SEND PROVISION if your child is required to work remotely

This information has been written to show families what additional support is available for children who have SEN or disabilities.  

First, please read the information on our website about what is offered for all of our children under the remote learning tab. Every child has the offer of 3-5 hours of activities each day and daily monitoring of attendance, work completed, feedback and extra help needed.

If you have any questions or need advice please contact us at school: 

Telephone  01670 810570 (Lower School) or 01670 813111 (Upper School)

E-mail -  cps@alptrust.co.uk

See below for more information about support for SEN and disabilities:

1. Children who have Education Health & Care Plans (EHCPs)
2. Speech and language and communication needs
3. Autism / ASD needs
4. Emotional or behavioural or mental health needs
5. Learning difficulties
6. Hearing or vision needs
7. Physical needs or other medical conditions

Children who have Education Health & Care Plans (EHCPs)

We aim to have these children in school every day. Nursery children are offered places in line with their typical day. School age children are offered full-time (mornings and afternoons). 

We ask families to register home-learning attendance every morning and we check the child’s work online every day.

The timetable we offer has been designed so wherever possible it can be continued at home if for any reason the child could not come into school. The lessons and activities are recorded so children can go back to cover missed work. This is available for all children, including EHCP learners.

The children in school are in very small groups with personal support at all times.

We work with the specialist education services and NHS services to make sure their role in the plan continues as before, even if the child is at home for a time.

We have special arrangements for NHS services, care services and education services to do their meetings and assessments in school or via video call.

All EHCP plans have been reviewed and amended (if needed) to help children to continue to work towards their objectives if working remotely. 

The school SENCO checks how the children are getting on every week and speaks to families and services to solve any problems the child may be having.

Speech and language and communication needs

We are very lucky at Central Primary School. We have our own specialist staff and a very close working arrangement with the local NHS Speech & Language Therapy Team (NHS SALT). 

We monitor the speech and language support for each child every month, or weekly if needed.

Every child has a Speech & Language plan. Our school staff and the NHS team work with the children in school or at home.

We provide online lessons for the children at their ability level and age level using TalkBoost and Makaton.

We provide printed activities and advice for families to use at home.

We phone every family to check how the children are getting on at home and offer help if there are any problems.

A large number of our staff have completed ELKLAN training in 2020 and 2021 and use these strategies within online classroom provision.

Autism / ASD needs

The support given for children who have autism spectrum needs depends on the individual child. Some children are very settled and learning independently. They are coping with the changes to school life. Other children are finding things very different and hard to understand.

Pre-school children have support in school or at home from the NHS Speech & Language Therapy team, Health Visitors, NHS paediatricians, Portage, home visiting Nursery Nurses and other services.

Teachers and our specialist staff provide modified lessons every day to help with communication and fine motor skills. Children who do not yet have speech are given lessons they can take part in in other ways.

School-age children from Reception to Year 6 have a diagnosis from the NHS services but will not have an ongoing NHS support plan unless they also have medication. 

We provide different levels of support, depending on how the child is coping with the changes COVID has made to their normal school routines:

• Part-time or full-time days in school if the child is in crisis.
• Thrive plans and support packs for time in school and time at home.
• Personalised contact from teachers and the family support team
• Support or advice from specialist education services for ASD

Emotional or behavioural or mental health needs

Some children had these kinds of needs before COVID arrived in 2020. For some children their needs have come to light during home learning in 2020 and 2021.

At school we have an ‘open door’ policy. That means we are happy for families to get in touch with us at any time if they have concerns we can help with.

We also carry out a Thrive assessment for every child in school at least once a year. We did our last check in December 2020 / January 2021. If we see a child has need for Thrive support they will have a plan for their time in school and now they will also have a plan and support pack for time at home.

Our teachers and support team contact families to ask how adults and children are managing the new home learning arrangements. We check on attendance every day and what work the child is managing to do.

We have a dedicated full-time family support worker who helps families with practical things at home, such as delivering learning resources to families, or food parcels / vouchers or to help with coping and supporting.They can also help families with new routines.

The school SENCO speaks to the local NHS mental health services every week, to make sure new referrals are in progress and to check plans for children who already have NHS support. 

The NHS services are CYPS (also called CAMHS - for children aged 5 years or older), Primary Mental Health Workers and School Nurses.

Very young children may also have support from Health Visitors or a Peadiatrician.

Children who have medication for ADHD have their regular reviews as normal. Usually every 3 months, or earlier if school and family see a pattern of difficulties.

Useful phone numbers of local NHS services for children:

01670 502 700 - CYPS. You can phone their on-call team for advice or for an update. You can also call if you have a crisis and need help. 

01661 864 588 - Primary Mental Health Workers - for children aged 0-18 years

Learning difficulties

Teachers set work at levels which match your child’s ability, especially in phonics, literacy and numeracy. This happens in class and in the online work through Google Classroom and SeeSaw.

You will see lots of examples of videos and other resources online that we have set for your child where we have:

• Given your child a different task to match his / her current level of ability
• Slowed down the activity and broken it into small steps, with lots of time to pause and think
• Saved lessons, videos, books and other resources so your child can go back over the lesson as many times as they need
• Chosen reading texts with the story read aloud, so your child can listen along while they read the words

These are common examples. Some children have very specialised help with their speech, listening, communicating or other skills needed to be a successful learner. 

You can send a message to the teacher at any time through Google Classroom or, for very young children through SeeSaw. The teachers look at your child’s work and the messages almost every day. They will be happy to help where we can.

We also work with the local authority specialist teachers for literacy / dyslexia and the educational psychology team if your child needs more specialised support.

Hearing or vision needs

We have weekly meetings with the specialist teacher for Hearing Impairment to check your child’s hearing aids or other support are still working well.

We have annual meetings with the Vision Impairment teacher, who is also available at any time if there is an urgent need.

Physical needs or other medical conditions

Your child’s Individual Healthcare Plan is kept up to date, even if your child is learning at home.

We keep in touch with the specialist nurses for allergies, epilepsy and asthma, to check our training and support to your family is up to date.

We keep a record of any medication held in school and we are ready for your child coming back to school at any time.

This information gives an outline of support given, but there are many more personal arrangements in place for individual  children too.

Please get in touch if you would like any advice or support.