SEND at St. Joseph's
Mrs Brown - SENCO
Miss Harrison - Wellbeing Lead & PSA
SEND Policies
At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, we are inspired by our Catholic faith. We are committed to the equal inclusion of all pupils in all areas of school life. We recognise the diverse and individual needs of all of our pupils and take into account the additional support required by those children with Special Educational Needs (SEN). Our School is committed to anti-discriminatory practice to promote equality of opportunity, prevent disabled pupils from being treated less favourably and valuing diversity for all children and families.
Our SEND Information Report – which is part of Durham County Council’s Local Offer – provides details about how we support children and young people with Special Educational Needs in our school. It should be read alongside the school's SEND Policy, the Equalities Information and Objectives and the Accessibility Plan.
SEND Identification of Need
At St. Joseph’s, we pride ourselves on our inclusivity. Inclusion is central in the Catholic ethos and values of the school – a philosophy, which covers every child’s rights and entitlement to the very best experiences education can offer.
We believe in excellence, every day, for every child.
Our Core Offer
- High quality first teaching that is personalised to meet every child’s need. This is the first step in supporting children who may have SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities). All children are challenged to do their very best and no child is limited to what they can achieve. Teachers are responsible for the progress of every child in their class.
- All children will be taught a broad, balanced and cohesive curriculum; adapted to the needs of each individual, recaps previous learning and allows for deep, meaningful connections to be made. Where children require extra support, specialist resources or extension materials will be provided wherever possible.
- A personal development curriculum that develops key character traits, such as resilience and confidence, along with key skills such as leadership, team work and communication.
- Pastoral and social support is available for all from teachers, teaching assistants and our designated Wellbeing Lead. All children are known well by their class teacher, who develops strong relationships with them. Good behaviour and progress is celebrated, with praise being a key element of this.
- Your child can express their views in several ways, including school council representatives, directly to members of staff, school buddies and through pupil voice.
- We manage medical needs by working closely with parents and healthcare professionals. We listen to and act on their advice, providing staff with training when needed.
- We run a wide range of extra curricular clubs including art and craft, rugby, gardening and performing arts - all pupils are encouraged to attend and children with additional needs are supported to do so.
- We have a designated SEND governor who is Ms Kelly Hughes.
St. Joseph’s has a wealth of expertise from its staff, over and above the qualifications needed for their jobs.
Specialist services are always used when the need arises and the school feels it needs more support or advice to ensure a child fulfils their potential.
Specialist Services used by school:
- Educational Psychologist
- Occupational therapists
- Speech and Language therapists
- Hearing/visually impairment services
- CAMHs – Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.
- School nurse
- Specialist teams from Durham County SEN Team, including EWEL
- Bungalow Project Counselling
- EAL Team
This is not an exhaustive list, and school will always endeavour to engage with services to support our children.
At St. Joseph’s we follow a graduated approach of support, as detailed in the SEN Code of Practice, which may be found at SEN Code of Practice 2014.
Meeting Identified Needs
There are 4 primary areas of SEN
- Speech, Language and Communication.
- Cognition and Learning.
- Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties.
- Sensory and/or Physical Development.
For many children their targets will be linked to learning and will often be specifically related to literacy and numeracy. However, for other children they may be related to social interaction, communication with children and adults or emotional difficulties. The most important factor is that the targets and support provided are particular to the needs of each individual child.
The following is a snapshot of how we support our children with additional needs;
- Access to small group and/or individualised interventions to develop skills in communication and interaction with others. E.g. Talk Boost
- An adapted and individualised curriculum
- Adapted delivery and tasks
- Planning for different learning styles with multi sensory approaches
- Use of scaffolds; such as writing frames, word banks, sentence stems, illustrated dictionaries/word banks/thesauruses, checklists
- Oracy opportunities that are supported and adapted
- Daily phonics for children, including Keep Up and Catch Up interventions
- Labelled resources and equipment, supported with picture aids
- Individual mini whiteboards and pens.
- Visual timetables/individual visual timetable if required
- Interactive whiteboard in each classroom
- Use of technology - laptop, ipads and visualisers
- Input from Speech and Language service
- Input from ASD Outreach
- Mentoring and buddy systems
- Planned transitions
SEND Admissions
For information on the admission of pupils with a disability, please visit the School Admissions section of our website and view the Accessibility Plan in our School Policies section.
If you would like to discuss your child’s SEN in more detail, please speak to the class teacher.
The full range of local support available for children/ young people with SEND and their families within and outside of school can be found in the County Durham Local Offer