Schools Extended Local Offer Response

How does the setting/school/college know if children/young people need extra help and what should I do if I think my child/young person may have special educational needs?

• A pupil and family wellbeing worker
• Experienced Special Educational Needs staff
• An increasingly accessible site
• Disabled toilet
• First aid room
• Strong links with external services
• Specialist staff to support particular needs
• High commitment to staff training

How will early years setting/school/college staff support my child/young person?

• An emphasis on whole school communication between staff
• Training on team teach
• Regular child protection and safeguarding updates for all staff
• Speech and language specialist training
• PIVATs training
• Speaking and listening
• Motor skills/physical development

How will the curriculum be matched to my child's/young person's needs?

• We have a strong history of working with parents and use local expertise such as educational psychologists and LA specialist extensively.
• Our pupil-wellbeing co-ordinator and Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator put a high priority on knowing our families well.
• We have regular parents’ evenings and all our staff are always happy to meet both formally and informally to boost any child’s education.
• We formally assess children three times per year and analyse this data carefully.
• On entry assessments into school in the Foundation classes give us some extra information about particular needs.

How will both you and I know how my child/young person is doing and how will you help me to support my child's/young person's learning?

Contact school and initially talk with the classteacher.

From that meeting we may well include our special educational needs team or external experts as appropriate.

What support will there be for my child's/young person's overall well being?

That depends almost entirely on the nature of their need.

We range from very light touch support – such as a child having a designated person that they have access to talk with to full time one to one support for medical or learning needs.

There is no one model that fits all children and while we will provide whatever need is most appropriate we also try to develop independence in all our children.

What specialist services and expertise are avaliable at or accessed by the setting/school/college?

Once again there is no one single answer to this.

We may go from coloured overlays that can help children with dyslexic tendencies to access their own work to small group or one to one support. The nature of need drives each individual programme.

We are very keen to ‘personalise’ our curriculum for our children and this can go right down to individual level.

You may well play a part in this too by helping with homework, reading and practising maths skills regularly.

What training have the staff supporting children and young people with SEND had? Are any being trained currently?

This can range from how we share the timetable or displays in class to individualised work to extensive support from an adult.

All our teachers are encouraged to be forward thinking and to try out exciting and innovative ways to teach and give all children access to an extensive and personalised curriculum.

How will my child/young person be included in activities outside this classroom including school trips?

We constantly assess all children.

This is not always in the form of formal tests, but can be verbally through one to one work, against standards and targets set for a particular lesson, day, week or longer.

Talking with children about their work and life in school gives us fabulous information about how they are doing.

They will also take tests at appropriate levels for them.

Your child may have a 'One Page Profile' or an IEP which has specific targets for them which we will review at a meeting with you, and possibly them.

We will report to you regularly and produce at least one written report, as well as the two parents’ evenings each year.

How accessible is the setting/school/college enviroment?

We will constantly work with you to suggest ways to support your child in school.

We can give you lots of tips and help if you feel unsure about anything – but you have a big responsibility here too.

Being interested and involved in your child’s learning and in school life is the biggest first step towards this.

How will the setting/school/college prepare and support my child/young person to join the setting/school/college or the next stage of education and life?

Our pupil wellbeing co-ordinator and family welfare officer are passionate about supporting individual children, groups that may being having difficulties getting along and helping parents who may being having a tough time.

We are very much aware that we can’t just see the child we have to think of the whole family and help to support and enable them to make steps to change situations for the emotional health of the child.

We have developed and extended our wellbeing and nurturing area of school to be a distinct and welcoming area.

We also have whole school assemblies twice per week with themes that extend their understanding of how to be happy and succeed in our school.

We celebrate, along with parents, children’s achievements at assembly every Friday. Star of the week is given out for every class and platinum awards are given for going 'above and beyond', exceptional work or acts of kindness.

Our nurturing group meet every day with experienced and very committed support staff and children are welcomed into this as and when they need it. Some children also receive a more bespoke nurturing session too.  

How are the setting's/school's/college's resources allocated and matched to children's/young people's special educational needs?

We have a whole range of class trips to extend our curriculum beyond what we can offer within school.

This can range from very local trips using our school minibus to our residential trips for outdoor activities.

All classes arrange trips around particular areas of their curriculum, and we also welcome many visitors into school to supplement what we do.

Our Parents’ and Teachers association raise money that often goes to subsidise the cost of trips, and we try to keep costs as low as possible but we may ask for contributions to ensure that the trip can go ahead.

No child is prevented from going on a trip through non-payment, but the trip may not be possible without contributions from parents and carers.

School runs a huge range of extra-curricular clubs for both infants and juniors, these include a whole range of sporting clubs, music activities, art, baking and many others.

The majority of these clubs are run voluntarily by members of staff, but some are run by external providers and do require a payment.

If your child is passionate about a club, but can’t attend for financial reasons please come and talk with us.  

How is the decision made about what type and how much support my child/young person will receive?

The vast majority of our pupils attend one of the two local high schools in Darwen, though every year several travel further afield. We have very good links with all the high schools that we ‘feed’ and arrange extra visits, attendance at high school by school staff, counselling and just about anything that will make the move from primary to secondary more smooth and supportive for our pupils.

To help with children transferring into school from nursery we have an initial meeting which all parents are invited to and open library and lunchtime  sessions before a morning taster session in July. Parents are strongly encouraged to play a full part in this process and share as much information as possible with school.

How are parents involved in the setting/school/college? How can I be involved?

Sometimes specialist equipment is needed to support a child’s learning and we are happy to source and provide this through liaison with specialist teams. We then train our staff up in the usage of this equipment. At other times support is provided through additional personnel and we have a very strong record of employing high quality staff to support children through their time of need. These resources often have most effect when used between a number of children and this may be how they are deployed.