable adjustments by class teachers for different children through skilled adaptive teaching, targeted marking and feedback.

Targeted support—Usually group interventions, often for a limited time, where children catch or keep up with learning they have difficulty with. Groups are taught by teachers and teaching assistants. Not all will be identified as having a special need or disability. 

Individual support—These children have much greater difficulty learning than their peers. They will have an individual plan and more intensive support to narrow or reduce the learning gap. Some will have cognitive difficulties or impairment, others specific difficulties presenting a barrier that can be overcome or ameliorated, enabling them to make more rapid progress and catch up. Some will be able to catch up quickly and move to targeted or universal support. Others require reasonable adjustments throughout their time in school. We avoid words like ’ability’: we don’t administer intelligence tests in school and children with SEND can sometimes be of average or high intelligence. We use factual terms such as ’low attaining.’ All documentation is stored securely and is confidential to parents and staff working with the child.  

Live Well Cheshire West (new place for Local Offer)

Useful Terms and Abbreviations

For children with additional needs, some will require intervention and additional support within the class to access the  curriculum for all learners. Others with more specific or significant need may benefit from some targeted teaching outside of the universal curriculum. This is balanced with the entitlement for all children to a broad and rich curriculum. We aim for children to be learning in class with their peers as much as possible.