SEND Information Report

SEND Information Report

Although our main focus as a school is to meet all of our pupils, learning, social, emotional and mental health needs, we also aim to identify and meet any additional special educational needs and disabilities they may have, and to provide the appropriate strategies, support and resources for these as well.

Prior to transition to the school, we try to find out as much as we can about every child or young person. We aim to ensure that all of the following has taken place before they join us full time.

·         A visit to the school by the child or young person, their parents/carers (perhaps supported by a member of the SEND Information and Support Service (SENDIASS) – so that everyone has the chance to have a look around the school and ask any further questions.

·         Where possible a visit by our staff to see the child or young person in their current educational setting/provision – so that we have the opportunity to meet with them again, and find out more from the other professionals who have been working with them.

·         A pre-admission meeting with our head teacher or assistant head teacher, attended by the child or young person, parents/carers. During this meeting a placement plan is created to build up a detailed profile of each pupil’s background and needs. The plan also identifies situations that may cause their behaviour to escalate, how staff can help to avoid this or help them calm down and de-escalate challenging behaviour. The child or young person is encouraged to join their potential class group for a short period of time to be introduced and become familiar with the learning environment and their new peer group.

·         Brompton Hall will contact  educational provision and other agencies and support services that are, or have been, involved in working with the child or young person to request all of the relevant details of involvement and documentation.

When children and young people start at the school we spend a lot of time trying to get to know them really well and trying to build up their trust in us. Over the first few weeks and months we will ensure that they have plenty of opportunity to have one to one discussions with key staff, including their key worker and class tutor.

With the help of other professionals, we build up a detailed profile of each pupil’s needs including aspects such as literacy and numeracy, specific learning difficulties, communication and interaction and sensory processing.  We will use this profile and work with the child or young person to develop an Individual Action Plan that indicates all of these needs, highlights their strengths, any barriers to learning they experience and strategies that work well for them. The plan identifies their learning, communication and interaction, social, emotional and behavioural targets based on the needs and outcomes set out in their Education, Health and Care Plan. This document also includes information on any additional needs or strategies that should be used by staff to support the child or young person and any additional and different provision or interventions we have in place to meet their needs.

There are also opportunities for discussions on a one to one basis in pupil-keyworker meetings. These ‘one to one’ sessions provide the opportunity for your child to discuss aspects of their provision, or any personal concerns they may have, within a safe secure environment.

Every half term an independent advocate from North Yorkshire visits the school and all pupils are offered the opportunity to speak to the advocate independently.

Our school nurse holds regular ‘drop in’ Health clinics, which pupils are encouraged to attend should they wish to talk through any issues or concerns they may have.

Mental health and well-being support is available for individual pupils with our well being support worker or specialist counsellor.

Regular unit forums are held in each residential unit providing the opportunity for individuals to raise issues for discussion, which may then be discussed as part of the school council meetings.

Individually, pupils complete the PASS survey and the Growing Up in North Yorkshire survey to give their views on a range of issues as well as pupils being given plenty of opportunities during lessons to give their feedback and feed into the ongoing evaluation cycle.

At least once a year we hold an annual review of their Education, Health and Care Plan. Before this review meeting your child will meet up with their tutor/keyworker to discuss their thoughts and opinions about their current situation and provision as well as their hopes and plans for the future. We also encourage them to attend part of their annual review meeting so that they have the opportunity to have their say. All of this is done in a very positive way that focuses on what is going well and how we can work together to plan for further improvements.

We will also invite you, and your child, to take part in meetings to review their Education, Health and Care Plan. Your knowledge and understanding of your child’s needs is essential to support the school in making the best provision for them. This should also take account of your child’s hopes. personal goals and interests. You will also be asked to complete the school’s parent/carer survey to share your views and give feedback to the school.

If you would find it useful, we will use a home/school book to support links between home and school in a week/weekend communication diary. All ‘Looked After Children’ have a home/school log book to promote communication between home and school, as part our carer engagement package.

 Subject teachers refer to the each pupil’s IAP targets when planning lessons and indicate on the trackers progress pupils have made towards achieving their IAP targets in specific lessons. IAP’s are reviewed regularly between tutors, keyworkers and the pupil and formal reviews are done on a termly basis involving all subject staff.

All of the above will be shared with you at EHCP review meetings, you will then receive a termly update detailing your child’s progress as well as informally as part of our on-going communication with you. You will also receive a twice yearly report detailing the aspects of the curriculum your child has been studying in each subject area as well as a tutor and keyworker report reflecting progress and attainment in all areas of their learning and development.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of your child’s progress towards their agreed outcomes, please contact the school via your keyworker, class tutor or the SENCo.

The tutor/keyworker collects the views of the child or young person and encourages their attendance at the review, or at least for part of it. We also ask our specialist careers advisor to work closely with the young person and their family to plan their next steps. This may involve making arrangements to attend college open days and taster sessions, completing applications for college and applying for apprenticeships, sharing information with the learning support teams at colleges and supporting transport arrangements.

Keyworkers, tutors and the SENCo would always be available to support the young person in transition meetings or in preparing for the world of work.

Our class sizes are small and are almost always supported by at least one additional adult. This enables us to ensure in our planning and delivery of each lesson, that tasks are highly differentiated in order to meet every child’s individual need.

We offer a range of interventions that can be delivered on a one to one basis or as part of paired or smaller group work. These include interventions for literacy and numeracy, as well as therapeutic interventions to support social, emotional or behavioural needs. Often these interventions take place during the school day but sometimes, with the agreement of the pupil, we might arrange for these to happen at the end of the normal school day.

The details of any specialist intervention being delivered to your child will be recorded on the IAP and will be discussed with you through IAP updates and EHCP review meetings.

Classroom environments and resources aim to respond to a wide range of special educational needs, for example, using visual timetables, coloured overlays, privacy boards, ear defenders and a range of sensory regulation resources.

We prefer to have specialist resources readily accessible to all learners, rather than allocating specific resources to particular pupils. If we feel that it is really important that your child needs a particular adaptation to the curriculum, or access to a specific resources, we will identify this in their IAP so that you, they and all our staff are aware of this.

We have an annual cycle of staff training and development, throughout the academic year which is carefully tailored to ensure that all of our staff are highly trained in meeting the needs of all of our pupils.

We have dedicated time, every Friday afternoon for staff development, mentoring and enabling professionals within both the teaching and the care teams to meet.

The Senior Leadership team all contribute to local and national networks and groups. As members of the Scarborough Teaching Alliance all staff are also encouraged to attend the schedules events throughout the academic year and share good practice with colleagues in local schools. All staff contribute to staff training workshops by cascading back to the rest of the team after attending training events.

We ensure that we have regular training updates in aspects such as safeguarding, child protection and in the use of restrictive physical intervention.

The after-school Summer (April-October) and Winter (October-April) activity grids provide details of the broad range of activities offered by each unit each evening.

We place a high priority on ensuring that the pupils have a voice not only in planning their own provision package, but also proposing and being involved in deciding on some of the activities on offer through regular unit forums and school council meetings. We are also keen that they have the opportunities that enable them to meet with pupils from other schools, often this is through sporting events and regional opportunities (e.g. Engineering Week, Open Days, etc).

All pupils are allocated with a keyworker, who provides one-to-one support for the pupil and their family. Pupils are encouraged to raise issues or request support from any member of staff they feel most comfortable with.

Social and emotional aspects of learning feature as a routine aspect of our lesson planning and we use restorative approaches to repair fall-outs between individuals or to address issues such as bullying.

Staff regularly attend planning and review meetings called by other agencies, to ensure that progress updates and relevant information is shared and that education maintains a high priority in any young person’s package of provision.

Through our involvement in the Scarborough Teaching Alliance and various other networks, eg SENCo Network, Secondary Headteachers Network, we are working hard to establish and maintain links with mainstream, enhanced mainstream and the pupil referral service.