Special Educational Needs and Disabilities - SEND | Harlaxton Church of England Primary School

What are Special Educational

Needs and Disabilities?

A Special Educational Need is a difficulty or barrier that affects a child's ability to learn and to access the curriculum. A Disability is a long-term health condition which causes a difficulty or barrier to learn or to access the curriculum. We are committed to meeting the educational needs of all our pupils and recognise that some of our children will need additional support. If you have any further concerns regarding SEND, this Government document will offer further reading:

SEND Guide for Parents and Carers

We are proud of the support we offer as a school and as a Federation with Denton CE School. Below, is our personalised Information Report and Our School Offer that outlines the provision the school provides for children with additional needs and disabilities and their families. Please have a read and contact your child's class teacher or the SEND Team should you wish to discuss this further.

School Offer and Information Report

Following on from reading the Information Report and School Offer, if you have concerns over your child's development, take a look at this flowchart to discover the next steps you could take. We follow the Graduated Approach following an assess-plan-do-review cycle. Teachers regularly undertake assessments both formative and summative to review progress. Where concerns lie, interventions and boosters happen to fill the gaps or support the barriers. Your child's class teacher may then get in touch to discuss steps of progress and share their ideas for next steps.

Parental Concerns Flowchart

If you have any concerns or complaints about the support the school provides with regards to SEND, please refer to the school's complaints policy in our policy section.

Who are the SEND Team?

Mrs Harper and Mrs Mackey lead SEND across the Grace Federation of Denton and Harlaxton Schools, where they work closely with the Class Teachers in monitoring progress of learners. They offer support to teachers and teaching staff in suggesting strategies and intervention programmes that could support the gaps or barriers in learning. They may take part in observations, assessment and offer support to families too.

Mrs Whitworth is one of our Designated Safeguarding Leads and Learning Mentor trained to support children through Emotional Literacy Support (ELSA). She also supports families through an Early Help Assessment (EHA) and Team around the Child (TAC) with liaising with other professionals.

If you need to contact them, you can email them direct using the email address: sendco@gracefederation.co.uk or telephone:

01476870649 (Denton) / 01476561077 (Harlaxton)

Parent Workshop / Coffee Morning - Autumn 24

Soon we will be sharing a date for our next parent workshop supporting families with understanding and supporting neurodiversity. We will welcome you to our federated school Harlaxton (as they have hall space to host!) to listen to a visiting speaker and share time with fellow parents, the SEND team and the visiting speaker to seek further guidance.

We will open up this opportunity to the further community, so if you have any family or friends that may also be interested, they are also welcome to join in.

Parent Workshop / Coffee Morning

We were fortunate to have Sam Pittock from The Working Together Team in Lincolnshire explaining emotional regulation and strategies to support. For those unable to attend, please see the PowerPoint below that she shared. For further guidance, the Working Together Team Training Events calendar has online webinars.

Link here:

Link to Working Together Team - Online Training Calendar

TWTT Emotional Understanding - PowerPoint

Sensory Circuits

This is an exercise programme devised by trained members of staff to promote sensory integration. Many children will benefit from engaging in a short Sensory Circuit at the beginning of the school day and/or after lunch. Sensory circuits will help anyone that presents with any of these behaviours and difficulties:

• Fidgeting and changing position a lot in class

• Slow to start work and missing verbal cues (needs alerting)

• Difficulty organising themselves

• Lethargic (needs alerting)

• Poor coordination & balance

• Known sensory processing difficulties (requires help with regulating these)

• Rocking

• Poor attention and concentration

• Over-alert and appear hyper (needs calming)

Sensory Circuits is a short plan of physical activities that enables children to achieve an optimal level of alertness. It lasts 10-15 minutes and consists of 3 sections: Alerting Activities, Organising Activities and Calming Activities. It is vital that the activities are done in this order and that sessions are structured.

Alerting Stage

The big balls, spinners, trampette and jumping activities are used to encourage lots of vigorous movement, which is aimed at disturbing the fluid in the inner ears.

Organisation Stage

Here children take part in balancing and co-ordination exercises where the brain is encouraged to organise more than one movement, sometimes working in opposite directions.

Calming

Finishing the circuit with calming activities ensures that the child leaves the circuit (or returns to the classroom) feeling calm, centred and as ready for the day as possible.

The children are enjoying our morning sensory circuit sessions. Together we can develop our motor skills and coordination and explore our balance. As you can see, the trampette is great to bounce their energy out!

Shortly we will be sending questionnaires to parents asking how they feel their child is getting on with these sessions.