SEND

Quality First Teaching strategies are utilised by all teaching staff within the academy. Teaching staff are well-trained on how to meet the different areas of need and use the Mainstream Core Standards to swiftly put support in place within the classroom where this is required. 

Additional support is highly personalised and bespoke and will depend on the individual needs of each student. 

If the issue relates to a specific lesson, it would be helpful to speak first to the class teacher. However, you can also email the SEND team to speak with a member of the team. 

Parents are also encouraged to book an appointment with SEND at Parents Evening to discuss concerns; this is possible if your child is already on the SEND register. 

The British Dyslexia Association says:

Dyslexia is a neurological difference and can have a significant impact during education, in the workplace and in everyday life. As each person is unique, so is everyone’s experience of dyslexia. It can range from mild to severe, and it can co-occur with other learning differences. It usually runs in families and is a life-long condition. It is a specific learning difficulty.

We are bound by the Kent (Local Authority) definition for Dyslexia which can be found in their policy at: https://www.kent.gov.uk/education-and-children/special-educational-needs/send-strategy/dyslexia-policy

Therefore, if your young person has a significant weakness in single word spelling and/or reading (and has had good educational opportunities, teaching and interventions) then they may meet the Kent criteria for dyslexia.

For us to gain a better understanding of your young person’s literacy skills, we run a screener. This identifies a possible dyslexic profile or dyslexic tendencies. It helps us identify weaker ‘cognitive’ skills such a phonological processing (being able to identify and manipulate the sounds in words) which can signify dyslexic tendencies.

We would then want to gather information from you and the class teacher, and look at a child’s work. A screener is a limited snapshot of a child’s ability – it is important we gather a full picture and look at interventions over time too.

Therefore, we can screen your child for a possible dyslexic profile and to help us identify possible interventions, but this is not the same as a dyslexia diagnosis. Dyslexia diagnoses can be explored by an independent assessor; this is private and comes at a cost to parents. Assessors look for a discrepancy between a child’s general ability (like their IQ) and a child’s literacy skills.

Our teachers have dyslexia awareness training and can make adaptations to their teaching so that your child can access the curriculum like their peers. Very often, good strategies for dyslexic children are good for all children. 

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition. Therefore, any diagnosis of autism is a life-long health diagnosis and is not educational. There is no ‘test’ for autism. Instead, a paediatrician will collate evidence about a young person’s social communication skills, repetitive or restrictive interests and sensory differences so that a judgement against particular health criteria can be made.

The school can support with a referral. Initially, the school will ask questions: Why does the parent/carer think this? What behaviour do they see at home? Do class teachers see the same traits? Where there is agreement that there are shared difficulties, this can be explored.

Once a referral is made, within 12 weeks, the Single Point of Access team will triage the referral and ascertain whether it ‘meets criteria’. At this point, the young person is referred to as being ‘on the pathway’. The school will implement ASC strategies on the young person’s SEND passport if these are not already in place. 

Once a referral by school is sent to the local Community Paediatrics team and triaged, parents and carers can expect to wait 3 years before being notified about a paediatric appointment. 

Any diagnosis of ADHD is a life-long health diagnosis. 

The school can support with a referral if inattentive or hyperactive/impulsive behaviour is observed that is significantly different to the majority of the peer group and across different environments.

There is no test for ADHD. Information is collated from both home/school and a paediatrician will make a judgement on a certain ‘threshold’ which must be met when comparing scores from home and school. A Connors questionnaire is common. The young person is then also observed in clinic. 
Medication is a possibility depending on the severity of the ADHD and parent views. 
Some young people have a diagnoses of ‘ADHD–inattentive type’; this means they can struggle to focus but do not have the same hyperactivity profile. 

Dyscalculia is a specific maths difficulty. It is inherent rather than just being ‘weaker’ at maths. A young person will display intrinsic difficulties with their quantitative understanding of number at a basic level.

Dyscalculia is specific – so a young person is likely to be average in many aspects of schooling, apart from maths. It probably could not be considered if a young person has general learning difficulties, a bit like dyslexia.

We have very few young people where this has been identified. We cannot diagnose dyscalculia. This would fall to an Educational Psychologist or a certified assessor, and would likely be a private educational diagnosis.

The important thing is to understand a young person’s mathematical gaps and work with them through intervention and class-based support.

If you suspect your young person having a speech and language difficulty, please liaise with SEND. We conduct a Secondary Language Link screener which looks at functional language and may pick up difficulties.

Based on this screener, the school can put in place strategies and, if required, interventions to support this need.

If this intervention has limited impact, the SENCo can then discuss the young person at a SALT advisory slot whereby the young person’s profile is discussed alongside the support that is put in place. NHS SALT may offer additional strategies for the school to put in place or may, on occasion, recommend the school putting in a request for a formal NHS report. 

Yes – the school can refer for a diagnosis of ASC, ADHD or other referrals such as speech and language, if the criteria is met. These referrals are completed by the SEND team with support of pastoral staff and class teachers.

You may prefer to discuss this with your GP as they can facilitate a referral too.

We would encourage you to read the SEND policy on our website.

The school is bound by a definition of Special Educational Needs as set out by the legal framework, the SEN Code of Practice (2014).

A child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.
A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she:
has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or
has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions
For children aged two or more, special educational provision is educational or training provision that is additional to or different from that made generally for other children or young people of the same age

Being placed on a school’s SEND register is not because a young person receives a diagnosis of a condition – it must be because educational provision is consistently different for them to enable them to make progress in their areas of difficulty. Parents must remember that if their young person has a health condition or diagnosis, that this probably falls under The Equality Act (2010) and means that any school or educational provider must make reasonable adjustments for them, whether they are SEN or not.

We support young people as their needs arise and teachers adapt work and their teaching delivery as necessary, maintaining interventions for those young person that need something additional. Being on the SEND register does not change this. 

If your young person moves onto the SEN register they will be classed as ‘SEN support’ and they will have long term outcomes to work towards. 

An Educational, Health and Care plan (previously called a Statement) is a legal document owned by the Local Authority. It sets out a child’s needs, the provision needed to meet those needs and the school placement. The criteria for an EHCP is stringent.

A request for an EHCP will be dependent on the level of SEND that your young person presents with and the support needed both at home and at school. The process will require your child to have a personalised plan that has been reviewed at least three times. Typically, we should have had specialist involvement with the Local Inclusion Forum Team.

It is important for parents to consider what they wish to gain from an EHCP. If there is additional support they would like in place, please contact the SEND department.

KELSI contains documentation about the EHCP pathway and timelines but the whole progress from request to ‘decision to issue’ is 20 weeks. If there is a lack of evidence, the process stops at 6 weeks. If a parent is unhappy about a decision, they can appeal to the Local Authority. 

As a school, we have an NHS wellbeing service that supports students with a variety of emotional difficulties. Please speak to your young person’s Year Manager if you feel they would benefit from this service.

We also offer:
Social, Emotional and Mental Health based interventions around – confidence, managing emotions and building resilience. 

High Needs Funding (HNF) is an amount attributed to the provision already in place to support a student. Provision can be put in place in a variety of ways to enable students to make progress.