Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

At Silchester, we believe that every child deserves to be nurtured with love, treated with respect and given every opportunity to flourish.  We are an inclusive mainstream school that welcomes all children aged between 4-11 years. We aspire to meet the needs of every child and provide access to education for all our learners with SEND, within the parameters of a mainstream educational setting.

A child or young person has Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) if they have “significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age” and requiring “special educational provision to be made” for them (SEND Code of Practice, 2015).

When a child is communicating that they are experiencing difficulties accessing learning, we consider a range of factors that may be influencing their experiences at school at a specific point in time, one of which may be any SEND. 

When considering SEND, we identify any barriers to learning across four broad areas of need and ensure that appropriate support is in place for every child to thrive socially, emotionally and academically.

At Silchester, we understand that at different times children may require different levels of support. We aim to:-

• Be inclusive by ensuring all pupils have equitable opportunities and feel valued, respected and supported;
• Adopt a child-centred approach to supporting pupils with SEND;
• Ensure that all pupils with SEND thrive in our setting and make good progress (relative to their starting points and targets); 
• Plan an effective and varied curriculum that addresses how to help pupils with SEND overcome their barriers to learning;
• Support staff development to enhance their skills, knowledge and confidence in supporting children with SEND. 
• Work in partnership with parents/carers of children with SEND by providing relevant training, signposting support and ensuring communication is effective. 
• Make the best use of the resources available to the school to support our most vulnerable children. 
• Establish and maintain effective and efficient systems and processes for identifying, tracking and assessing our SEND provision.

We recognise that every child learns differently and appreciate that for all children, including those with SEND, support may look a little different for them. As an inclusive school, we use a graduated approach to adapt our provision to support every pupil, every day, in every part of our school (Diagram 1).

• As a starting point, we provide Ordinarily Available Provision (OAP) to help all children learn, including those with SEND. This involves modifying our learning environments, teaching methods, and visual supports to promote inclusivity for all learners.
• OAP can be sub-divided into two layers; universal support aims to provide every learner with access to high quality, whole class teaching, whilst targeted support seeks to ensure the needs of all learners are being met with simple additions and adaptations (also known as ‘reasonable adjustments’).
• We recognise that there are times when additional SEND support may be required (beyond OAP) to support a child with learning difficulties or disabilities to make expected progress. When considering SEND support, every child at Silchester is considered individually. 
• We understand that sometimes a child’s special education, health and social care needs are too significant or complex to be met through our SEND support and they may require more intensive support through an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP). 

Working together as a team of class teachers, support staff, SENDCo (Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator) and our broader School Leadership team, we all strive for every child at Silchester to experience success. We recognise that every child has a unique understanding of their own needs, feelings, and thoughts and we encourage pupils to express their views and take an active part in decisions about the support they receive in our school.

We value working in partnership with all our parents/carers and want them to feel encouraged to play an active role in their child’s education. We recognise that parents and carers hold essential information about their child, and their knowledge and experience are vital in developing a shared understanding of the child’s needs and how best to support them. We encourage any existing parent/carer with a question or concern regarding their child to contact their class teacher. Our SENDCo, Mrs Louise Pulford, is also available should you wish to follow up with her directly via email SENCO@silchester.hants.sch.uk or the School Office. 

The following tabs show details of our SEN Information Report and Parent Guide to SEN. Our SEND policy is available in the Policy section of our website.

Please also see link to our Local Offer: Family Information and Services Hub | Hampshire's Local Offer for Special Educational Needs and / or Disabilities (hants.gov.uk)