SEND Special arrangements in relation to COVID-19.

Following the closure of schools from the 23^rd March 2020 Government guidelines stated:

Vulnerable children include those who have a social worker and those children and young people up to the age of 25 with education, health and care (EHC) plans.

Those with an EHC plan should be risk-assessed by their school in consultation with the local authority (LA) and parents, to decide whether they need to continue to be offered a school or college place in order to meet their needs, or whether they can safely have their needs met at home. This could include, if necessary, carers, therapists or clinicians visiting the home to provide any essential services. Many children and young people with EHC plans can safely remain at home.

In order to ensure that our pupils with EHC plans are supported we have consulted families with regards to whether or not their child needs to attend school. We have ensured that the expectations for work being done at home is understood and that pupils can access the work being set by school staff. As a school we are undertaking weekly check ins to ensure that pupils outcomes are kept at the forefront and that their emotional needs are being met. Work set by class teachers takes in to account the needs of the pupils in their classes and is open-ended in nature to allow pupils to engage with and further their own learning.

Parents of SEND pupils may require our support at this time and the messaging facility on Seesaw allows for private conversations to be had between staff and parents.

The SENCO can be reached at lisa.pigg2@taw.org.uk

We are aware that the transition period for our pupils with SEND has been greatly affected by the current situation and we continue to work alongside our secondary colleagues to ensure that the information needed is shared. As the summer term progresses we will begin to send out transition style material that will endeavour to support all our pupils at this transitional time.

Resources that support our pupils’ emotional and social development during this unprecedented time have been uploaded on to the school website and will be shared through Social Media. These will continue to be updated as time passes.

External agencies will only become involved if necessary following the usual graduated response process detailed above.

Top tips for working at home with a child with SEN:

1. Routine will be important for many of our children – agree this in advance and be realistic, fair and have plenty of rest breaks.
2. Visual timetable may help and support students with ASD to know what to expect.
3. Do not over think home learning – if it is too tricky contact the teacher who set it.
4. Use strategies such as typing work or speech to text programmes.
5. Make sure your child reads something every day – a book, magazine or information from a website.
6. Practise timetables every day, use a website like Times table rock stars and have a competition to see how many they get in a minute
7. Help your child to develop their life skills – following instructions from a recipe, cooking dinner, making their own lunch and doing the laundry.
8. Play games that will develop vocabulary, problem solving, maths skills and spelling such as monopoly, scrabble, uno, cluedo, articlulate, hedbanz, 5 second rule, 20 questions, dobble etc

Please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher if you need any support at all over the coming week.

Finally, if your child is due an annual review we will be in touch about conducting it over the phone.

Please share this with your children and let’s hope that the difficult times we are all going through now can lead to a better future for us all!

The Great Realisation