SEN - Special Educational Needs
What are Special Educational Needs?
A child has Special Eductional Needs if they have learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made.
A child of compulsory school age has a learning difficulty or disability if they have significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age or has a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools.
Special educational needs (SEN) that affect a child’s ability to learn can include their:
- behaviour or ability to socialise, eg not being able to make friends
- reading and writing, eg they have dyslexia
- ability to understand things
- concentration levels, eg they have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- physical needs or impairments
Who do I talk to if my child has Special Educational Needs?
If you think your child may have Special Educational Needs, speak to Mrs. Fazackerley, the person responsible for special educational needs at Beech Street. Mrs. Fazackerley may be referred to as the ‘SEN coordinator’, or ‘SENCO’. Contact the local council or your doctor if your child isn't in a school or nursery.
If your child has special educational needs, you may welcome support from someone who is not directly involved with your child’s education but can offer understanding and impartial advice.
Salford Information and Advice Support services (SIASS) aims to help parents and carers to take an active role in the education of their children with special needs.
What are the types of support?
If your child has Special Educational Needs, they may be given some extra support in school.
If we see a child not making adequate progress they will be placed on our SEN Register. At this stage parents are invited to come into school and discuss with the class teacher and SENCO the intervention procedures the school intends to put in place to help the child to make adequate progress. These may include:
-different learning materials or special equipment;
-some group or individual support;
-extra adult time to help the child to access the planned intervention and to monitor its effectiveness;
-access to Local Authority support services for one-off or occasional advice on strategies or equipment.
These interventions are additional to those provided as part of the school’s usual differentiated curriculum. Strategies employed to enable the child to progress will be recorded within an Individual Education Plan (IEP).
Sometimes, we may request additional guidance or support from external agencies. External support services can advise teachers on new specialist strategies and learning materials, provide more specialist assessment, and sometimes provide some extra support.
When school seeks the support of external support services, these services will need to see the child’s records in order to establish which strategies have already been tried and which targets have been set and achieved. We always ask parents / carers before this happens.
If your child has more complex needs they may have a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) - a plan of care for children and young people aged up to 25 who have more complex needs.
Resources
All pupils with SEN will have access to specialist resources when necessary. This includes Teaching Assistant time and specialist materials.
Further information, about supporting children with Special Educational Needs in Salford, can be found by clicking the link below.
