At Ipsley CE RSA Academy, we believe every pupil has a right to an excellent education which enables them to achieve their full potential and go on to live happy, successful and meaningful lives.

For some pupils, this may mean receiving support from our special educational needs and disabilities team. At Ipsley CE RSA Academy, we celebrate the wonderful diversity amongst our pupils and welcome young people with a range of additional needs to join our school community. Our teachers are committed to reducing any barriers to learning, maximising the creative potential of our pupils and supporting our young people to make excellent progress. By working closely with our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo) and SEN team, all members of our school are committed to enabling all pupils to participate and prosper in our learning community.

These are challenging times, but everyone at Ipsley remains committed to our mission to support all pupils in achieving their pull potential so that they can go on to live happy, successful and meaningful lives. Though coronavirus has changed some of the ways we work, we will still provide support to all of the children who we identify as having special educational needs in order to support them making fantastic progress while they are with
us.

Where pupils are being supported in lessons by Achievement Assistants, members of staff will keep 1m+ distance from pupils and in some circumstances wear a visor in order to ensure that they are still able to provide powerful support to all of our pupils. We will run a range of intervention groups with pupils from individual bubbles. The waiting lists for these interventions may be slightly longer than usual as we are not able to mix pupils from different bubbles in our interventions, but we are aiming to provide short bursts of interventions for a greater range of pupils
than usual in order to ensure that all have access to fantastic interventions which support their progress in the classroom.

Finally, we recognise that lockdown may have made lots of families in Team Ipsley feel a little more worried about their child’s progress. We believe that once pupils have settled back into school and worked with our teachers, they will recover their lost learning and continue on their successful journey with us at Ipsley. For some pupils, they may need a little extra help along the way, but we need to give pupils time to readjust to school before we put in too much support. It’s really important we allow our pupils to develop independence and confidence back in school, and
then the SEN team will step in when the time is right for those pupils in need of further support.

All teachers are trained to work with pupils with a range of special educational needs and disabilities, and pupils will learn alongside their peers in the mainstream classroom.  Our SEN team are as follows:

Mr Williams – Assistant Principal – SENCo
Mrs Edwards – Assistant SENCo

We also have a number of Achievement Assistants, who support pupils across the academy:

Mr Duffin
Miss Green
Miss Holloway
Mrs Mason
Miss Morris
Mrs Philpott

The SEN team also liaises with a number of specialist services, including SENDSupported (for learning, mental health and autism specialists), NHS speech and language therapy services, Chadsgrove physical difficulty team and the hearing/visual impairment teams where appropriate.

If your child is in KS2, please contact your child’s class teacher. They are the person working with your child every day!

If your child is in KS3, please contact your child’s Head of Year who will be able to discuss and arrange meetings with the appropriate members of staff.

You will have opportunities across the year to come into school and meet with your child’s teacher(s). These are excellent opportunities to discuss support and provision for your child, and the SEN team are always available on these evenings to discuss any questions you may have. We welcome parents to get in touch with school if they would like to arrange any additional meetings. The more dialogue we share with home, the more we can make sure we are getting support and provision right for your child.

If you would like to arrange a discussion with the SEN team specifically, please contact the school office on 01527 525725 Mrs Edwards or one of the SEN team will get in touch with you.

We use a range of research and evidence to inform the ways that we deploy Achievement Assistants to support pupils with SEN. Research indicates that Achievement Assistants have the greatest impact on progress when supporting pupils through intervention groups outside the classroom. We use this model to ensure that all pupils with SEN are given every opportunity to make excellent progress.

Early identification of SEN is key to supporting our pupils at Ipsley CE RSA Academy. All teachers participate in the process of identifying pupils with SEN, and can raise any concerns they may have with the SENCo.

There are four main areas of need. These are:
– Cognition and learning
– Communication and interaction
– Social, emotional and mental health
– Sensory and/or physical

When a pupil is identified as potentially having an additional need, the SENCo will investigate and liaise with the family to discuss the process. This may include using a range of diagnostic assessments, observation and conversations with young people and their families.  Once a pupil has been identified as having a special educational need, the SENCo designs a programme of provision to support them in reducing barriers to learning. In some cases, this may also lead to entering a pathway of diagnosis (for example, the Umbrella Pathway for autism).

If a pupil has a cognition and learning need, we monitor their progress very closely and ensure that they are receiving the best possible teaching in the classroom. For some pupils, it may be appropriate to introduce some additional intervention programmes. This could include the Fresh Start phonics programme or small-group English and Maths interventions. For a small number of pupils, additional diagnostic assessments may be carried out to identify specific areas of difficulty which can then be targeted more closely by our specialist SEN team.

Communication and interaction needs include the ways that pupils share their thoughts and feelings and their ability to interact with others. These pupils have opportunities to develop these skills in their lessons, and we track their progress closely to make sure that these barriers do not stop pupils from achieving. For some pupils, it may be appropriate to introduce some additional intervention programmes. This could include a small-group social stories session or the Talkabout programme. For a small number of pupils, it may be necessary to make a referral for additional support from a speech and language therapist.

We believe the most important thing for pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs is to create a sense of belonging in our school community. Our teachers and Achievement Assistants develop fantastic relationships with pupils, and make sure they plan their lessons to give provide these pupils with opportunities to develop their social and emotional awareness. We talk explicitly about mental health, and encourage all pupils to look after their mental health just as much as they do their physical health. For some pupils, it may be appropriate to introduce some additional intervention programmes. This could include the Talkabout programme for developing social skills and self-esteem or a mentoring programme. For a small number of pupils, it may also be appropriate to make a referral to an outside agency such as the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) or involve our social, emotional and mental health specialist. We also have a team of fifteen youth mental health first aiders who can support pupils in times of difficulty.

Our school site is accessible, with automatic doors, a lift and a range of specialist equipment to support pupils with physical difficulties. We also have a school nurse, and liaise closely with the Chadsgrove outreach service for specialist support in relation to physical needs. Several of our staff have also received specialist training in physiotherapy and personal care. Pupils are fully involved in all lessons, and reasonable adjustments are made in subjects where pupils can sometimes struggle, such as PE.   We are committed to developing our inclusion for pupils with physical and/or sensory needs, and explain our intentions in our accessibility plan which is overseen by our SENCo and senior leadership team.

We support a range of pupils who have a diagnosis of autism. Autistic spectrum conditions can affect pupils in many different ways. Some require very little or no additional support in order to make good progress in school. Other pupils, however, may require support from our SEN team and specialist agencies. Our SENCo is a Lead Practitioner for Autism, and has a range of training on how to support pupils with autism across the curriculum. For some pupils, more specialist input may be required from our autism specialist team.

This could be in the form of meetings with the young person, meetings with the family, additional training for teachers or ongoing monitoring of progress and welfare.  We always work with young people with autism to best support them with each of the four areas of difference (interaction, processing information, sensory processing and communication). For example, this could involve making changes to the learning environment, attending sessions with our autism lead practitioner, or following a social skills development programme. Parents will be involved at every stage of the provision.

An education, health and care plan (EHCP) is a legal document which details a pupil’s special educational needs and the provision to which they are entitled. For pupils with an EHCP, we conduct an annual review of progress in addition to other opportunities for parents and carers to come in to discuss their child’s progress. We commit to fulfilling the legal provisions identified within EHCPs, and working with young people and their families to ensure their children have the best possible experience of education at Ipsley.  If you would like to apply for an education, health and care plan for your child, please get in touch with the SENCo (Mr Williams).

When joining our academy in year 5, we will visit pupils in their first schools in order to familiarise them with key workers and to ensure that we have spoken with their teachers about how best to meet their additional needs. Pupils will be invited to attend a number of additional transition days to familiarise themselves with the school site in a way that they feel comfortable. For pupils where more bespoke planning is required, please get in touch with our Year 5 Standards Leader (Miss Davies) to make additional arrangements.

When leaving our academy at the end of year 8, we facilitate a number of visits to Arrow Vale RSA Academy and other local high schools across the academic year in order to familiarise pupils with key workers and the new environment in a way that they feel most comfortable. For some pupils, additional transition activities may be arranged on a personalised basis.

A provision map is used to monitor a range of data including: teacher assessments, standardised assessment data, intervention assessment data, intervention tracking, and relevant prior data.  The senior leadership team undertake regular reviews of learning across the academy for pupils with SEN, including monitoring teaching and learning, challenge, differentiation, use of SEN-specific strategies, deployment of Achievement Assistants and quality of written work.  A key aspect in judging the effectiveness of our provision is through strengthening the link between school and home: through regular meetings between home and school, there is an ongoing dialogue around the progress and welfare of all young people with special educational needs.

The academy’s admission arrangements operate in line with Worcestershire County Council’s procedures. Further details of this can be found in the academy’s admissions policy.

If your child has an education, health and care plan, the SENCo will liaise with Worcestershire Local Authority to ensure a smooth transition.

You can find out more about the local offer in Worcestershire at the following website:  http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/thelocaloffer

Initially, please discuss any questions with your child’s class teacher, Standards Leader (KS2) or Head of Year (KS3). If you would like to discuss any issues further, you are welcome to contact Mrs Edwards if you have any concerns. Our school telephone number is 01527 525725.