SENCO and SEN Staff
Our SENCO is Mrs Jacqueline Crozier
At Falla Park there are a number of people who are responsible for special educational needs in school:
The Head Teacher is responsible for:
- The day to day management of all aspects of the school, including support for children with SEN.
- Making sure that your child’s needs are met but they will give this responsibility to the SENCo and class teachers.
- Making sure that the Governing Body is kept up to date about any issues in the school relating to SEN.
The Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo) is responsible for:
- Coordinating all the support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and developing the school’s SEN Policy to make sure all children get a consistent, high quality response to meeting their needs in school.
- Ensuring that parents/carers are:
- involved in supporting their child’s learning
- kept informed about the support their child is getting
- involved in reviewing how they are doing
- involved in planning for their future.
- Contacting other people who may be coming into school to help support your child’s learning for example, an Educational Psychologist.
- Making sure that there are up to date records of your child’s progress and needs.
- Provide specialist support for teachers and support staff so they can help children with SEN make the best possible progress.
- Support class teachers in writing Learning Plans that specify your child’s targets.
- Ensuring that all staff working with the child in school are helped to deliver the planned work/programme so the child can make the best possible progress. This may involve the use of additional adults, outside specialist help and specially planned work and resources.
The Class Teacher is responsible for:
- Making sure that all children have access to quality first teaching and that the curriculum is adjusted to meet your child’s individual needs (this is called differentiation).
- Checking on the progress of your child and identifying, planning and providing any additional help your child may need and letting the SENCo know if necessary. This could be things like targeted work, additional support.
- Writing Learning Plans with SENCo. These will be shared and reviewed with parents at least once each term.
- Planning for the child’s next term based on their progress.
- Ensuring that all staff working with the child in school are helped to deliver the planned work/programme so the child can make the best possible progress. This may involve the use of additional adults, outside specialist help and specially planned work and resources.
- Ensuring that the school’s SEN Policy is followed in their classroom and for all the children they teach with any SEN.
The Teaching Assistants work with the class teacher to identify areas of support for children with SEN. They:
- Support children to access the curriculum
- Help with the implementation of differentiation and specialist support strategies in the classroom
- Keep children focused on learning activities during lessons
- Attend all training opportunities related to SEN and differentiation
- Are classroom based and able to deliver specific SEN programmes outside of the classroom. Help children to develop effective ways of becoming independent learners
The SEN Governor is Mrs Victoria Beattie and she is responsible for:
- Making sure that the school has an up to date SEN Policy
- Making sure that the school has appropriate provision and has made necessary adaptations to meet the needs of all children in the school
- Making sure that the necessary support is given for any child with SEN who attends the school.
Training
School staff are trained in specific areas where there is a current need. The Headteacher collects information on areas for development through appraisals and staff meetings and asks the appropriate professionals to deliver it as whole staff or individual training. Subject leaders for maths and English find appropriate specialist support training and enrol staff on courses. Training is also provided for staff when students are admitted to school with a SEND that no-one in school has experience of.
Staff within school have different levels of expertise in order to support pupils with special educational needs:
- Awareness – this is basic awareness of a particular type of SEN. All staff who come into contact with the pupil will have this level of training and it will be carried out by the SENCo, SENIT, Educational Psychologist or other specialist service.
- Enhanced – this level of training will be carried out by staff working with the pupil regularly, such as class and subject teachers, and will focus on how teaching and learning can be adapted to meet the pupil’s needs. The training can be carried out by
SENIT, Educational Psychologist, staff from special schools or other specialist services. At Falla Park, Teaching Assistants have training in appropriate interventions to support children in English and Mathematics. - Specialist – this is in-depth training about a particular type of SEN for staff who will be advising those who support pupils at an enhanced level. This could be a specialist SEN teacher or a SENCo if they had appropriate qualifications.
More details of the SENCO’s role can be found in the SEN Policy which you can find in the School Policies section of our website.
External Specialists and Other Bodies
The school enjoys good working relationships with a wide range of people who provide services to children with SEND and their families.
The external specialists may:
- Act in an advisory capacity
- Extend expertise of school staff
- Provide additional assessment
- Support a child directly
- Suggest statutory assessment is advisable
- Consult with all parties involved with the child
These include:
- Local Authority services such as the SENIT, EYIAT
- Educational Psychologist
- Behaviour Support Service.
- HINT (Higher incidence Needs Team)
- LINT (Low incidence Needs Team
- Outside agencies such as the Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) Service, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy, CYPS (Children and Young People Services)
- Health Agencies, particularly School Nurse Service and Health Visitors
- Other specialist health services as required, e.g. hearing, speech, vision, diabetes
- Medical Practitioners – GPs, Paediatricians, Clinical Psychologists
- Family workers
How We Secure Specialist Expertise
Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN
This is used to support children and young people with SEND by:
- Buying in the services of external specialists
- Buying resources to support children
If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes.
