Notes provided by Judith Curran (SENDCo) for the SEN Governors explaining SEND provision at Calverley CE Primary School (June 2022)

This has been a particularly challenging year for children with SEND due to the lockdowns and a break in continuous support from outside agencies.  However, I am pleased to say the latest rounds of SEND Passport Reviews have been very positive and a great deal is going on across school to support our children on the SEND Register.  The vast majority of children appear to have settled back into school well.  SEND Passports contain specific information and programmes of work for individual children including any advice received from outside agencies such as Speech & Language therapists, specialist teachers, medics, etc.

Since re-opening, I have held meetings with all teachers, teaching assistants and parents of children with SEND via telephone reviews.  Passports for these children have been amended and they will be reviewed again with parents and current staff in the second half of the summer term, and I will also be liaising with the staff who will be working with the children next academic year towards the end of the term.

There are currently 29 children on the SEND register but there is also a monitoring list for children who are in the process of being assessed or meeting with the Speech and Language therapist.  Of the children who are on the SEND register, we have two children with Educational Health and Care Plans (EHCP) in place. These children are in Years 1 & 4.   The Annual Review took place for the child in Y1 in February – the other one is scheduled to take place in June 2021.  We will also initiate Educational Health & Care Assessments for two further children during the Summer Term: one for a child currently in Reception, the other in Year 1.  The assessment process requires the collection of evidence from school, home, outside agencies, including an Educational Psychologist.  Assessments are judged by a Local Authority Panel who make the decision whether to give an EHCP or not based on the evidence provided by school.  As well as these children, we will be accepting another child into Reception with an EHCP in September 2021.  All EHCPs must be reviewed each year and the review submitted to the Local Authority.  We work with two different Local Authorities and funding works differently from each.  EHCPs from Bradford have an amount of funding tied to them.  The level of funding is reviewed each year.  In Leeds, the EHCP does not have funding attached, we claim funding through a different process which aims to distribute monies at an earlier stage to more pupils rather than having to have an EHCP in place.  Whatever way we receive funding, all then monies are spent on providing additional support for the children.

As I mentioned above, we can access funding for children who live in Leeds even if they don’t have an EHCP.  Currently, we receive additional funding for three other children to support their SEND needs, in Reception, Year 1 and Year 4.  We are expecting three children without EHCPs to be joining us in Reception in September 2021 who will be given additional funding.

In order to support the high level of additional needs coming into Reception in September 2021, school has appointed an additional Teaching Assistant with plenty of experience of working with children with SEND in Early Years settings.

With regards to other children on the SEND register, we are currently supported by a number of outside agencies which include a link Educational Psychologist, SENIT, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Mindmate and Pamela Sunter Centre in Bingley (this supports children with Down Syndrome).  Occasionally parents can choose to visit paediatricians.

We continue to pay to access a traded SaLT and our current SaLT is Freya Yorath.  She comes into school once a month to assess newly referred children or review the progress of children who have a SaLT plan in place.  Following assessments, Freya writes up a SaLT report, containing recommendations and additional resources which are then followed in class, where time is set aside for the class TA to work on the set targets.

During this term, I will be delivering training to teachers on ensuring they can create a Dyslexia friendly classroom and familiarising them with a number of assessments that can be carried out to analyse children’s current learning.  I will also be providing some training for our Teaching Assistants on carrying out the assessments, which I can help them interpret and devise programmes of support.

I also aim to hold SEND clinics with each class teacher and their teaching assistants, where teachers can bring me the work of any children they may be concerned about and I will try to advise on next steps to support learning. These may be children already on the SEND Register, or anyone else coursing concern. 

I am qualified to diagnose Dyslexia and Irlen’s Syndrome and I have supported a number of children in school and provided two diagnoses of Dyslexia.

I have made contact with the SENCO at Benton Park and we will shortly be discussing handover arrangements for our Year 6 children moving onto Benton on the SEND Register and I hope she will be able to meet the parents and children either at school or via Zoom before the close of term.

I thoroughly enjoy working the children, staff and families in this role and I am happy to discuss any aspect of this report with individual governors if you would wish me to do so.