Rochdale Boroughwide Early Years Settings Offer

Our vision for children with special educational needs and disabilities is the same as for all children and young people – that they achieve well in their early years, at school and in college, and lead happy and fulfilled lives.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice 0 to 25 years

The SEND Code of Practice 2015 identifies in paragraph 4.32 that:

‘The local authority must set out in its Local Offer an authority-wide description of the special educational and training provision it expects to be available in its area and outside its area for children and young people in its area who have SEN or disabilities from providers of relevant early years education…’

This leaflet has been developed to provide a common framework for our area wide offers for children attending early years settings that are providing free early years education under the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS).

See the Special educational needs and disabilities code of practice 0- 25 years on the GOV UK website.

The purpose of the borough wide offer

The Rochdale Borough Wide Offer sets out what the local authority expects schools in its borough to provide from within their delegated budgets for children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND). It will be of equal value to school leaders, governors, school staff, parents and young people in setting out the borough wide expectations for provision for SEND.

Legislation

Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 (CAFA 2014) and the associated regulations and SEND Code of Practice 2015 and the Equality Act 2010 underpin the Rochdale borough wide offer. Schools (including academies, non-maintained special schools and approved independent schools) are required to have regard to the SEND Code of Practice.

Every school is required to identify and address the SEN of the pupils that they support. Mainstream schools, including academies, must:

  • Use their best endeavours to make sure that a child with SEN gets the necessary support – this means doing everything they can to meet children and young people’s SEN.
  • Ensure that children and young people with SEN engage in the activities of the school alongside pupils who do not have SEN.
  • Designate a teacher to be responsible for co-ordinating SEN provision – known as the SEN co-ordinator, or SENCO.
  • Inform parents when they are making special educational provision for a child.
  • Publish an SEN information report which includes their arrangements for the admission of disabled children, the steps being taken to prevent disabled children from being treated less favourably than others, the facilities provided to enable access to the school for disabled children and their accessibility plan showing how they plan to improve access progressively over time.
  • Under the Equality Act 2010 schools have due regard to the general duties to promote disability equality and make reasonable adjustments, including the provision of auxiliary aids and services for disabled children, to prevent them being put at a substantial disadvantage. These duties are anticipatory – they require thought to be given in advance to what disabled children and young people might require and what adjustments might need to be made to prevent that disadvantage. Schools also have wider duties to prevent discrimination, to promote equality of opportunity and to foster good relations.
Leadership
  • All mainstream schools in Rochdale should have an SEN governor or an SEND sub-committee of the governing body.
  • The governing body will with the senior leadership of the school monitor and review the progress and achievements of pupils with special educational needs or disabilities. They will ensure that the school achieves the best value for money for its spending on evidence based support for pupils with special educational needs.
  • The senior leadership team, under the direction of the headteacher and governors, will create an inclusive ethos and set high expectations for all pupils including those with SEND.
  • Governing bodies of maintained mainstream schools and the proprietors of mainstream academy schools must ensure that there is a qualified teacher designated as special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) for the school.
  • The SENCO has an important role to play with the headteacher and governing body in determining the strategic development of SEN policy and provision in the school.
  • The school should ensure that the SENCO has sufficient time and resources to carry Out the role.

School leaders and governors should strive for the best outcomes for pupils with SEND. They will need to:

  • Embed into the normal life of the school the principles of the CAFA 2014 to meaningfully involve parents and pupils in both school level and individual decision making.
  • Communicate their vision, articulate values and provide the drive and commitment to motivate staff and pupils.
  • Make SEND everyone’s business and ensure that all teachers are able to take appropriate responsibility for all the pupils they teach.
  • Ensure that pupils with SEND participate in the full life of the school.
  • Have an effective tracking system providing timely, regular and accurate feedback on pupils’ progress to inform teaching and learning in the classroom.
  • Create effective links across phases so that transfer and transition is effective.
  • Ensure that staff have the skills, knowledge and expertise they require to support pupils with SEND to achieve the best outcomes.
Partnerships

In particular, school leaders and governors should ensure that children, parents and young people are actively involved in decision-making both at individual and school level.

Parents know their children best and it is important that all professionals listen and understand when parents express concerns about their child’s development. They should also listen to and address any concerns raised by children and young people themselves. Parents should be involved in supporting their child’s learning at all times, but particularly where a pupil is not making expected progress. Conversations should be around progress, rather than identification of SEND. These early discussions will lead to broader understanding of the pupil’s areas of strength and difficulty, the parents’ concerns, the agreed outcomes sought for the child and the next steps.

Primary and secondary schools will need to be aware of the approaches used in other phases of education to prepare pupils for the next stages of their life.

In order to support the wider as well as the academic achievement of pupils with SEND, school leaders, staff and governors will take active steps to prevent bullying, reduce exclusions and improve the attendance of these pupils in partnership with their parents.

Teaching and learning

All pupils will have access to a broad and balanced curriculum and experience high quality teaching and personalised learning approaches. High quality teaching, differentiated for individual pupils, is the first step in responding to pupils who have or may have SEN. Additional intervention and support cannot compensate for a lack of good quality teaching.

The first response to less than expected progress should be high quality teaching targeted at the pupil’s area(s) of weakness. Where progress continues to be less than expected the class or subject teacher, working with the SENCO, should assess whether the child has SEN. Where it is decided that a pupil does have SEN, the decision should be recorded in the school records and the pupil’s parents must be formally informed that special educational provision is being made.

While informally gathering evidence (including the views of the pupil and their parents) schools will not delay in putting in place extra teaching or other interventions designed to secure better progress, where required. Teachers will use appropriate assessment to set targets which are ambitious. Potential areas of difficulty will be identified and addressed throughout.

Where a pupil is identified as having SEN, schools will take action to remove barrier to learning and put effective special educational provision in place.

Teaching will include:

  • Differentiated curriculum, objectives, activities and teaching approaches.
  • Clarity for pupils about what they are being asked to do, why they are doing it, how they are supposed to do it and how they will know if they have done well.
  • Use of supportive techniques such as visual timetables, modelling and demonstration.
  • Clear instructions and simplified language.
  • Support with key words and subject terminology.
  • Access to other ways of recording work for example laptops.
  • Structured routines and regular reminders of whole-school/class rules.
  • Reward and sanctions systems that work and take account of the pupils’ SEND.

Some children will need additional input often a well-structured, time-limited programme delivered to a small group or individual pupils. It must link to the curriculum delivered in the classroom and be carefully monitored. The class or subject teacher will continue to hold the overall responsibility for the pupils teaching and learning programme and be fully aware of what goes on in these sessions.

A small number of pupils will need more frequent, skilled, individual teaching to accelerate their progress and reduce the gap between their performance and their peers. The class or subject teacher will build on these programmes in their classroom teaching. This input may be provided by appropriately trained and expert school staff, the SENCO, external teaching staff employed by the school for this purpose, staff employed by the local authority or the NHS according to needs.

All schools in Rochdale will work to ensure that they provide high quality teaching to all pupils including those with SEND, and ensure there is additional input where required to support learning outcomes and more specialised input as appropriate.

Training

All school staff will have a good grounding in disability awareness and be fully familiar with the school’s approach to SEND and the contents of the school’s SEN Information Report.

Teaching and classroom support staff will need an understanding of the nature of the special educational needs and disabilities of the school’s pupils and effective approaches to providing support. For more complex SEN staff will be provided with appropriate training and support to ensure the pupils’ needs are met.

A sound grounding in the most commonly occurring SEN is provided by the Inclusion Development Programme which is an online training course and which can be found at IDP online.

Identification

All those who work with children and young people should be alert to emerging difficulties and respond early. All schools will have a clear approach to identifying and responding to SEND and the identification of SEN will be built into the overall approach to monitoring the progress and development of all pupils.

Schools will review each pupil’s current skills and levels of attainment on entry, building on information from previous settings and key stages and consider whether the pupil may have a disability under the Equality Act 2010 and, if so, what reasonable adjustments may need to be made. Class and subject teachers, supported by the senior leadership team, should make regular assessments of progress for all pupils. These should seek to identify pupils making less than expected progress given their age and individual circumstances. This can be characterised by progress which:

  • Significantly slower than that of their peers starting from the same baseline
  • Fails to match or better the child’s previous rate of progress
  • Fails to close the attainment gap between the child and their peers
  • Widens the attainment gap

It can include progress in areas other than attainment – for instance where a pupil needs to make additional progress with wider development or social needs in order to make a successful transition to adult life.

Planning and provision

For pupils with medical needs individual healthcare plans will be developed which will specify the type and level of support required. Where children and young people also have SEN, their provision will be planned and delivered in a co-ordinated way with the healthcare plan.

Consideration of whether special educational provision is required should start with the desired outcomes, including the expected progress and attainment and the views and wishes of the pupil and their parents. This will then help determine the support that is needed and whether it can be provided by adapting the school’s core offer or whether something different or additional is required.

This SEN support will 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.

The SENCO and class teacher, together with the specialists, and involving the pupil’s parents, will consider a range of evidence-based and effective teaching approaches, appropriate equipment, strategies and interventions in order to support the child’s progress including identifying the responsibilities of the parent, the pupil and the school. They will agree the outcomes to be achieved through the support, including a date by which progress will be reviewed. The views of the pupil will be included in these discussions Schools will meet parents at least three times each year. The provision made for pupils with SEN will be recorded accurately and kept up to date.

Where, despite the school having taken relevant and purposeful action to identify, assess and meet the SEN of the child or young person, the child or young person has not made expected progress, the school or parents should consider requesting an Education, Health and Care needs assessment. To inform its decision the local authority will expect to see evidence and impact of the action taken through a school based plan.

Monitoring

School leaders will regularly review how expertise and resources used to address SEN can be used to build the quality of whole-school provision. The quality of teaching for pupils with SEN, and the progress made by pupils, will be a core part of the school’s performance management arrangements and its approach to professional development for all teaching and support staff.

School leaders and teaching staff, including the SENCO, will identify any patterns in the identification of SEN, both within the school and in comparison with national data, and use these to reflect on and reinforce the quality of teaching.

Schools need to have secure systems in place to monitor the impact and value for money of all interventions including in-class support from teaching assistants. Where interventions do not appear to be having a positive impact on progress, schools should first examine the quality and appropriateness of the interventions, before deciding to request an Education, Health and Care needs assessment.

Review

Schools will regularly review and evaluate the breadth and impact of the support they offer or can access and review the quality of teaching for all pupils, including those at risk of underachievement. This includes reviewing and, where necessary, improving, teachers’ understanding of strategies to identify and support vulnerable pupils and their knowledge of the SEN most frequently encountered.

Funding

Schools have an amount identified within their overall budget, called the notional SEN budget. This is not a ring-fenced amount, and it is for the school to provide high quality appropriate support from the whole of its budget. It is for schools, as part of their normal budget planning, to determine their approach to using their resources to support the progress of pupils with SEN. The SENCO, headteacher and governing body or proprietor should establish a clear picture of the resources that are available to the school. They should consider their strategic approach to meeting SEN in the context of the total resources available, including any resources targeted at particular groups, such as the pupil premium.

Details of SEN funding and the allocation of top up funding for pupils with Education Health Care Plan can be found here: EHC Assessment and Review Team.

Information and advice

A mainstream school’s arrangements for assessing and identifying pupils as having SEN should be part of the information they make available on SEN in the SEN Information Report. The Report has to be published and reviewed at least once a year.

Maintained schools and Pupil Referral Units must ensure that pupils from Year 8 until Year 13 are provided with independent careers guidance. Academies are subject to this duty through their funding agreements.

Schools will also tell parents and young people about the local authority’s independent advice and support service known as SENDIASS. This service is for young people and parents of children with SEN and disabilities.

Schools will ensure that information is easily accessible by young people and parents and is set out in clear, straightforward language. It will include information on the school’s SEN policy and named contacts within the school for situations where young people or parents have concerns. It will also give details of the school’s contribution to the Rochdale Local Offer and include information on where the Rochdale Local Offer is published.

Finally

Schools will make sure that parents are fully aware of the full range of strategies that are available to support good pupil progress. Schools should take particular care to explain to parents that Teaching Assistant support is just one of a range of strategies. Class and subject teachers need to be aware of the importance of highlighting these strategies when talking with parents. In this way, parents may be reassured that their child will be able to access the support that they need.

Page last reviewed: 10/11/2023