St Aubyn's School

Education Offer

Overview

St Aubyn’s is an independent, co-educational preparatory school for children aged 3-13 years. The school is non-selective on entry, which results in a mixed-ability cohort. 5% of pupils have a special educational need.

Identifying children's needs

If your child is not making sufficient progress, the school will set up a meeting to discuss this with you in more detail and to:

• Listen to any concerns you may have.
• Plan any additional support your child may receive
• You may be asked to give your permission for the school to refer your child to a specialist professional e.g. Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. This will help you and the school understand your child's particular needs better and be able to support them more effectively in school. Please note: Specialists fees will not be paid by the school.
• If your child received additional learning support, termly reports on your child’s progress in these sessions will be collated and emailed to you by the head of Additional Learning.
• For more detailed conversations, you will be asked to attend extraordinary meetings with your child’s class teacher and the Head of Additional Learning.

Dedicated contacts

Class/subject teacher:

Responsible for:

• Checking on the progress of your child and identifying planning and delivering any additional help your child may need (this could be things like targeted work, additional support) and letting the Head of Year and Head of Additional Learning know as necessary.
• Co-writing Pupil Summaries with the Head of Additional Learning, sharing and reviewing these with parents at least once each team and planning for the next term.
• Ensuring that the school’s SEND Policy is followed in their classroom and for all the pupils they teach with any SEND.

The Head of Additional Learning:

Responsible for:

• Coordinating all the support for children with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) and developing the school’s SEND Policy to make sure all children get a consistent, high quality response to meeting their needs in school.
• Ensuring that all staff working with your child in school are able to deliver the planned work/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.
• Updating the school’s SEND register (a system for ensuring all the SEND needs of pupils in this school are known) and making sure that there are excellent records of your child’s progress and needs.
• Providing specialist support for teachers and support staff in the school so they can help children with SEND in the school achieve the best progress possible.
• Working closely with the Deputy Head (Curriculum) to ensure the use of Quality First Teaching across the 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.

Head Teacher:

Responsible for:

• The day to day management of all aspects of the school, this includes the support for children with SEND.
• The Head Teacher will give responsibility to the Head of Additional Learning and the class teachers but is still responsible for ensuring that your child’s needs are met.
• The Head Teacher must make sure that the Governing Body is kept up to date about any issues in school relating to SEND

SEND Governor:

Responsible for:

Making sure that the necessary support is made for any child who attends the school who has SEND.

Involving children and their families

Twice-yearly parent’s evenings and half termly progress reports are provided as standard for all parents. Pupils who receive additional learning support also receive a termly report on their progress in learning support sessions.

Additional Learning support will not be provided without first informing parents or carers. Where further internal or external assessment is required, parents will be called into school for a meeting to discuss the available options.

Where an application for an Education Health Care Plan is thought prudent, parents will be involved in, and given final approval of all aspects of the application.

Children who capable of having an input into their additional learning provision, will be consulted and where possible, attempts will be made to cater to their personal preferences.

Range of support available

Class teacher input via excellent targeted classroom teaching also known as Quality First

Teaching

• For your child this would mean:
• That the teacher had 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.
• At times the teacher may direct Teaching Assistants to work with your child as part of normal working practice.
• Different styles of teaching are in place so that your child is fully involved in learning in class. This may involve things like using more practical learning.
• Specific strategies (which may be suggested by the Head of Additional Learning or outside staff) 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 gaps 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 part of excellent classroom, practice when needed.
• Specific group work with in a smaller group of children.

These groups, often called intervention groups, may be:

• Run in the classroom or outside.
• Run by a teacher or a Teaching Assistant who has had training to run these groups.

Additional Learning Support

This type of support is available for any child who has specific gaps in their understanding of a subject/area of learning. This means they have been identified by the class teacher as needing some extra support in school.

For your child this would mean:

• He/she will engage in group sessions with specific targets to help him/her to make progress.
• A teacher or teaching assistant or outside professional (like a Speech and Language Therapist) will run these small group sessions using the teacher’s plan.
• Specialist groups run by outside agencies e.g. Speech and Language therapy or Occupational therapy groups.

Specialist Support

This means they have been identified by the Head of Additional Learning as needing some extra specialist support in school from a professional outside the school. This may be from:

• Local Authority central services such as ASD Outreach or Sensory Service (for pupils with a hearing or visual need).
• Outside agencies such as the Speech and Language therapy (SALT) Service.
• Independent professionals, for example an Educational Psychologist

For your child this would mean:

• Your child will have been identified by the class teacher or SENCO (or you will have raised your own concerns) as needing more specialist input instead of or in addition to quality first teaching and intervention groups.
• You will be called to a meeting to discuss your child’s progress and help plan possible ways forward.
• You may be asked to give your permission for the school to refer your child to a specialist professional e.g. a Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. This will help you and the school understand your child’s particular needs better and be able to support them more effectively in school. Please note: Specialists’ fees will not be paid by the school.

The specialist professional will work with your child to understand their needs and make recommendations, which may include:

• Making changes to the way your child is supported in class e.g. some individual support or changing some aspects of teaching to support them better.
• Support to set better targets which will include their specific expertise.
• A group run by school staff under the guidance of the outside professional e.g. a social skills group.
• A group or individual work with outside professional.

The school may suggest that your child needs some individual support in school. They will tell you how the support will be used and what strategies will be put in place. This type of support is available for children with specific barriers to learning that cannot be overcome through Quality First Teaching and intervention groups.

Specified Individual support

This is usually provided via an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). This means your child will have been identified by the class teacher or Head of Additional Learning as needing a particularly high level of support or small group teaching (the amount of hours will be specified by a Statement of Special Educational Needs), which cannot be provided from the budget available to the school. Usually your child will also need support from professional outside the school. This may be from:

• Local Authority central services such as the ASD Outreach Team or Sensory Service (for students with a hearing or visual need).
• Outside agencies such as the Speech and Language therapy (SALT) Service.

For your child this would mean:

The school (or you) can request that the Local Authority carry out a statutory assessment of your child’s needs. This is a legal process which sets out the amount of support that will be provided for your child.

After the school have sent in the request to the Local Authority (with a lot of information about your child, including some from you), they will decide whether they think your child’s needs (as described in the paperwork provided), seem complex enough to need a statutory assessment. If this is the case they will ask you and all the professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs. If they do not think your child needs this, they will ask the school to continue with the support at School Action Plus stage.

After the reports have all been sent to the Local Authority (L.A), the L.A will then decide if your child’s needs are severe, complex and lifelong and that they need more specified extra support in school to make good progress. If this is the case they will write a Statement of Special Educational Needs or Education Health Care Plan (EHCP). If this is not the case they will ask the school to continue with the support at School Action Plus stage and also set up a meeting in school to ensure a plan is in place to ensure your child makes as much progress as possible.

The Statement or ECHP 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 place. It will also have long and short term goals for your child.

Local Authority funding might be used to pay for an additional adult to support your child with whole class learning, run individual programmes or run small groups including your child.

This type of support is available for children whose learning needs are:

• Severe, complex and lifelong
• Need more than a specified number of hours support in school

Measuring children's progress

The class teacher will closely monitor your child’s progress on a daily basis. They will report to the relevant Head of Department and the Head of Additional Learning each term, to update them on your child’s progress and any necessary adaptations to their support.

You will be kept informed through twice yearly parents evenings, half termly progress reports and termly additional learning reports, if your child received additional support.

Support and training for school staff

The Head of Additional Learning has received training through the OCR Level 7 Diploma in Specific Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia focus). All teachers and teaching assistants receive termly training in SEND and have access to a large database of resources and information to assist their planning and teaching.

Accessibility of the school

As a new build, the school has full disabled access and is fully accessible.  

Inclusion

All pupils, regardless of learning need, are entitled to attend after-school clubs and school trips. However, we may have individual conversations with parents regarding the suitability of some activity choices, based on a child’s learning needs. Additional support for after-school clubs and school trips can be provided for individual pupils with the need for closer supervision or assistance.

Transition arrangements

We work closely with secondary schools to ensure a smooth transition for SEND pupils. Advice and support is offered to parents when selecting schools, usually by appointment with the Deputy Head (Curriculum) or the Head of Additional Learning. Early contact with schools is made, usually in the Lent Term, and individual visits (to the new school, or by secondary school staff to St Aubyn’s) can be arranged for SEND pupils and parents who require them.

Individual support for pupils who are preparing for a transition is often provided, particularly during the move from Middle School to Senior School (Year 5 to Year 6) and for school leavers at 11+ and 13+.

Support and training for parents and carers

• Parent/ learning support groups
• Coffee mornings with parents

Further information

All relevant information appears on the school website, see SEN Handbook.