Supporting Children With Special Educational Needs

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirement: Equal Opportunities

Providers must have and implement a policy, and procedures, to promote equality of opportunity for children in their care, including support for children with special educational needs or disabilities.

9.2 Supporting children with special educational needs

Policy statement

We provide an environment in which all children with special educational needs (SEN) are supported to reach their full potential.

• We have regard for the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (2014).
• We have in place a clear approach for identifying, responding to, and meeting children’s SEN[1].
• We support and involve parents (and where relevant children), actively listening to, and acting on their wishes and concerns.
• We work in partnership with the local authority and other external agencies to ensure the best outcomes for children with SEN and their families.
• We regularly monitor and review our policy, practice and provision and, if necessary, make adjustments.

Procedures

• We designate a member of staff to be the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) and give his/her name to parents. Our SENCO is:

TRACEY MARRS  

• The SENCO works closely with our manager and other colleagues and has responsibility for the day-to-day operation of our Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs Policy and for coordinating provision for children with SEN.
• We ensure that the provision for children with SEN is the responsibility of all members of the setting.
• We ensure that our inclusive admissions practice ensures equality of access and opportunity.
• We provide a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum for all children.
• We apply SEN support to ensure early identification of children with SEN.
• We use the graduated approach system (assess, plan, do and review) applied in increasing detail and frequency to ensure that children progress.
• We ensure that parents are involved at all stages of the assessment, planning, provision and review of their children’s special education including all decision making processes
• We where appropriate, take into account children’s views and wishes in decisions being made about them, relevant to their level understanding.
• We provide parents with information on local sources of support and advice e.g. Local Offer, Information, Advice and Support Service.
• We liaise and work with other external agencies to help improve outcomes for children with SEN.
• We have systems in place for referring children for further assessment e.g. Common Assessment Framework/Early Help Assessment and Education, Health and Care (EHC) assessment.
• We provide resources (human and financial) to implement our Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs Policy.
• We ensure that all our staff are aware of our Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs Policy and the procedures for identifying, assessing and making provision for children with SEN. We provide in-service training for parents, practitioners and volunteers.
• We raise awareness of our special education provision via our website and or promotional materials.
• We ensure the effectiveness of our special educational needs provision by collecting information from a range of sources e.g. action plan reviews, staff and management meetings, parental and external agency’s views, inspections and complaints. This information is collated, evaluated and reviewed annually.
• We provide a complaints procedure.
• We monitor and review our policy annually.

Further guidance

• Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework (DfE 2014)
• Working Together to Safeguard Children (DfE 2015)
• Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (DfE & DoH 2014)

[1] This includes disabled children with special educational needs