SEND
Key documents
If you would like to view our Accessibility Plan and/or SEND Policy, you can find these on our Policies page.
SEND Information Report - downloadable version
SEN Information Report
September 2024-September 2025
1. What types of SEN does the school provide for?
2. Which staff will support my child, and what training have they had?
3. What should I do if I think my child has SEN?
4. How will the school know if my child needs SEN support?
5. How will the school measure my child’s progress?
6. How will I be involved in decisions made about my child’s education?
7. How will my child be involved in decisions made about their education?
8. How will the school adapt its teaching for my child?
9. How will the school evaluate whether the support in place is helping my child?
10. How will the school resources be secured for my child?
11. How will the school make sure my child is included in activities alongside pupils who don’t have SEND?
12. How does the school make sure the admissions process is fair for pupils with SEN or a disability?
13. How does the school support pupils with disabilities?
14. How will the school support my child’s mental health and emotional and social development?
15. What support will be available for my child as they transition between classes or settings or in preparing for adulthood?
16. What support is in place for looked-after and previously looked-after children with SEN?
17. What should I do if I have a complaint about my child’s SEN support?
18. What support is available for me and my family?
19. Glossary
Dear parents and carers,
The aim of this information report is to explain how we implement our SEND policy. This report outlines the provision available in our school and how we meet statutory SEND requirements.
If you want to know more about our arrangements – including our approach and ethos - for SEND, read our SEND policy. You can find it on our Policies page here.
Note: If there are any terms we’ve used in this information report that you’re unsure of, you can look them up in the Glossary at the end of the report.
1. What types of SEN does the school provide for?
Children with a wide variety of needs (as outlined below) have been or are supported throughout the school year following the process outlined in our special educational needs policy. Children’s needs are outlined on their pupil passport and/or individual support plan and reviewed at least three times during the academic year. The most common area of need on the SEND register at King Offa is communication and interaction, which is in line with schools nationally. There is, however, a continued and notable increase in the number of children who fall into the social emotional and mental health category.
Our school has previously provided for pupils with the following needs:
AREA OF NEED: DIAGNOSES/CONDITION/TYPE
- Communication and interaction: Autism Speech, language and communication needs, Situational mutism, Developmental Language Disorder.
- Cognition and learning: Specific learning difficulties, including dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, Moderate learning difficulties , Severe learning difficulties
- Social, emotional and mental health: Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), Attention deficit disorder (ADD), Attachment needs, Anxiety.
- Sensory and/or physical: Hearing impairments, Visual impairment, Multi-sensory impairment, Physical impairment and/or disability
We are fully inclusive, making provision for all frequently occurring special educational needs mentioned above with or without an Education Health and Care Plan. There are other kinds of special educational needs which do not occur as frequently and with which the school may be less familiar however training and advice would be accessed so that those needs can be met.
2. Which staff will support my child, and what training have they had?
At King Offa Primary Academy, all staff are considered responsible for supporting the needs of children with SEND. There are key staff within the SEND provision at our school:
Our special educational needs co-ordinator, or SENCO
Our SENCO is Mrs Tess Gale. She has 2 years experience in this role in a different county and prior to this worked as Early Years SENCO, Early Years Lead and a classroom teacher. She is a qualified teacher and she achieved the National Award for Special Educational Needs CoOrdination in 2022. Mrs Gale works at King Offa full time as one of the Assistant Headteachers and meetings can be booked via the school office. Mrs Gale is responsible for overseeing the SEND provision – supporting classroom teams, providing training or organising external agencies to provide this, advising on the graduated approach and leading the statutory process of applying for and reviewing Education, Health and Care Plans. Mrs Gale is responsible for developing the strategic vision of SEND and Inclusion at KOPA. Mrs Gale also works within the trust’s SENCO Network to develop best SEND practice across all Aurora schools.
Class Teachers
Class teachers are responsible for the progress of all learners in their class – including those with SEND. All our teachers receive in-house SEN training, and are supported by the SENCO to meet the needs of pupils who have SEN. Class teachers should be the first port of call if you have questions or concerns about the development or progress of your child.
Teaching assistants (TAs)
We have a team of TAs, including 1 higher-level teaching assistant (HLTA), who are all trained in-house to deliver SEND provision. TA training has recently included:
❖ Jump Ahead
❖ Talking Partners
❖ Confidence Group
❖ Friendship Groups
❖ Sensory circuits
❖ Handwriting programme (KS2)
❖ BRP
❖ Fresh Start training
❖ RWI Coaching
❖ Speech and Language Link
❖ Lego Therapy
❖ SALT programmes
❖ Epilepsy and diabetes medication training
External agencies and experts
Sometimes we need to seek support from external services to offer our pupils the provision that they need. These may include:
• Speech and language therapists
• CLASS (Communication, Learning and Autism Support Service)
• Educational psychologists
• Occupational therapists
• GPs or paediatricians
• School nurses
• Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS)
• Education welfare officers
• Social services and other LA-provided support services
• Voluntary sector organisations
3. What should I do if I think my child has SEN?
If you think your child might have SEN, the first person you should tell is your child’s teacher. This could be at a parent consultation or you can arrange a meeting via the school office. They will meet with you to discuss your concerns and try to get a better understanding of what your child’s strengths and difficulties are.
Together, we will decide what outcomes to seek for your child and agree on next steps. We will make a note of what’s been discussed and add this to your child’s record. You will also be given a copy of this. If we decide that your child needs continued support which is additional to and/or different from that of their peers, we will formally notify you in writing and your child will be added to the school’s SEND register.
You can also contact the SENCO directly at tgale@KingOffaPA.org.uk
4. How will the school know if my child needs SEN support?
We follow a graduated response, as outlined in the SEND Code of Practice and in our policy, in response to a child’s needs. We assess each pupil’s skills and level of attainment when they start the school year using baseline assessments. We can then identify any pupils making less than expected progress given their age and individual circumstances at assessment points through the year and/or in the resulting pupil progress meetings.
This is characterised as progress which:
❖ Is significantly slower than that of their peers starting from the same baseline
❖ Fails to match or better the child’s previous rate of progress
❖ Fails to close the attainment gap between the child and their peers
❖ Widens the attainment gap
If the teacher notices that a pupil is falling behind, they try to find out if the pupil has any gaps in their learning or lagging skills. If they can find a gap, they will give the pupil extra tuition to try to fill it. Pupils who don’t have SEN usually make progress quickly once the gap in their learning has been filled.
If this is not the case, the class teacher will meet with parents/family to discuss the plan for moving forwards. As a part of the planning stage of the graduated approach, we will set outcomes that we want to see your child achieve. We will often plan ‘targets’ which will be small steps towards the planned outcome. Ideally, this will be created collaboratively with both the child and their family.
Whenever we run an intervention with your child, we will assess them before the intervention begins. This is known as a ‘baseline assessment’. We do this so we can see how much impact the intervention has on your child’s progress.
At the next review, if the progress has still been less than expected, the SENCO may observe the pupil in the classroom or in the playground to see what their strengths and difficulties are. They will have discussions with your child’s teacher/s, to see if there have been any issues with, or changes in, their progress, attainment or behaviour. They will also compare your child's progress and development with their peers and available national data.
The SENCO will ask for your opinion and speak to your child to get their input as well. They may also, where appropriate, ask for the opinion of external experts such as a speech and language therapist, an educational psychologist, or a paediatrician. The SENCO may also conduct or arrange further in house assessments, such as the British Picture Vocabulary Scale or the Dyslexia portfolio.
Based on all of this information, the SENCO will decide whether your child needs SEN support. If your child does need SEN support that is additional to or different from their peers, their name will be added to the school’s SEN register. This provision will be reflected in either a pupil profile or an individual support plan, depending on the level of support required.
We will continue to track your child’s progress towards the outcomes and the impact the interventions are having. This process will be ongoing and cyclical. If the review shows a pupil has made progress or reached the desired outcome, they may no longer need the additional provision made through SEN support. For others, the cycle will continue and the school's targets, strategies and provisions will be revisited and refined.
We follow the ‘graduated approach’ to meeting your child’s SEN needs.
The graduated approach is a 4-part cycle of assess, plan, do, review.
Assess
If your child is not making the expected level of progress, we will make an assessment to find out what strengths and difficulties your child has. We will ask for you and your child’s input, as well as getting help from external professionals where necessary.
Plan
In discussion with you and your child, we will decide what outcomes we are hoping to achieve. We will make a plan of the support we will offer your child to help them meet those outcomes. We will make a record of this and share it with you and all relevant school staff.
Do
We will put our plan into practice. The class teacher, with the support of the SENCO, will be responsible for working with your child on a daily basis, and making sure the support we put in place is having the impact we intended.
Review
We will assess how well the support we put in place helped the pupil to meet the outcomes we set. We will use our improved understanding your child's needs to improve the support we offer.
5. How will the school measure my child’s progress?
At King Offa Primary Academy we track attainment and progress data using STAR assessment. This assessment data is prepared by teachers three times a year. Following this, the SENCO will review the progress and attainment data for every child to ascertain where individual support or whole school provision needs to be made.
Progress is also measured at the beginning and end of interventions so that we can ensure these provisions are supporting children to reach their outcomes. This is recorded on our ProvisionMap software. The SENCO will have oversight of this data and advise class teachers on any changes needed.
Individual Support Plans are reviewed with parents at least three times a year. The class teacher and family will discuss the child’s progress towards their targets and outcomes. Attainment data may inform this conversation, as well as more holistic measures of progress such as engagement with learning or greater wellbeing. The SENCO may attend these meetings if required but will quality assure and have strategic oversight of all plans.
6. How will I be involved in decisions made about my child’s education?
We will provide annual reports on your child's progress.
If your child is on the SEND register, your child’s class teacher will meet you at least three times a year to:
• Set clear outcomes for your child’s progress
• Review progress towards those outcomes
• Review the support we have put in place to help your child make that progress in the form of either a pupil passport or provision plan in terms 2, 4 and 6
• Identify what we will do, what we will ask you to do, and what we will ask your child to do.
The SENCO may attend some of these meetings to provide extra support. The SENCO will also be available at parents’ evenings. There will also be termly SEND Drop In sessions for the school community to discuss SEND provision at both the individual child and whole school level.
We know that you’re the expert when it comes to your child’s needs and aspirations. We want to make sure you have a full understanding of how we’re trying to meet your child’s needs, so that you can provide insight into what you think would work best for your child.
We also want to hear from you as much as possible so that we can build a better picture of how the SEN support we are providing is impacting your child outside of school.
If your child’s needs or aspirations change at any time, please let us know right away so we can keep our provision as relevant as possible.
After any discussion we will make a record of any outcomes, actions and support that have been agreed. This record will be shared with all relevant staff, and you will be given a copy. If you have concerns that arise between these meetings, please contact your child’s class teacher. You can arrange a meeting by emailing the school office.
If your child has an EHCP, you will be invited to a review annually. The invitation for this will be sent out at least two weeks before, with any professional reports for consideration at the meeting. You will have opportunity at the annual review to share your thoughts regarding your child’s progress towards their outcomes and the provision in place.
7. How will my child be involved in decisions made about their education?
The level of involvement will depend on your child’s age and communication level. We will make reasonable adjustments to ensure your child’s voice is heard. We will discuss your child’s one page profile or ISP with them to ensure they are able to advocate for themselves as part of person-centred practice.
We may seek your child’s views by asking them to:
• Attend meetings to discuss their progress and outcomes
• Prepare a presentation, written statement, video, drawing, etc.
• Share their views using a talk mat or communication board
• Discuss their views with a member of staff who can act as a representative during the meeting
• Share their accomplishments in the form of completed tasks or photos
8. How will the school adapt its teaching for my child?
Your child’s teacher(s) are/is responsible and accountable for the progress and development of all the pupils in their class. High-quality teaching is our first step in responding to your child’s needs. We will make sure that your child has access to a broad and balanced curriculum in every year they are at our school. We will adapt how we teach to ensure your child’s access to their learning. We work on a case-by case basis to make sure the adjustments we make are meaningful to your child. We may also provide specific interventions, however, high quality teaching is the most important consideration for the progress of all learners, including those with SEND.
We are guided by the East Sussex SEN Matrix to ensure that our teaching conforms to best practice.
Some examples of these adaptations and strategies include:
• Differentiating our curriculum to make sure all pupils are able to access it, for example, by grouping, 1-to-1 work, ensuring there are a range of scaffolded tasks, using dual coding to support processing
• Differentiating our teaching, for example, giving longer processing times, pre-teaching of key vocabulary, reading instructions aloud, etc.
• Adapting our resources and staffing
• Using recommended aids, such as laptops, coloured overlays, visual timetables, larger font, etc.
9. How will the school evaluate whether the support in place is helping my child?
We will evaluate the effectiveness of provision for your child by:
• Reviewing their progress towards their outcomes/targets at least three times a year
• Reviewing the impact of interventions
• Using pupil questionnaires
• Monitoring by the SENCO – learning walks, book looks and pupil panels
• Using provision maps to measure progress
• Holding an annual review (if they have an education, health and care (EHC) plan)
10. How will the school resources be secured for my child?
It may be that your child’s needs mean we need to secure:
• Extra equipment or facilities
• More teaching assistant hours
• Further training for our staff
• External specialist expertise
If that’s the case, we will consult with external agencies to get recommendations on what will best help your child access their learning.
The school will cover up to £6,000 of any necessary costs. If funding is needed beyond this, we will seek it from our local authority. If your child has an EHCP, the LA has a duty to provide funding to ensure the provision set out in Section F can be delivered.
11. How will the school make sure my child is included in activities alongside pupils who don’t have SEND?
All clubs, trips and activities offered to pupils at King Offa Primary Academy are available to pupils with special educational needs. No pupil is ever excluded from taking part in these activities because of their SEN or disability and we will make whatever reasonable adjustments are needed to make sure that they can be included, subject to safety and risk assessments.
12. How does the school make sure the admissions process is fair for pupils with SEN or a disability?
Children are admitted to the school through the Local Authority processes, either through school allocation in Reception, or an In-Year transfer at other times.
Children will be admitted to our school if we are the named placement on their EHCP and this is a separate route to the usual admissions process. For this route, please speak to Mrs Gale (SENCO) and/or your LA caseworker. Children with an EHCP entering the school in Reception will have their place allocated before any others. This is supported by the LA’s phase transfer process. Children with an EHCP can be admitted to a class, even if this takes the cohort over PAN.
For further information, please see our Admissions page here and advice on the Fair Access Protocol from East Sussex here.
13. How does the school support pupils with disabilities?
For detailed information on our plan to ensure accessibility for all, please see our accessibility plan on the Policies page here.
At KOPA, our values include Opportunity and Achievement for all pupils and this underpins our desire to ensure accessibility to our curriculum and core offer. Examples of this include: supporting a range of communication styles, such as using Makaton and visuals; PE planning that ensures activities are inclusive to support the participation of all learners as well as physical adjustments to our school site to ensure all can travel safely.
When necessary, the school will contact external agencies such as CLASS and the Sensory Needs Service for further advice and/or resources.
14. How will the school support my child’s mental health and emotional and social development?
We provide support for pupils to progress in their emotional and social development in the following ways:
• Pupils with SEN are encouraged to be part of the school council
• Pupils with SEN are also encouraged to be part of clubs to promote teamwork/building friendships
• We provide extra pastoral support for listening to the views of pupils with SEN when coproducing one page profiles and ISPs
• We have a pastoral lead to oversee our wellbeing curriculum, which is taught in all classes
• We have a Mental Health Practitioner who works with the school on a referral basis.
• We have a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to bullying. Please see our Anti-Bullying policy for more information, which can be found on our policies page.
15. What support will be available for my child as they transition between classes or settings or in preparing for adulthood?
Between years
To help pupils with SEND be prepared for a new school year we:
• Ask the next year’s teacher to attend final meeting of the year when the pupil’s SEN is discussed and a plan for the following year is made
• Schedule a transition morning with the incoming teacher towards the end of the summer term
• Prepare social stories and transition documents that the child can return to over the summer holidays
Between schools
For children on the SEND register, our SENCO will contact the new school directly to organise a handover, and share the SEND information we hold.
Between phases (for primary schools)
We will invite the SENCO of the secondary school into our school for a meeting with our SENCO. They will discuss the needs of all the children who are receiving SEND support.
Pupils will be prepared for the transition by:
• Practising with a secondary school timetable
• Preparing social stories for any areas of concern identified by the child, such as transport, making new friends or finding their lessons
16. What support is in place for looked-after and previously looked-after children with SEN?
Our SENCO is also the designated teacher for looked after children. This role is to make sure that all teachers understand how a looked-after or previously looked-after pupil’s circumstances and their SEN might interact, and what the implications are for teaching and learning.
Children who are looked-after or previously looked-after will be supported much in the same way as any other child who has SEND. However, looked-after pupils will have a personal education plan (PEP). We will make sure that the PEP and any SEN support plans or EHC plans are consistent and complement one another.
17. What should I do if I have a complaint about my child’s SEN support?
Complaints about SEN provision in our school should be made to the Headteacher in the first instance. They will then be referred to the school’s complaints policy (which can be found on our Policies page here).
If you are not satisfied with the school’s response, you can escalate the complaint. In some circumstances, this right also applies to the pupil themselves.
To see a full explanation of suitable avenues for complaint, see pages 246 and 247 of the SEN Code of Practice. If you feel that our school discriminated against your child because of their SEND, you have the right to make a discrimination claim to the first-tier SEND tribunal. To find out how to make such a claim, you should visit: https://www.gov.uk/complain-aboutschool/disability-discrimination
You can make a claim about alleged discrimination regarding:
• Admission
• Exclusion
• Provision of education and associated services
• Making reasonable adjustments, including the provision of auxiliary aids and services
Before going to a SEND tribunal, you can go through processes called disagreement resolution or mediation, where you try to resolve your disagreement before it reaches the tribunal. East Sussex use Global Mediation and you can find out more here.
18. What support is available for me and my family?
If you have questions about SEND, or are struggling to cope, please get in touch to let us know. We want to support you, your child and your family.
To see what support is available to you locally, have a look at East Sussex’s local offer. East Sussex publishes information about the local offer on their website: East Sussex Local Offer
Our local special educational needs and disabilities information advice and support services (SENDIASS) organisations are:
Amaze SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice and Support Service) are a local charity. They offer free, independent, and impartial advice for all matters relating to SEND. You can get their support throughout this process but we recommend you access their advice or support from the very start of the process.
Contact Amaze SENDIASS by:
• Phone - 01273 772 289
• Email - sendiass@amazesussex.org.uk •
Visit the Amaze SENDIASS web page
Local charities that offer information and support to families of children with SEND are:
National charities that offer information and support to families of children with SEND are:
• IPSEA
• NSPCC
19. Glossary
• Access arrangements – special arrangements to allow pupils with SEND to access assessments or exams
• Annual review – an annual meeting to review the provision in a pupil’s EHC plan
• Area of need – the 4 areas of need describe different types of needs a pupil with SEND can have. The 4 areas are communication and interaction; cognition and learning; physical and/or sensory; and social, emotional and mental health needs.
• CAMHS – child and adolescent mental health services
• CLASS – Communication, Learning and Autism Support Service
• Differentiation/adaptation – when teachers adapt how they teach in response to a pupil’s needs
• EHC needs assessment – the needs assessment is the first step on the way to securing an EHC plan. The local authority will do an assessment to decide whether a child needs an EHC plan.
• EHC plan – an education, health and care plan is a legally-binding document that sets out a child’s needs and the provision that will be put in place to meet their needs.
• First-tier tribunal/SEND tribunal – a court where you can appeal against the local authority’s decisions about EHC needs assessments or plans and against discrimination by a school or local authority due to SEND
• Graduated approach – an approach to providing SEN support in which the school provides support in successive cycles of assessing the pupil’s needs, planning the provision, implementing the plan, and reviewing the impact of the action on the pupil
• Individual Support Plan – a document which brings together outcomes for a child, along with shorter term targets and the provisions, strategies and resources that will be provided to support that child’s progress. These are reviewed at least three times a year.
• Intervention – a short-term, targeted approach to teaching a pupil with a specific outcome in mind
• LA – Local Authority (East Sussex)
• Local offer – information provided by the local authority which explains what services and support are on offer for pupils with SEN in the local area
• Outcome – target for improvement for pupils with SEND. These targets don't necessarily have to be related to academic attainment
• PAN – published admission number
• Reasonable adjustments – changes that the school must make to remove or reduce any disadvantages caused by a child’s disability
• SENCO – the special educational needs co-ordinator
• SEN – special educational needs
• SEND – special educational needs and disabilities
• SEND Code of Practice – the statutory guidance that schools must follow to support children with SEND
• SEN information report – a report that schools must publish on their website, that explains how the school supports pupils with SEN
• SEN support – special educational provision which meets the needs of pupils with SEN
• Transition – when a pupil moves between years, phases, schools or institutions or life stages