SEND stands for special needs and, or a disability.
The Code of Practice 2015 states that: ‘A student has SEND where their learning difficulty or disability calls for special educational provision, that is different from or additional to that normally available to children of the same age’.
Many children will have special educational needs of some kind during their education. Schools and other organisations can help most children overcome the barriers their difficulties present quickly and easily. A few children will need extra help for some or all of their time in school.

Who are the best people to talk to at our school about my child’s difficulties with learning / SEND?
The Class Teacher has responsibility for: 
• Checking on the progress of your child.
• Identifying, planning and delivering the differentiated curriculum for your child in class, as required.
• Personalised teaching and learning for your child.
• Ensuring that the School’s SEND Policy is followed in their classroom. 
SENCo - Miss S Hayford
SEN&D Governor – Mr M Appleton
Other Key Staff - Mrs T Morris (Safeguarding and Pastoral Welfare Manager) 
- Mrs R Hunt (Wellbeing and Family Support Lead)
- Miss K Scorah (TA Lead and SENCo Liaison)
They are responsible for: 
• Developing and reviewing the School’s SEND Information Report/Policy.
• Co-ordinating all the support for students with special educational needs or disabilities.
• Updating the School’s SEND list (a system for ensuring that all the SEND needs of students in the school are known) and making sure those records of your child’s progress and needs are kept up-to-date and are confidential.
• Providing specialist support for teachers and support staff in the School, so that they can help students with SEND in the School to achieve the best possible progress. 
They are also responsible for ensuring that you are: 
• Involved in supporting your child’s learning.
• Kept informed about the support your child is receiving.
• Involved in reviewing how your child is doing and liaising with all other agencies which may be involved with your child e.g. Educational Psychology, Behaviour Support Service, Social Care and Health Service. 

The kinds of SEND provided for in our School are:
When identifying the nature of a child’s special educational needs, the four areas of need considered are: 
• communication and interaction 
• cognition and learning 
• social, emotional and mental health difficulties 
• sensory and/or physical needs.
The school recognises that the child may need support in more than one of these areas.

Referring to the ‘SEND Code of Practice: 0-25’ 2015, a child has SEN ‘where their learning difficulty or disability calls for special educational provision, that is provision different from or additional to that normally available to pupils of the same age’. 
Class Teachers make regular assessments of progress for all children. From this, the school can identify children making less than expected progress given their age and individual circumstances. Other factors including attendance, punctuality and health are considered. Consideration is also given to the circumstances of students, for example those who are in Care and/or eligible for the Pupil Premium. 
When deciding whether to make special educational provision, a meeting will be arranged between the SENDCo and Class Teacher to consider all the information gathered from within the School. Sometimes the Headteacher or the Pastoral Team may be involved in meetings.
Parents/Carers will be notified by email, a telephone call or letter of the meeting, when the following will be discussed:  
• The child’s areas of strengths and difficulties.
• Any Parent/Carer concerns.
• Plan any additional support your child may receive.
• Discuss with you, any referrals to outside professionals, to support your child’s learning. 
Where a child is identified as having SEND, the School will seek to remove barriers to learning and put SEND provision in place. THE SEND support will take the form of a four-part cycle: 
Assess - an analysis of the child’s need will be carried out by the Class Teacher and SENDCo. Outside agencies may also be involved. 
Plan - if the school decides to provide the child with SEND support, Parents/Carers will be notified. All staff involved with the child will be informed. 
Do - interventions/support will be delivered. 
Review - the effectiveness of the intervention/support will be reviewed regularly. We aim to work with the child and parents throughout this process.

Ravensdale Junior School is a large junior school in a suburb of Derby and share a site with Ravensdale Infant and Nursery School. The local catchment area consists of a mixture of privately-owned dwellings, privately rented and social housing occupied by families and retired people. The recently built and still developing housing estate has social housing accommodating families who have moved in from areas of social deprivation within Derby City. The Pupil admission limit is 90 per year group and children are taught in distinct year groups. Approximately 50% of the children registered at school are from out of catchment. We have two level playgrounds and two school fields. Eight classrooms are on the ground floor, two are in an outside building which can be accessed by a slope or steps and two are up two flights of stairs. Two classrooms have a sound field system. 

Teachers have the highest possible expectations for your child and all children in their class. The quality of teaching and learning is reviewed regularly to ensure the highest possible standards are achieved. The school has a training plan for all staff to improve the teaching and learning of children, including those with SEND. This includes whole school training on SEND issues:
• Teachers adapt planning to support the needs of children with SEND. 
• Teachers use a variety of teaching styles and cater for different learning styles to allow children with SEND to access the curriculum. 
• Teachers and other adults in the classroom work together to give targeted support according to your child’s needs. 
• Your child is fully involved in learning in class. 
• Strategies which may be suggested by the SENDCo or other professionals working with your child are in place to support your child to learn. 
Specific group work intervention:
• This could be for reading, reading comprehension, spelling, numeracy and/or social skills. These could be delivered by a Teacher, Teaching Assistant or intervention support staff. 
Adaptations to curriculum or learning environment may be made to remove barriers to learning. Things such as:
• Sitting at the front of the classroom.
• Using enlarged resources.
• Use of ICT.
• Leaving lessons for 1:1 or small group interventions.
• Use of colour overlays.
• Visual timetable provided.
• Radio Aid systems used.
There are many more that may be put in place depending on the individual pupils needs.
Outside agencies - You may be asked to give permission for your child to be referred to a specialist professional, e.g. Educational Psychologist. This will help the school and you to understand your child’s needs better and so support them more effectively. 
The specialist professional may work directly with you and your child and may make recommendations on support strategies to be used at home and in school. 

Children’s progress is continually monitored by Class Teachers and Teaching Assistants. Progress is reviewed at regular intervals and formally once each term. If your child is at SEND Support or has an EHC Plan, you will receive a termly report on their progress as well as having the opportunity to speak to teachers at a Parents/Carers’ Evening.  
The progress of children with an EHC Plan is formally reviewed at an annual review. 
The SENDCo will also monitor that the child is making good progress in any targeted work while also monitoring the effectiveness of the provision or interventions. 

The SENDCo and Schools’ Senior Leadership Team will use the four-part cycle (Assess, Plan, Do, Review) through which earlier decisions and actions are revisited, refined and revised with a growing understanding of the child’s needs and of what supports the child in making good progress and securing good outcomes. This is known as the graduated approach. 6.44 CoP.

If you have concerns about your child’s progress you should, in the first instance, speak to your child’s Class Teacher. If you have concerns that your child has an unmet special educational need after speaking to the Class Teacher, you should contact the SENDCo. 

Within school, we have a Safeguarding and Pastoral Welfare Manager and a Wellbeing and Family Support Lead who are available to support children and their families with any difficulties. We support children with friendship groups, building up their confidence and self-esteem, promoting positive relationships and supporting their emotional development and well-being at difficult times. Throughout the curriculum and the ethos of the school, all staff support children’s personal, social, emotional development and well-being.
This may involve working alongside outside agencies such as the Health Service, and/or specialist educational services. 

The Code of Practice 2015 states that: ‘A student has SEN where their learning difficulty or disability calls for special educational provision, that is different from or additional to that normally available to children of the same age.’  
• Children who are underachieving and failing to meet targets have interventions in and out of class. 
• Children are moved on to SEND support (previously School Action), when, despite accessing catch up interventions, they are still not making expected progress and are not meeting their targets. 
• For a minority of children who are not making progress in more than one subject we would investigate using the graduated approach for an extended period. 
• Children with more complex needs who may also require support from outside agencies would be classified as SEND support (previously School Action Plus). The school budget is received from Derby City Local Authority, which includes funding to support children with SEND. This is £6,000 per pupil on the SEND list per academic year which is called ‘SEND Notional Funding’.
The Headteacher decides on the budget allocation for SEND in consultation with the School Governors, based on needs within the school. The Headteacher, Office Manager and SENDCo discuss information they have about SEND including:
• Children already receiving extra support.
• Children needing extra support.
• Children who have been identified as not making as much progress as expected.
All resources/training and support are reviewed regularly, and changes made as necessary. Children will be taken off the SEND register when targets/outcomes have been achieved. 

Directly funded by the School: 
• Teachers 
• Teaching Assistants funded from the SEND budget who support in class and deliver programmes designed to meet individual and group needs 
• Safeguarding and Pastoral Welfare Manager 
• Wellbeing and Family Support Lead
• Educational Psychology Service / STePS
Paid for centrally by LA/Health Service: 
• Speech and Language Therapy 
• Occupational Therapy 
• Support Services for the Hearing, Physically & Visually impaired 
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) 
• Social Care 
• School Nurse 
• Physiotherapy Service
• SENDIASS
• Behaviour Support Service (LA)
Voluntary Sector:
• Umbrella http://www.umbrella.uk.net/
• Fun8bility http://www.stjamescentrederby.co.uk/fun-abili8y
• Disability Direct http://disabilitydirect.com/derby/
• Derby City Parent and Carer Forum http://www.derbycityparentcarerforum.org.uk/
• Contact a Family https://www.sendirect.org.uk/providers/contact-a-family/myservices/contact-a-family-derby-east-midlands/
. . . and many more. For more information go to https://www.derby.gov.uk/education-and-learning/derbys-send-local-offer/

This section is also appropriate for children and young people who are looked after by the Local Authority (Corporate Parent):
• Class Teachers, Teaching Assistants, SENDCo and Pastoral Team are available to discuss issues, as appropriate to their roles in school. 
• Your child’s targets will be reviewed termly, and we will work with you to plan and review these. 
• We will hold meetings with outside professionals where and when appropriate. 
• We will hold Parent’s Evenings.
• We will share information with you about Parent/Carer support groups.
• We will send home two reports a year. 

The school follows ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions - Statutory guidance for governing bodies of maintained schools and proprietors of academies in England’ April 2014.
The School has a Policy regarding the administration and management of medicines on the school site. Some children will have a care plan in place.
Staff have updates on conditions and medication affecting individual students and training, where appropriate, so that they can manage medical situations. 

We have disabled toilets and changing tables in school. Teaching resources and equipment used are equally accessible to all children. 
Internally run extra-curricular provision is accessible for all children. After school and extra-curricular provision with external providers is accessible in agreement with the provider, following a discussion of the child’s needs and provision which needs to be in place. 
All children have an equal opportunity to go on school visits - extra support can be provided if appropriate. Educational visits will only be planned to locations accessible to all. Risk assessments are carried out prior to any off-site activity. 

The school recognises that transitions can be difficult for children with SEND and their families and so take steps to ensure any transition is as smooth as possible. 
If your child is moving to another school: 
• We will contact the schools’ SENDCo and ensure they know about any special arrangements and support that need to be made for your child. 
• All records about your child are passed on as soon as possible. 
When moving classes in school: 
• Information will be passed on to new Class Teachers. All relevant information will be shared. 
Starting School 
• Visits to School
• Parent sessions
• Share records
• Discussions or visits to previous settings 
From Junior to Secondary school
• Visits to School
• Parent sessions
• Share records
• Transition Meeting

We value and celebrate each child being able to express their views on all aspects of school life.  
If your child has an EHC Plan, they will be involved in writing and reviewing their own outcomes.
The child will have the opportunity to discuss with their Class Teacher, SENDCo or Teaching Assistant how they are getting on at school. 

There is an on-going professional development programme throughout the school-year which addresses areas of SEND within the School. For example: 
• Autistic Spectrum Disorder
• Diabetes 
• Hearing Impairment
• Visual impairment 
• Sensory Processing Disorder
• Applying the new Code of Practice,
• Using specialist medical equipment such as an adrenaline pen

Our School has a Complaints Policy which can be found on our website – www.ravensdalej.derby.sch.uk. If you wish to complain, we always suggest you come and speak to us first to try to resolve any issues.
Please see the Complaints Policy for full details.

Linked documents on the school’s website include: 
• SEND Policy - 
• Complaints Policy -
• Anti-Bullying Policy -
• Support for children with medical needs -
• LAC Policy -  
• Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy -

Supporting pupils at School with medical conditions Statutory guidance for governing bodies of maintained schools and proprietors of academies in England April 2014 - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/306952/Statutory_guidance_on_supporting_pupils_at_school_with_medical_conditions.pdf 

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities - Local Offer:

Derby SEND Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS):

Umbrella Independent Support Group:

Do 2 Learn: (support / FAQ / Characteristics of conditions)

Speech and Language Therapy Service (Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS FT):

British Dyslexia Association:

The National Autistic Society:

Young Minds - Young People's Mental Health and Wellbeing:

The National Autistic Society

This is a really good website for advice / guidance on all aspects of Autism from diagnosis to support. It has reassuring articles and answers to most questions that you may have.
http://www.autism.org.uk/
 

Autism Support Group

We hold a monthly Autism Support Group in our Community Room for parents / carers who have children on the spectrum or under assessment. It is a friendly, relaxed group where you can have an informal drink and chat with people who have similar experiences to you. There are occasional guest speakers and information sharing sessions.

This group is led by Suzy Levesley, who is an ex-parent of ours. She has an autistic child, is a committee member for the National Autistic Society Derby & District Branch and is a Parent Champion with Derby City Council.
Suzy is currently working with the council and parents to improve the Local Offer.

For more information please check the National Autistic Society Derby & District Branch Facebook Page
https://en-gb.facebook.com/NASDerbyBranch/