SEND

The Code of Practice provides statutory guidance on duties, policies and procedures relating to Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 and associated regulations and applies to England. It relates to children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) and disabled children and young people. A ‘young person’ in this context is a person over compulsory school age and under 25. Compulsory school age ends on the last Friday of June in the academic year in which they become 16.

Ethos Academy Trust pay due regard to the following related guidance:

• Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018): Statutory guidance from the Department for Education which sets out what is expected of organisations and individuals to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
• The Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations
• Equality Act 2010: Advice for Schools: Non-statutory advice from the Department for Education, produced to help schools understand how the Equality Act affects them and how to fulfil their duties under the Act
• Reasonable Adjustments for Disabled Pupils (2012)
• Supporting Pupils at School with Medical Conditions (2014): statutory guidance from the Department for Education

Where a pupil is identified as having SEN, schools should take action to remove barriers to learning and put an effective special educational provision in place. This SEN support should take the form of a four-part cycle through which earlier decisions and actions are revisited, refined and revised with a growing understanding of the pupil’s needs and of what supports the pupil in making good progress and securing good outcomes. This is known as the graduated approach. It draws on more detailed approaches, more frequent review and more specialist expertise in successive cycles in order to match interventions to the SEN of children and young people.

The principles designed to support this include:

• Child and family centred approaches
• Early identification
• Collaboration between education, health and social care
• High-quality provision
• Inclusive practice and removal of barriers
• High aspirations

Where a school has concerns about whether a pupil has special educational needs or that they are not progressing as expected, this should be discussed with both the parent and the child. In order to ensure support of any special educational needs and educational progress, the first step is to gain an understanding of the pupil’s strengths and weaknesses through assessment.

All settings should have clear approaches to support the identification and response to SEN through assessment, observation and building upon information from previous settings. This should be built into the overall approach to monitoring progress and development of all children and young people in education settings.

For those children and young people whose needs, outcomes and provision appear more complex than can be effectively managed through a provision map, or for whom a provision map has been in place without satisfactory progress being made and outside agencies are now becoming involved, a more personalised and detailed plan is likely to be more appropriate. A Support Plan can be put in place; this is a plan has many similarities to the format of an Education, Health and Care Plan and should always be put in place before a request for an EHC Assessment.