The SEND timeline - how we will work with your child with SEND 

Step 1: Identification and Initial Action 

If the school or yourselves have any concerns about your child's progress or behaviour, a meeting will be scheduled to discuss this with you in more detail and to:

•  listen to any concerns you or the school may have
•  plan any additional support your child may receive
•  discuss with you any referrals to outside professionals to support your child’s learning

It may be appropriate at this stage to provide your child with an Individual Education Plan (IEP). This is a target-setting device, which allows you and your class teacher to set appropriate targets to assist your child in making progress towards academic or social goals. The IEP will be reviewed termly (half-termly in the Early Years) by you and your child's class teacher, and is also shared with your child.

Step 2: The Creation of an Individual SEND Plan

 The aim of our provision is to identify and assess the SEND and to plan the provision needed for each young person to achieve his or her best at Exning Primary School.

Some young people with SEND may need extra support to achieve their learning potential.  If this is the case then this is what we will do.  We will arrange a meeting with their parents to talk about what is needed to put together an Individual Education Plan (IEP).  Before the IEP can be drawn up we will need to consider the following information:

• The young person’s needs and what he or she will require on their learning journey through Exning Primary School
• The views of the young person and what they think they need support with
• The views of the parents and what they would like to see as an outcome from their child’s time at Exning Primary School
•  A school based learning assessment
• Current and expected levels of attainment.

We will look at all this information and then the IEP will be drawn up.  The IEP will include success criteria so everyone at the meeting will have something to do to help the young person on their learning journey.  We will set a review date on the IEP  This will give us time to work together to achieve the agreed outcomes. 

Step 3: SEND Provision by the school/outside agencies/alternative or specialist providers

SEND Provision at Exning Primary School is multi-layered and children may have access to any or all of the following stages of support:

Class teacher input via excellent targeted classroom teaching also known as Quality First Teaching.

For your child this would mean:

• That the teacher has the highest possible expectations for your child and all pupils in their class.
• That all teaching is based on building on what your child already knows, can do and can understand.
• Different ways of teaching are in place so that your child is fully involved in learning in class. This may involve things like using more practical learning.
• Specific strategies (which may be suggested by the SENCO or outside staff)  are in place to support your child to learn.
• Your child’s teacher will have carefully checked on your child’s progress and will have decided that your child has gap in their understanding/learning and needs some extra support to help them make the best possible progress.

All children in school should be getting this as a part of excellent classroom practice when needed.

Specific group work with in a smaller group of children. 

Within the classroom environment, teachers may plan specific activities for your child to work on, either one-to-one or in a group with a classroom Teaching Assistant. These will be monitored and reviewed by the both the teacher and TA, and will be adapted according to the needs of the child.

Your child's class teacher may also request extra support from the SEN Teaching Assistant, Mrs Philpot. Mrs Philpot is responsible for small group and one-to-one withdrawal sessions for children with SEND, using a variety of interventions. Their progress is monitored throughout the intervention and is reported back to the class teacher and the SENCo.

 Some of the interventions offered in the school are:

• One-to-One Reading Support
• Talking Maths
• Fine/Gross Motor Skills Support
• Social Skills Support
• Phonics Support
• Sentence Structure Support
• Memory Skills
• Talking and Drawing
• Speech and Language Support (ELKLAN)

Specialist groups run by outside agencies e.g Speech and Language therapy OR Occupational therapy groups

Sometimes, children have a need which has been identified by the class teacher/SENCo as requiring some extra specialist support in school from a professional outside the school. This may be from:

• Local Authority central services such as the ASD Outreach Team or Sensory Service ( for students with a hearing or visual need)
• Outside agencies such as the Speech and Language therapy (SALT) Service; County Inclusive Support Service (CISS) etc

 For your child this would mean:

• You may be asked to come to a meeting to discuss your child’s progress and help plan possible ways forward.
• You may be asked to give your permission for the school to refer your child to a specialist professional e.g a Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. This will help the school and yourself understand your child’s particular needs better and be able to support them better in school.
• The specialist professional will work with your  child to understand their needs and make recommendations, which may include:
• Making changes to the way your child is supported in class e.g some individual support or changing some aspects of teaching to support them better
• Support to set better targets which will include their specific expertise
• A group run by school staff under the guidance of the outside professional e.g a social skills group
• Group or individual work with an outside professional 

This type of support is available for children with specific barriers to learning that cannot be overcome through Quality First Teaching and intervention groups.

Specified Individual support

This is usually provided via a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).This means your child will have been identified by the class teacher/SENCo as needing a particularly high level of individual or small group teaching, which cannot be provided from the budget available to the school.

Usually your child will also need specialist support in school from a professional outside the school. This may be from:

• Local Authority central services such as the ASD Outreach Team or Sensory Service ( for students with a hearing or visual need)
• Outside agencies such as the Speech and Language therapy (SALT) Service.

 For your child this would mean:

• The school (or you) can request that the Local Authority carry out a statutory assessment of your child’s needs. This is a legal process which sets out the amount of support that will be provided for your child.
• After the school have sent in the request to the Local Authority (with a lot of information about your child, including some from you), they will decide whether they think your child’s needs (as described in the paperwork provided), seem complex enough to need a statutory assessment. If this is the case they will ask you and all professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs. If they do not think your child needs this, they will ask the school to continue with the support.
• After the reports have all been sent in the Local Authority will decide if your child’s needs are severe or complex and that they need specific support in school to make good progress. If this is the case they will write an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. If this is not the case, they will ask the school to continue with the support and also set up a meeting in school to ensure a plan is in place to ensure your child makes as much progress as possible.
• The EHC Plan will outline the number of hours of individual/small group support your child will receive from the LA and how the support should be used and what strategies must be put in place. It will also have long and short term goals for your child.
• Throughout the process, your child's class teacher and/or the SENCo will keep you up to date with information and how your child is progressing.
• If you would like to know more about requesting a statutory assessment in SUFFOLK, more information can be found by clicking here.
• If you would like to know more about requesting a statutory assessment in CAMBRIDGESHIRE, more information can be found by clicking here.

Attendance at a school run by an external provider.

Sometimes, your child's class-teacher, the SENCo and yourselves may conclude that your child's needs would benefit from a fixed-term specialised teaching provision from outside the school. In Suffolk, we have the opportunity to refer children to one of several special schools in the county. These include:

• Thomas Wolsey School for children with moderate to severe physical and associated learning difficulties
• First Base - an Educational Support Centre for very young children with emotional and.social problems
• Pupil Referral Units for older children with challenging behaviours.

The children will sometimes be offered outreach support from these schools, or it may be decided that a fixed-term dual attendance would be more beneficial. In this instance, a child would attend the other school for part of the week and Exning Primary School for the remainder of the week. At all times, you and the class teacher will be kept up to date with their progress. 

Step 4: Monitoring, Assessing and Reporting

Your child’s progress is continually monitored by his/her class teacher 

His/her progress is reviewed throughout the year and a "step" relating to the National Curriculum expectations given in reading, writing and numeracy.

If your child is in Year 1 and above, but is not yet working within the National Curriculum, a more sensitive assessment tool is used which shows their level in more detail and will also show smaller but significant steps of progress. This is assessed through the 'Pre-Keystage Standards’.

For children who are not working on National Curriculum subject-specific objectives, their progress is measured through the use of the Engagement Model. The engagement model is an assessment tool that helps schools meet their duties in supporting pupils who are working below the level of the national curriculum and who are not engaged in subject-specific study. The model has 5 areas: exploration, realisation, anticipation, persistence and
initiation.

At the end of each key stage (i.e. at the end of year 2 and year 6) all children are required to be formally assessed using Standard Assessment Tests (SATS). This is something the government requires all schools to do and are the results that are published nationally.

Children who are identified as having a Special Educational Need or Disability will have an IEP which will be reviewed with your involvement, every term (more often for Early Years) and the plan for the next term made.

The progress of children with an EHC Plan is formally reviewed at an Annual Review with all adults involved with the child’s education.

The SENCo and Special Needs Teaching Assistant will also check that your child is making progress within any individual work and in any group that they take part in.

Interventions that children are taking place are constantly monitored and their effectiveness evaluated. Interventions will be tailored to your child's needs based on these evaluations.