Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) at Westbourne Primary School

Westbourne is a mainstream primary school that supports each child to thrive personally, socially and academically. We give our children opportunities to develop enquiring minds, a lifelong love of learning and to become well rounded member of the community.

At Westbourne, we strongly believe in celebrating every success and preparing our children for the future. We acknowledge that support should be offered within the classroom environment where possible, but recognise that there are also occasions when some children will receive support in a setting more suitable for their learning needs. We aim to work alongside other agencies providing both emotional and practical support for parents and children whose needs require multi-agency partnerships.

We trust this information report below, together with our SEND policy, provides you with a flavour of our inclusive approach at Westbourne Primary School.

What is SEND?

The SEND Code of Practice defines Special Educational Need and Disability (SEND) as,

“A child or young person has a SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if they:

a) have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age: or

b) have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools.” (pg.16)

“A person is disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment which has a long term and substantial adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities” (The Equalities Act 2010, pg. 5).

Who to contact if I would like to express a concern about my child's learning needs?

If a parent has any concerns about their child, the first person to speak to will be the child's class teacher.  Class teachers are responsible for the progress of the children in their class and therefore, will be able to offer guidance and support for your child.

The school recognises that the parent knows their child best and will do what they can to support both child and parents.

We ensure that the parents are:

• Involved in supporting their child’s learning and can access the curriculum. 
• Kept informed about the range and level of support offered to their child’s development and progress. 
• Liaising with external agencies who can offer advice and support to help pupils overcome any difficulties. 
• Providing specialist advice and facilitating training to ensure that all staff are skilled and confident about meeting a range of needs. 

All concerns will be discussed with the school’s SENDCo – Mrs Aves.

So that parents are aware of the support available from our school, and through services within Sutton, we provide additional information in our SEND Information Report and SEND Policy (please see our website for links to these documents).

Further information about Sutton’s Local Offer for Special Educational Needs can be found on  the following website: https://suttoninformationhub.org.uk/pages/send-local-offer

Additional Support

Whereby a child is identified as not making expected progress, or their teacher feels that the child would benefit from extra support or intervention, they will look at ways in which they can support the child to overcome any barriers to learning they are facing.

At Westbourne, we have three levels of support a child can receive. These are called our ‘Waves of Intervention’.

All teachers provide children with Universal Support (Wave 1) through Quality First Teaching (QTF). Quality First Teaching is a style of teaching that emphasises high-quality, inclusive teaching for all pupils in a class. Quality First Teaching includes scaffolded learning, adaptive teaching, specific strategies to support pupils’ learning in class, ongoing formative assessment and, in short, is an approach that highlights the need for a personalised learning experience and encourages greater inclusion of pupils that need additional support or have SEND needs.

If QTF has been applied and the class teacher notices that a child is still not making expected progress alongside their peers, they will support the child through an intervention. An intervention is a short-term focused teaching programme aimed at particular pupils (or a group of pupils) to help them with specific areas of learning. This Targeted Support (Wave 2) aims to enable the child to meet the end of year expectations as set out in the National Curriculum. In order to monitor this intervention and support, the child would be placed onto an Individual Education Plan (IEP) and included on the school’s SEND register.

An Individual Education Plan (IEP) is a detailed plan that sets out targets and strategies to help your child learn. An IEP will usually contain three or four individual, short-term targets for your child to focus on. The targets may relate to aspects of the curriculum (English, Maths etc) and/or they may focus on other areas such as engagement in class, behaviour or social skills.

Targets are set by class teachers as part of the IEP process and are specific for the individual child. The targets are discussed and agreed upon with parents. This ensures that all adults who work with the child are aware of the support the child is receiving and can support them. Teachers evaluate and review the impact of the child’s IEP three times a year (October, February and May). Teachers use the Graduated Approach (Assess, Plan, Do, Review) to assess the impact of the targets and will write new targets if they feel it necessary.

Teachers regularly meet with the SENDCo to discuss concerns and next steps.

Over time, if little or no impact towards meeting the IEP targets has been observed, a referral to external agencies may be required. The SENDCo will speak with parents to discuss further support and explain the processes needed to access external support. At this stage, Specialist Support (Wave 3) will begin. (In the meantime, your child will continue to be supported through their IEP). Once external agencies have supported your child, and if your child’s needs continue to be a significant concern or no progress is being made after three cycles of the Assess, Plan, Do, Review process, a request for an EHCP (Education, Health, Care Plan) may be made to the local authority. Parents will be consulted as part of this process.

Education Wellbeing Service

The Education Wellbeing service -  part of South West London and St George's NHS Mental Health Trust - work with school communities across Wandsworth, Merton, Sutton and Richmond. They support children, young people, parents/carers and educational staff to support the Mental Health and Wellbeing of our Children and Young People.

Their YouTube channel has a wealth of resources on it to help support your young people with their mental wellbeing, be this through emotional regulation, big emotions, anxiety, sleep problems to name a few.

Sutton's SEND Charter - Click here