Our School Provision (SEND)

Christ Church C of E Infant School is a mainstream Church of England Infant school in South Gloucestershire which provides for children with a wide range of special educational needs. These include those with:

• Communication and interaction needs; this includes speech, language and communication difficulties including autistic spectrum conditions.
• Cognition and Learning needs; this includes children who have learning difficulties and specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia.
• Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs this includes difficulties such as; anxiety, adverse childhood experiences, and adhd.
• Sensory and/or Physical Needs; this includes children who have visual or hearing needs, or a physical disability that affects their learning or sensory processing disorders.

All South Gloucestershire maintained schools have a similar approach to meeting the needs of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.

They are supported by the Local Authority to ensure that all pupils, regardless of their specific needs, make the best possible progress in school.

All schools are supported to be as inclusive as possible, with the needs of pupils with SEN being met in a mainstream setting wherever possible, where families want this to happen.

South Gloucestershire Council’s Local Offer can be found here:

Frequently Asked Questions about SEND at CCI

Who are the best people to speak to if I think my child may have Special Education Needs or Disability?
The best people to talk to if you are concerned about your child’s difficulties with their learning or special needs would initially be your child’s class teacher, the school SENCO (Sooz Dickinson) or Head teacher (Anna Martin).  The SEND Governor (Amelia Gould can also be available).

How can I let the school know if I am worried about my child's progress?

Talk to us, you thoughts and concerns matter.  If you have concerns about your child’s progress you should speak to your child’s class teacher initially.  If you are not happy that the concerns are being managed or that your child is still not making progress you should speak to the SENCO or Head teacher.  If you are still not happy you can speak to the school SEND Governor.

Who's who in the school and what do they do in relation to SEND?

Class Teachers are responsible for:

• Checking on the progress of your child and identifying, planning and delivering any additional intervention your child may need (this could be things like targeted work and/or additional support) and letting the SENCo know as necessary.
• Ensuring that all staff working with your child in school are helped to deliver the planned intervention/programme for your child, so they can achieve 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 SEND policy is followed in their classroom and for all the pupils they teach with any SEND.
• Working in partnership with the child’s parents to co-produce the best support for your child.

Head Teacher - Mrs Anna Martin is responsible for:

• The day to day management of all aspects of the school, this includes the support for our children with SEND.
• Giving responsibility to the SENCo and class teachers but is still responsible for ensuring that your child’s needs are met.
• Making sure that the Governing Body is kept up to date about any issues in the school relating to SEND.

SENDCo - Mrs Sooz Dickinson is responsible for:

• Co-coordinating all the support and progress for all our children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) and developing the school’s SEND policy to make sure all our children get a consistent, high quality response to meeting their needs in school.
• Ensuring that you are involved in supporting your child’s learning; kept informed about the support your child is getting; involved in reviewing how they are doing.
• Liaising with other people who may be coming into school to help support your child’s learning e.g. Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychology.
• Updating the school’s SEND register (a system for ensuring all the SEND needs of pupils in our school are known) and making sure that there are excellent records of your child’s progress and needs.

 SEND Governor - Miss Amelia Gould is responsible for:

• Meeting regularly with the SENCo and reporting to the Governors to keep everyone informed.
• Ensuring the SEND provision is monitored regularly.

What happens is my child has SEND or I think they might?

If your child starts at Christ Church Infants with an already identified special educational need we will work with you as parents and any professionals already involved. The SENCO and class teacher will use this information to form a support plan alongside you and your child. We will also support their transition into school with additional visits and transition book.

If you feel that your child may have SEN, your child’s class teacher will meet with you alongside the SENCO. We will look at the information together, share what we find and discuss with you what will happen next, and how we can support your child. We will also work with you to help you support your child at home.

Your child’s class teacher continually assesses how they are progressing with their learning in all areas of the curriculum including in their social and emotional wellbeing. We also use more formal assessments of your child’s progress in reading, writing and maths at key points in the year. If a child is working below expected levels or making slower than expected progress, we will consider whether they may need extra help. Your child may be discussed during a Pupil Progress Meeting (PPM) with the Head Teacher and SENCO in order to support their needs within the classroom and in and around school (Quality First Teaching). At Christ Church Infants we consider every teacher to be a teacher of SEN. If at any point a teacher feels your child may need extra SEN support/provision the schools SENCO may also become involved. We will observe, assess their understanding of what we are doing in school and try to find out what is causing the difficulty. We will also look at ways in which we can adapt our school environment to meet your child’s needs. This forms part of the graduated; assess, plan, do, review process and is carried out alongside you as parents/carers who know the child best.

How will the school let me know if they are concerned about my child's learning or progress in school?

At Christ Church Infants we pride ourselves on getting to know the children really quickly and they settle well. Any key information about children with SEND is shared with all members of staff to make sure we have a consistent approach.

A concern about a child may be identified by the class teacher, parent or another professional e.g. pre-school. These concerns may be linked with lower attainment or slower progress or a specific learning difficulty (such as Dyslexia, ADHD or Autism), or a physical, behavioural, social or emotional need.

Once a concern has been identified, the SENCO and class teacher will meet with you to discuss your child’s progress and put a support plan together. This will have identified outcomes which will be written alongside you and your child as much as possible so that we can work together. Outcomes are reviewed with you a minimum of 3 times a year.  We will also share communication through:

• Parents meetings
• Target setting/review meetings 6 times a year where appropriate.
• Using home/school diaries where appropriate
• We welcome you speaking with class teachers at the beginning or end of the day.

How will the curriculum be matched to my child’s needs?

At CCI our curriculum has been designed to ensure that every child can ‘Live life to the full’ by offering engaging, enquiry based, learning experiences from their individual starting points built upon our vision and 6 Christian values.

Class teachers plan lessons according to the specific needs of all groups of children in their class, and will make sure that your child’s needs are met through adapting the level of learning to ensure appropriate challenge as well as adapting the learning style. These plans are adapted daily to meet the needs of all children.

How will you measure my child’s progress?

The outcomes set alongside you, will reflect your child’s individual needs and next steps in their development. The outcomes are written by the class teacher with support from the SENCO necessary and will be reviewed with you throughout the year. In addition to this we track children’s progress each term, this is discussed as part of Pupil Progress meetings with teaching staff, the Head Teacher and SENCO. SEND provision is also included in the school’s annual monitoring cycle through lesson observations, looking at books and learning walks. When we run Intervention programmes for groups of children we assess how successful they have been and use that information to decide on how best to run them in the future and inform next steps for your child.

How will the teaching be adapted for my child?

All teachers are teachers of SEN. Your child’s class teacher/s are focused on providing excellent targeted provision. This is also known as quality first teaching. For your child this would mean: That the teacher has the highest possible expectations for your child and all pupils in their class. That all teaching is based on building on what your child already knows, can do and can understand. Different ways of teaching are in place so that your child is fully involved in learning in class. This may involve things like using more practical/active learning. Specific strategies (which may be suggested by the SENCo or external agencies) are in place to support your child to learn. Your child’s teacher will have carefully checked on your child’s progress and will have decided that your child has gap in their understanding/learning and needs some extra support to help them make the best possible progress. All children in school should be getting this as a part of excellent classroom practice.

Who else supports SEND at CCI?

We work closely with outside agencies who we feel will help us to best meet the needs of your child both within school and outside of it. The school funds the following services:

• Inclusion Support
• Educational Psychology
• Therapeutic Services
• Sensory Support services for children who have visual/hearing needs.
• Social Services
• School Health Nurse
• Paediatricians and Autism Assessment team.
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy.

We will always ask for your permission first.

Which intervention groups are used at CCI?

• Time to talk
• Narrative Therapy
• Language steps
• Wellcomm speech and language support
• Support Assistant)
• Social skills groups
• Lego therapy
• Writing and maths support.
• 1:1 Reading
• Word mastery
• ELSA (Emotional, Literacy Support Assistant)

Intervention groups:

• Run for academic, social, emotional or behavioural needs.
• Run in or outside the classroom.
• Run by a teacher, or a teaching assistant

Some of these interventions may be run following the advice of outside agencies.

What is an EHCP?

An Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) is put in place when your child requires more specialist and personalised support. An assessment is requested by school (with your input) from the Local Authority. This means your child will have been identified by the class teacher and SENCo as needing a particularly high level of individual or small group teaching, which cannot be provided from the budget available in school. Usually your child will also need specialist support in school from an outside agency E.g. from Educational Psychology or the Sensory Service.

Once the school have sent in the request to the Local Authority (which includes your views, lots of information about your child, and your child’s views), they will decide whether they think your child’s needs (as described by us) are complex enough to receive a statutory assessment. If they agree, they will ask you and all professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs.

If granted the EHCP will outline the number of hours of individual/small group support your child will receive from the LA and how the support should be used and what strategies must be put in. An additional adult may be used to support your child with whole class learning, run individual programmes or small groups including your child. This type of support is available for children whose learning needs are: Severe, complex and lifelong and cannot be met through quality first teaching or intervention over time. If they do not think your child needs this, they will ask the school to continue with the support at SEN Support.

How do we allocate our funding?

 The school budget, received from South Gloucestershire, includes money for supporting children with SEND. The Head Teacher decides on the budget for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in consultation with the school governors, on the basis of needs in the school.

The Head Teacher and SENCo discuss all the information they have about SEND in the school, including:

• The children already receiving extra support,
• Children who need extra support.
• Children who have been identified as not making as much progress as would be expected

They will then decide what resources/training and support is needed.

We have a small team of higher level teaching assistants (HLTAs) who are funded from the SEND budget. They deliver interventions and work with children in class in order to meet the needs of all our pupils. All resources/training and support are reviewed regularly and changes made as needed.

How do we support children's overall well-being at CCI?

We believe we are an inclusive school; we welcome and celebrate diversity and are attachment aware. All staff at Christ Church Infants believe children’s self-esteem is vital to their well-being and this is at the heart of all we do. Our behaviour system is centred on the use of emotion coaching, we teach children to recognise, name and manage their feelings as well a problem solve with support from adults. We have a very caring, understanding team who look after all of our children and pride ourselves on our positive relationships with families and how well we know the children as individuals. The class teacher has overall responsibility for the pastoral, medical and social care of every child in their class however we work closely as a staff team. If further support is required the class teacher liaises with the SENCo for further advice and support. This may involve working with outside agencies. We offer ELSA therapeutic sessions for children in need of additional emotional support. The SENCO also works with children and their families to ensure that they feel happy in school and have access or links to the resources they need.

How will you support my child when they go to the next class or move to Christ Church CE VC Juniors?

We know that transitions can be difficult for a child with SEND and ensure that we do all that we can to support them in that transition to make it as smooth as possible. If your child is moving to another school:

• We will contact the school SENCO and ensure he/she knows about any special arrangements or support that need to be made for your child.
• We will make sure that all records about your child are passed on as soon as possible.

When moving classes within CCI:

• Class teachers and Teaching Assistants meet in the summer term prior to the new academic year to share information. SEND children all have an individual Pupil profile which gives details of the SEN, their levels of progress and development as well as detailing any resources they may need. The passport also shares ideas for learning and teaching strategies and any interventions needed to support their learning and ensure consistency of approach.
• Levels of support required during the transition period vary depending on the child and we respond to these individually. Most children with SEND will have a transition book which supports them with photos and information about their new class, photos of new staff and key rules/routines.
• Additional visits to the new class and regular contact with the new teacher and T.A are planned for during term 6 as soon as the children know which class they are moving to. However subtle, incidental preparation is done during term 5 to build relationships as well. Parents and carers are involved in the decision making of which class might be best suited to their child’s needs taking into account friendship groups as well as the class environment.

When moving to Christ Church Junior School:

We have strong links with the Junior School which helps the transition for our Year 2 children.

When your child is In Year 2 we begin to prepare them for their transition to the Juniors by:

• A series of extra small group and 1:1 visits to CCJ with their SEN TAs (if applicable), our SENCo and CCJ SENCo. This is weekly for Y2s in Term 6.
• Y2 teachers also join up and spend weekly sessions working in mixed groups of Year 2 and 3 to help the children build relationships and become more familiar with the school lay out and staff.
• The children are assigned Y6 buddies, these are carefully selected in terms of who may support them best.

Where can I go for extra support?

Your views are extremely important to us. If you have any concerns about your child please don’t hesitate to contact us.

• You can contact your child’s class teacher who will be able to share progress, answer questions and also share what’s working well between home and school.
• You can also speak to our SENCo who can meet with you to discuss your child’s progress and share any concerns you may have. (susan.dickinson@sgmail.org.uk)
• You can also contact the Head Teacher
• If you have a child with SEND and are considering our school please arrange a meeting with our Head Teacher/SENCo to discuss their needs and how we can support them.

There are also a number of Parent support groups and information services we can help you with. Here are a list of useful contacts below:

• South Glos Parent Carers
• www.sendandyou.org.uk
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25
• http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/autism-and-asperger-syndrome-an-introduction/what-is -autism.aspx
• http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/
• http://www.dyscalculia.me.uk/
• http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/
• http://www.youngminds.org.uk
• The South Glos Way

Related SEND Policies and Documents

Click on the PDF links below to open the related policies. 

Useful websites for help, advice and support