How does the school identify and assess Special Educational Needs (SEND)?

At St Barnabas, we use Assess, Plan, Do, Review – the Graduated Approach to identify SEND.  The class teacher will use high quality teaching strategies and make adjustments for pupils according to their needs. We will assess pupils’ strengths as well as the areas they find difficult and create a learning plan which may incorporate additional interventions.  Learning will be closely monitored and any additional support will be discussed with the pupil and parents. The SENCO will be consulted in order to provide additional support, advice or to refer to specialist agencies.

Where it is determined that a child does have SEND, parents will be notified of the formal identification and invited to regular meetings to discuss their child’s progress. 

In school we use a variety of different ways to assess whether a child or young person has SEN. Some of these ways include:

What is SEND? 

A child has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them.  A child of compulsory school age has a learning difficulty or disability if they:

have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of other of the same age; or

has a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstreams schools.  (SEND Code of Practice, 2014).

If a pupil is identified as having additional needs, we will provide provision that is 'additonal to' or 'different from' the usual differentiated curriculum in order to overcome the barrier to their learning.

We use an ongoing assessment cycle with four parts, Assess, Plan, Do, Review to assess and monitor individual pupils' progress and outcomes.  Parents are included in this cycle and we value their input and incorporate information that is shared by them into the teaching and learning cycle.