2. How will school staff support my child?

‘High quality teaching, differentiated for individual pupils is the first step in responding to pupils who have or may have SEN’ (Code of Practice 6.37)

Quality first teaching, differentiated to match the teaching and learning needs of our pupils is a fundamental principle of our daily practice at Margaret Wix. The Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and subject leaders, in line with the school’s monitoring and evaluation schedule, carefully monitor the quality of teaching and learning. In addition, school staff support children through a variety of additional ways including:

• Differentiation of high quality, first teaching and learning.
• Small group targeted precision teaching by class teachers, Teaching Assistants (TAs) or SENCO.
• External agencies working directly with children or with school staff to support them working with that child.
• Assess, Plan, Do, Review (APDR) plans, written in partnership with the child, parents, class teacher and SENCO.
• Pastoral Support Plans (PSPs) written in partnership with parents, class teacher and SENCO.
• Individual Risk Reductions Plans (IRRP) written by SENCO.

• One to one support through Exceptional Needs Funding.

If a pupil has been identified as making less than expected progress the first response is high quality teaching targeted at their areas of weakness. If progress continues to be less than expected, it may be necessary for the teacher to organise additional support or precise targeted teaching. Different teaching resources may be used. This support could be extra group or individual support led by a trained adult. This will usually take place within the classroom as part of the lesson to maximize the impact. Targeted teaching can range from a short daily session to longer, less frequent sessions depending on the need of each pupil.

It is the class teacher’s responsibility to provide for pupils with SEND in his/her class and to follow the school’s procedures for identifying, assessing and making provision to meet those needs. Where the targeted teaching involves teaching away from the main class by a TA or another teacher, the class teacher still retains responsibility for the pupil and works closely with support staff to plan and assess the impact of the teaching and how they can be linked back to classroom teaching. The SENCO and SLT will monitor the impact of precise targeted teaching groups and the progress of all SEND pupils. In addition, the SENCO provides in school assessment of pupils, advice and links with outside agencies. There is a school governor for SEND who oversees the school’s work with SEND and ensures the quality of provision is regularly monitored.

Some pupils may require the support of external agencies, individual support plans (ISPs), PSPs or APDRs which focus on both small achievable targets for the pupil to work on as well as their longer-term goals. The SENCO will complete referrals to external agencies in consultation with parents as needed, and arrange meetings with parents, class teachers and external professionals. All plans are reviewed regularly at an agreed time interval e.g. fortnightly, half-termly or termly. In the case of reports from outside professionals, the SENCO will create summaries for school staff to ensure to key recommendation, strategies and advice can be implemented as quickly as possible.

A record of all communication and external agency involvement is recorded on CPOMS (please see additional glossary for definition.)