SEND

Welcome to our SEND Information Report which forms part of the Calderdale Local Offer for learners with Special Educational Needs or Disability (SEND) in accordance with the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice, January 2015 (Chapter 6, section 6.79). This report is also fully compliant with Regulation 51 and Schedule 1 of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.

All academy school proprietors the Governing Bodies of all maintained schools have a legal duty to publish an Information Report on their website about the implementation of the Governors’ or the proprietors’ policy for students with SEND. The information published will be updated annually. The Information Report also applies to all learners who are looked after by a local authority and have SEN.

When we talk about “provision”, we mean what we provide in order to meet the needs of a student and help them make progress at school which is appropriate to their age.

What is SEN?

At different times in their school career, a student may have a special educational need. The January 2015 Code of Practice defines Special Educational Need (SEN) as:

A child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. A child or young person of compulsory school age 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.
(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 a mainstream school or post-16 mainstream institution.

If a learner is identified as having SEN, we will make provision which is “additional to” or “different from” that provided for non-SEN learners (the normal differentiated curriculum), which is intended to overcome any barriers to their learning.

What is disability?

The Equality Act, 2010, gives the following definition of disability:

“A person has a disability for the purposes of this Act if they have a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and adverse long-term effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”

This definition of disability includes children and young people with long-term health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, epilepsy and cancer. Children and young people with such conditions do not necessarily have SEN, but there is a significant overlap between disability and SEN. A child or young person may therefore be covered by both SEN and disability legislation. Our facilities for helping disabled learners to access the school are described fully in the school's Accessibility Policy, available at:

Accessibility Plan

What is our approach to teaching students who have SEN?

Our approach is based on the ‘Graduated Approach’ set out in the SEN Code of Practice (2015). This is the practice of putting in place suitable SEN provision and then keeping it under review, with staff and parents working together, to always achieve effective support for a child.

At Park Lane Academy we believe in and practice participation for all. For us, the student and their family are at the heart of all we do.

We believe that all adults and students should participate in learning and we celebrate all members of our school community.
We celebrate an inclusive culture in our school and aim always to be as responsive as possible to the diverse backgrounds of our students, their interests, experience, knowledge and skills.
In this context, we do our very best to always encourage and support students with SEN to take part in whole-school activities during the school day or extra-curricular, at the end of the school day. This will include a range of activities such as:

Sports teams
Music enrichment activities
Subject specific clubs such as art
Fitness Club
Many others

We will always involve parents in how we support their child in such activities in the context of the SEN Code of Practice.

We value high-quality teaching (“Quality First Teaching”) for all students and monitor the quality of learning and teaching in the school. We use a range of methods to do this including regular observation, work scrutiny by Heads of Department/Faculty and Senior Leaders, learning and progress walks (when senior staff and/or SENCo follow a student or group of students to see at first hand their learning experiences), subject “health checks" and continuous, regular professional development training for all staff, and with a particular focus on SEND.

Our training of and support for staff, including all non-teaching staff, with regard to supporting SEN learners includes and currently includes:

Updates on the Special Needs Code of Practice, and on meeting the needs of students. From September 2018, staff are receiving regular training updates to promote understanding, assessment and practice around the wide range of Special Educational Needs at Park Lane Academy,
Guidance on working with students with SEN, their parents, and exemplar practice on how and when to consult more senior colleagues, including the SENCo, as part of the Graduated Approach’s “Assess-Plan-Do-Review” strategy so that we keep in mind how we can always improve what we do to help our students succeed,
Detailed guidance on how to differentiate for students with a range of (sometimes overlapping) SEN according to their need and keep this under review as part of our “Graduated Approach”,
Provision for staff of a Special Educational Needs Glossary to help all of our staff understand what SEN terms mean and how they can help students,
Provision for staff of ‘how to’ guides when working with young people with a wide range of SEN,
Provision of SENCo surgeries, after school, where colleagues can consult the SENCo on any issues relating to SEN and SEN learners,
Regular feedback from learning walks and observations.

Where necessary, school can access outside specialist expertise such as Educational Psychologist, Speech and Language Consultant, Health and Social Care bodies or charities which support students with emotional health issues by:

Standing service agreements with external service providers, such as Educational Psychologists,
Buying in additional support where necessary by means of traded agreements,
Referral to specialist external medical professionals, local Health and Social Care bodies and CAMHS for additional support on a wide range of issues which can affect learning and progress.

These are all in addition to school provision to support and improve the emotional and social development of children and young people, which includes:

1:1 mentoring and counselling sessions (weekly or fortnightly or more frequently as appropriate) with a key person to listen to the views of our students as well as offer guidance and support with issues such as bullying and family issues;
On-going development of our student council/student voice to promote and enable student voice and self-advocacy,

Discussion and action-planning, around issues which affect our students’ social and emotional health and well-being, at all subject, pastoral and senior team meetings. There is a particular focus on the needs of and provision for SEN and more vulnerable students.

We aim to create a learning environment which is flexible enough to meet the needs of all members of our school community. We regularly monitor the progress of all students, and staff continually assess progress to ensure that learning is taking place. Our whole-school system for monitoring progress includes tracking by subject teachers, form tutors, Heads of Department/Faculty, Pastoral Leaders, the SENCo and the Senior Leadership Team (SLT).

How do we identify and assess SEN at Park Lane Academy?

Most, but not all, of our students with SEN will have had their needs identified at primary school and we need to ensure that we support them as effectively as possible when they move to high school (“transitional support”).

We are therefore working to ensure that we have robust and monitored transitional support procedures in place so that we, as a high school, are aware of students’ needs at as early a stage as possible. As part of this on-going transitional support, information on a student’s needs and successful strategies for meeting them are also shared as part of a “360° profile” which is co-produced for higher need students involving information and evidence from their parents/carers, us and, as appropriate, from their primary school.

A sample 360° for an EHCP Student

Click Here to View

To offer a tiered approach we graduate our 360° plans depending on the student's needs. For those students of a higher need; but not in receipt of an EHCP, we have a version of the 360° profile to outline the student's needs (K+), support and strategies to help them.

A sample 360°for a K+ Student

Click Here To View

A student can have a 360° at any point in their school career and it is always produced in conjunction with stakeholders.

We try to always ensure that any identification of SEN involves the student, their parents/carers and their teachers. The Special Educational Needs & Disability Co-ordinator (SENCo) will also support with the identification of barriers to learning using a range of assessment tools/packages such as:

Internal screening/assessment:

YARCS Reading and Comprehension Assessment
Hodder Diagnostic Reading Analysis
Lucid Exact
GL Assessment Dyslexia Screener
GL Assessment Dyscalculia Screener
GL Assessment New Group Reading Test
GL Assessment New Group Spelling Test
Along with many other bespoke assessments/screeners

External support:

Referral to Educational Psychologist
Referral to a Speech and Language Therapist
Referral to CAMHS
Referral to other supporting agencies, including the voluntary sector

The assessment tools/packages are standardised/norm referenced which means that the results are compared against a large national sample of individuals of the same age. If the student is at an age expected or age-appropriate level they will score between 85 and 115 on the scale, with most individuals of that age group scoring around 100. It is important to remember that these assessment tools/packages can only provide a snapshot of a student’s abilities on that day as they can of course be influenced by other factors.

If a student has a significantly low score in one particular area, this doesn’t necessarily always mean that they have SEN as students can fall behind their peers for a number of reasons: they may have been absent from school; they may have attended a number of schools and not had consistent opportunities to learn and make age-appropriate progress; they may be new to English (“English as an additional language” or E.A.L.); they may have worries or anxieties which distract them from learning.

At Park Lane Academy, we are committed to ensuring that all students have equity of access to learning opportunities and we will intervene with those who are risk of not learning to age-expected and age-appropriate levels.

This doesn’t mean that all vulnerable or EAL students have SEN; only those with a learning difficulty that requires special educational provision will be identified as having SEN.

How do we support students with SEN and/or a disability at Park Lane Academy?

Every teacher adapts the curriculum to ensure access to learning for every student in their class. The Teacher Standards 2012 detail the expectations of all teachers and this is why at Park Lane Academy we place such emphasis on the professional development of all staff.

All staff participate in regular training to understand and know how to support a wide range of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. This is focused on developing and improving their expertise in:

Understanding the classroom and around-school experience of a student who has a particular kind of SEND.
What they can do as classroom teachers to help a student access classroom learning and become more widely involved around school
What they can do as professionals to improve the whole-school environment for our students with SEND.

This training can be in the form of workshops, twilight sessions, staff briefings and written information.

The Teacher Standards are available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teachersstandards

Teachers and the SEN Team use various strategies to adapt (differentiate) the curriculum. This might include, for example:

The use of IT and alternative technology
Targeted support of additional adults
Writing frames
Breaking tasks into smaller activities (“chunking”)
Peer support and buddy systems
Alternative resources
Simplified language
Extension activities to challenge the more able learner

All our students who are identified as having SEN are entitled to support that is “additional to” or “different from” the normal differentiated curriculum. The precise type of support is dependent on the individual’s learning needs and is intended to enable access to learning, overcoming the barrier to learning identified in the SEN. The learners with the most complex needs, this support can be detailed on a 360° Profile. These are modified and updated regularly as necessary (or as appropriate) as the learners develop and their needs change.

Student Intervention Strategy

Student Intervention Strategy

Learning Support Assistants

Park Lane Academy employs a team of Learning Support Assistants (LSAs), including one HLTA, and they work under the direction of the SENCo. These staff, together with the SENCo, form the SEND Learning Support team.

Our LSAs work in subject classrooms and the SEN base room as well as working with teachers to provide personalised learning programmes for students with special or additional needs. We always try to ensure as high a match as possible between the needs of a student or group of students, the subject in question, and the skills, experience and knowledge of the LSA. This is to achieve as far as possible a student-centred approach across the curriculum. Our LSAs therefore develop an improved knowledge of how our students learn best and are better placed to work collaboratively with teachers to deliver lessons designed to minimise an individual’s barriers to learning.

In addition to the specialist provision available within school we also seek advice and guidance as appropriate from specialist teams from Calderdale Local Authority and other contracted services, including:

Special Educational Needs team
The support team for children and young people on the autistic spectrum
Educational Psychologist

Wider Collaboration

Park Lane Academy is also a member of the South Pennines Academies. The schools within the Trust, and particularly the three high schools, collaborate to look at how they can be most effective in supporting our students who have SEN or any kind of additional need.

This can be through:

Joint professional development training for staff,
Groups of students working together to increase and improve the scope of peer support,
Teams of pastoral and subject staff working together to share effective practice and develop their skills,
Joint working with parents and carers,
Joint working of School leaders at all levels,
Wider safeguarding support, development and co-ordination,
Liaising with the Local Authority on a collective level,
Collectively commissioning training and other provisions.

How do we know if the support we offer and provide is effective?

Monitoring the progress of students is an integral part of teaching and leadership at Park Lane Academy.

Parents/carers, students and staff are involved in reviewing the impact and outcomes of SEN provision on a regular basis. We follow the “assess, plan, do, review” model of SEN Support from the SEN Code of Practice to ensure that parents/carers and their children are involved at each step. Before any additional provision is put in place to support a student with SEN, the SENCo, teaching staff as well as other stakeholders (examples are in the booklet- Student Intervention Strategy).

Students, their parents/carers and their teaching and support staff will be directly involved in reviewing progress:

This review can be built into the provision itself
It could be in the form of face-to-face meetings (such as at parent-teacher consultation events or 1:1 meetings with the SENCo/SEND staff)
It could be by means of telephone calls, email or two-way written communications/reports regular throughout the year, when progress and any next steps can be discussed and agreed.

We recommend that parents look at useful websites to help them understand all the issues around their child’s special educational needs and work with us to support their child. Two very good examples of such sites are Special Needs Jungle, available on:

http://www.specialneedsjungle.com/

and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS), available on:

http://www.calderdalesendiass.org.uk/

If a student has an EHCP, the same regular review conversations take place but the Plan will also be formally reviewed at least annually.

We always welcome the views of the students of Park Lane Academy. This can be through the Student Council as part of student voice, through registration or lesson time.

Other opportunities for learning

All students have equal opportunity to access extra-curricular activities at Park Lane Academy and the academy offers a wide range of additional clubs and activities. We are committed to making reasonable adjustments to encourage and ensure participation for all.

Transitional support: the next steps

Transition is a part of life for all learners. This can include:

Moving to Park Lane Academy from primary school or another high school
Moving from Park Lane Academy to another high school
Moving classes or groups within school
Having a new teacher
Moving from school to work or college.

Park Lane Academy is committed to working to ensure positive transitions occur.

Planning and support for transition is a particular and important element of our provision for all SEN students at Park Lane Academy. Planning for transition from Year 6 to secondary school begins as soon as possible in Year 6 and often in Year 5. For those students with EHCPs, the SENCo can be invited to attend the Annual Review in Year 6 and, wherever possible, in Year 5, to begin to build a picture of individual need and the support our academy can offer.

From Year 9, transition planning starts for the move into Key Stage 4 and from there into post-16 education, employment or training. The SENCo and Learning Support team work closely with other providers and settings to ensure a transition that is as smooth and positive as possible for students with SEN and/or disability.

Contact us and have your say

We welcome your feedback and future involvement in the development of our SEND Policy and this SEND Information Report so please do contact us.

The school contact number is: 01422 362215

Executive Principal: Mr Kash Rafiq

SEND Governor: Miss Kate Lunn

Acting SENCo: Miss A Shepherd

Assistant SENCo

& SEND Administrator: Mrs Carole Campbell

Useful links:

Park Lane Academy Accessibility Plan and Accessibility Improvement/Audit:

Accessibility Plan

Accessibility Improvement Plan 2020/21-2023/24

Disability Support at Park Lane Academy

Park Lane Academy SEND Information Report And Policy

SEND Policy

The Calderdale Local Offer for SEND:

https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/v2/residents/education-and-learning/local-offer-children-special-needs-and-disabilities

If you have any concerns, questions or complaints regarding Special Educational Needs or Disabilities, please do not hesitate to contact Miss A Shepherd (Acting SENCo) or Mrs C Campbell (Assistant SENCo & SEND Administrator) on the above phone number, or by email on:

admin@parklane.org.uk or campbellc@parklane.org.uk

Should we not be able to resolve these concerns you can refer to the academy's complaints policy for further information.

Procedure for Handling Complaints

This document was reviewed : October 2022

Reviewed by : Mr M Alderson

Review due by : November 2023