Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND)

As a small Church school, the wellbeing of the school community at Penshurst CE Primary School is a high priority. We are committed to inclusion for all children, whilst also meeting their individual needs as learners. For some children additional help is needed to support or extend their learning, at Penshurst we make provision for many kinds of frequently occurring special educational need.

What do we mean by Special Educational Needs and Disability or SEND?

The definition of SEND in the SEND Code of Practice is a child who has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be available.

A child has a learning difficulty if he or she:

• Has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age; or
• Has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in a mainstream school (SEN Code of Practice 2015, p 15)

Nationally, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities are currently identified in four broad areas of need:

• Cognition and Learning (C&L)
• Communication and Interaction (C&I)
• Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH)
• Sensory and/or Physical need

We know that children learn and develop in different ways so use different teaching styles, resources and plan different levels of work, along with many other approaches. This is called Quality First Teaching. We aim to identify any difficulties early.

We use a variety of strategies and adjustments to make our classrooms child friendly:

• Daily visual timetable in all classrooms
• Visual support during lessons, for example, word banks, physical resources, number lines and times tables squares
• Support with specific new vocabulary for all subjects
• Use of a dyslexia friendly font for printing
• Task management boards to help personal organisation
• Sensory items such as move ‘n sit cushions, hand fidget items, pencil grips if required
• Clear displays to embed knowledge and learning
• Communicate in Print to include visuals with text
• Use of ICT where identified as a support

Some examples of intervention groups include:

• Catch up readers in small groups
• 1:1 frequent readers
• Touch typing
• Handwriting support
• Focus maths groups
• Jump ahead/BEAM to support fine and gross motor skills

SEND Document