Special Educational Needs

At St. Martin at Shouldham, we believe that every child has the ability to achieve and find success during their time with us. We aim to establish pupils' strengths and educational needs as soon as they start school and in this way, develop programmes of support that will help all of our pupils achieve their potential in their future.

Special Educational Provision means different or additional support other than that which is generally made for children of the same age. Each class teacher finely tunes their teaching to meet the needs of each pupil. However, some children need more specialised support or intervention. This will be delivered in several ways:

School Action

Support for a pupil would come from within the school resources, most likely in the form of targeted group support.

School Action Plus

Support for a pupil would come from an external source, in the form of help from an Educational Psychologist, an Occupational Therapist, a Speech, Communication and Language Therapist or a member of the school support service. Parents will always be kept informed when advice is sought.

SEN Support

School action and action plus is known as SEN support. This is graduated approach to supporting children with special needs. The child will receive support from within the school initially, but if it is deemed necessary, the child may need support from external agencies in the form of help from an Educational Psychologist, an Occupational Therapist, a Speech, Communication and Language Therapist or a member of the school support services. Parents will always be kept informed when advice is sought.

Educational Health Plan for Children with Special Needs

In some cases, provision given at the SEN support stage may not be enough. When this happens the LA(Local Authority) will consider the need to make a statutory assessment. If it is believed that the child needs more support, then statutory provision will be made by the LA in the form of an Educational Health Care Plan.

Individual Education Plan

For those children placed on SEN support, an Individual Education Plan (IEP) is written. This is a short document that describes the child's primary needs and details 3 or 4 targets for improvement that will be addressed over the following term. Each individual Education Plan is written and reviewed in consultation between staff and parents. The school encourages parents to attend termly review meetings to discuss the content and progress of IEP targets.

Pupils with Disabilities

At St Martin School at Shouldham, we believe that all pupils regardless of race, gender or disabilities should have equal access to the curriculum in order to achieve to their highest potential. Currently, the SENCO, class teacher and learning support assistants collaborate in order to provide resources and support that will enable pupils with a learning disability to participate fully in the school curriculum. Our school has been designed and built on one level to allow access to pupils with physical disabilities, and has a disabled shower and toilet provision.

Withdrawal groups have proven to be very successful in enabling access to the curriculum in Literacy and Numeracy. The school provides intervention in the form of specific tailored Literacy and Numeracy support, which provides individual support by trained Teaching Assistants. Additional support is positively enjoyed by pupils and valued by parents as an additional learning opportunity for their children. Additional intervention is also provided depending on the needs of pupils. Pupil Premium funding is used to provide much of this intervention.