Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs

Our Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) is Mrs Emma Owner who can be contacted on 01842 828275

What ‘special educational needs’ means

The term ‘special educational needs’ has a legal definition, referring to children who have learning problems or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age. Many children will have special needs of some kind at some time during their education.

Help will usually be provided in their ordinary school, sometimes with the help of specialists. If your child has special educational needs, they may need extra help in a range of areas, for example:

Leaders in the primary phase and secondary phase have high expectations of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).  Pupils with SEND in the primary phase achieve well because of the support they get.

Ofsted, 2020

  • schoolwork,
  • reading, writing, number work or understanding information,
  • expressing themselves or understanding what others are saying,
  • making friends or interacting with adults,
  • behaving properly in school,
  • organising themselves,
  • some kind of sensory or physical needs which may affect them in school.

Your child’s progress

Children make progress at different rates and have different ways in which they learn best. When planning lessons, your child’s teacher will take account of this by looking carefully at how they organize their lessons, classroom, books and materials.

The teacher will then choose suitable ways to help your child learn from a range of activities. If your child is making slower progress or having particular problems in one area, they may be given extra help or different lessons to help.

Just because your child is making slower progress than you expected or the teachers are providing different support, help or activities in class, this doesn’t necessarily mean that your child has special educational needs.

If we believe your child needs extra help, other than the usual interventions we offer, we will call you in for a meeting to discuss this further. We may discuss the SEN Information Report with you as well.

SEND Bulletin all the latest news and events relevant for families of children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and the professionals working with them – sign up here: SEND news bulletin
Parents / carers of children with disabilities looking for emotional support – 1-1 telephone appointments Listening Ear | Contact