Our SEN Information Report – which is part of Durham County Council’s Local Offer – provides details about how we support children and young people with Special Educational Needs in our school.

The SEN Information Report was reviewed and updated in June 2023.

Our SEN Information Report will provide details about how we implement our policy and practice to deliver high quality provision for children and young people with SEN. This SEND Information Report should be read alongside the school’s SEND Policy, the Equality Information and Objectives plan and the Accessibility Plan.

At Neville’s Cross Primary School and Nursery, we consult with a wide range of external agencies and we maintain close  partnerships in order to access the best professional advice and to ensure the emotional and social development needs of SEN children are met. We work closely with the Local Authority and providers of additional services, such as Educational Psychologists, Occupational Therapy, CAHMS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) School Nursing Service, Social Services and Medical Professionals. We often hold multi-professional meetings in school so that parents are comfortable in the school environment and the child can join us easily, if it is appropriate.

We are an inclusive school; we welcome and celebrate diversity. All staff believe that children having high self-esteem is crucial to a child’s well-being. We have a caring, understanding team looking after our children. The class teacher has overall responsibility for the pastoral and social care of every child in their class, therefore this would be the parents’ first point of contact. If further support is required the class teacher liaises with the SENCO for further advice and support.

As a school we have a very positive approach to all types of behaviour with a clear reward system that is followed by all staff and children.

We have a Designated Teacher for Looked after Children, Mrs Oxnard, who is also the school SENCo, to ensure all teachers in school understand the implications for those children who are looked after and have SEN.

Looked After Children with SEND are supported in the same way as all children in school with SEND through the Graduated Response and the Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycle.

All LAC have a statutory Care Plan, which is drawn up and reviewed by the Local Authority that looks after them. The Personal Education Plan (PEP) is a legal part of the Care Plan; which is a statutory requirement for LAC in education provision. Mrs Oxnard ensures that LAC have a PEP which is also reviewed every term.

How we support children/young people with SEN starting at our school 

Early Years Staff make visits to all feeder nurseries to meet the children who will be starting our school. They spend time working with the children, observing them in a familiar environment and talking to their key workers. We encourage all new children to visit the school prior to starting and this is done through a series of transition days. These are timetabled so that children can have an experience of the school day including lunch. For children with SEND we would encourage further visits to assist with the acclimatisation of the new surroundings. We would also do more visits at current nurseries.

 How we support children/young people with SEN moving between classes in our school 

We work closely at each milestone so children become familiar with each staff team. Transition is treated the same at every juncture and children are given the opportunity to take part in ‘moving up’ where children spend time with their new class teacher in their new classroom. During the summer term, staff meet to share information and for those children who require provision that is additional to or different from quality first teaching we make additional arrangements to support these children through the transition. This can include spending additional time in their new classroom, visiting their new classroom with their current member of support staff, beginning transition arrangements earlier in the summer Term or photographs of their new classroom to take home and talk about with parents and carers during the summer holidays. The support provided is tailored to the needs of individual children and will be discussed with parents and carers and the child.

How we support children/young people with SEN leaving our school 

Children with SEND are given an extensive level of support before they leave for their new school. We work closely with parents to help this be as smooth a transition as possible. When children are preparing to leave us for a new school, typically to go to Secondary education, we arrange additional visits. At our ‘feeder’ secondary schools run programmes specifically tailored to aid transition for the more vulnerable pupils. We liaise closely with staff when receiving and transferring children to different schools ensuring all relevant paperwork is passed on and all needs are discussed and understood. If your child has complex needs and has an Education Health and Care Plan, then a review will be used as a transition meeting during which we will invite staff from both schools to attend and any other relevant professionals. Their teacher and SENCO will discuss with secondary colleagues how many transition visits can be arranged over and above those offered to children without SEND. These additional visits to the new school will be carried out with the child and secondary school staff in the summer term.

If you would like to discuss your SEND requirements in detail please contact the school to arrange an appointment.

SENCO and SEN Staff

Our SENCO is Mrs B Young and our Inclusion Lead is Mrs N Oxnard. They can both be contacted via the school email address or by contacting the school office.  Both Mrs Young and Mrs Oxnard are very experienced teachers with substantial additional training in the area of Special Educational Needs.  Mrs Young holds the National Award for Special Educational Needs and Mrs Oxnard holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Supporting Children in Education with Autism and is trained in ‘Drawing and Talking’ and 'Fearless'.  More details of the SENCO’s role can be found in the SEN Policy which you can find in the School Policies section of our website.

SUPPORT STAFF

Mrs H Wilson

Mrs S Sedgewick

Mrs A Charters

Miss E Reed

Miss C Wall (HLTA)

Mrs V Christie 

Miss C Dawson 

Mrs L Knowd (HLTA)

Miss L Jones

Mrs V Watson

All staff have attended training on;

• Attachment Difficulties
• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Use of EpiPen medication
• Safeguarding Level 1

External Specialists and Other Bodies

The school enjoys good working relationships with a wide range of people who provide services to children with SEND and their families.

The external specialists may:

• Act in an advisory capacity
• Extend expertise of school staff
• Provide additional assessment
• Support a child directly
• Suggest statutory assessment is advisable
• Consult with all parties involved with the child

These include:

• Durham County Council Local Offer
• Durham SEND Information,  Advice and Support Service
• Autism Spectrum Communications Team
• One Point Family Support
• CAMHS
• Crisis Response
• Education Psychology Service
• Occupational Therapy
• School Nurse Team
• Social Care and Health Team
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Behaviour Support Service

How We Secure Specialist Expertise

Our Additional Needs Budget is used to support children and young people with SEN.  The spending of this is monitored by the Head teacher and SENCO.

This is used to support children and young people with SEND by offering a wide range of intervention and enhancement programmes within school and through our partnerships with other agencies and professionals within the Local Authority. At Neville’s Cross Primary School and Nursery we provide the following additional support to our children with SEND:

• Small group and individual targeted intervention work with a Teacher or TA
• Talkabout (social communication)
• Time to Talk (social skills)
• Lego Therapy (Social Communication)
• Power of 2 (a maths enhancement programme)
• IDL (reading and spelling)
• Toe By Toe (reading support programmes)
• Word Wasp (spelling support)
• 1-1 speech and language support including specific programmes provided by Speech and Language Therapy
• Emotional Wellbeing support from the Local Authority

If a child has complex special educational needs, we could also receive additional funding from the Local Authority to meet the agreed outcomes.

Consultation with Children and Young People with SEND

Teachers/SENCO and Support Staff will work with children and young people to identify the support needed to meet agreed outcomes.  The provision is planned and interventions are allocated to individual needs. The children take an active role with setting their outcomes and discussing them with the class teacher/SENCO.  The children have regular meetings with staff to discuss their progress and support.

Consultation with parents and carers of children and young people with SEND

We are committed to working with parents and carers to identify their child’s needs and support.  Parents and carers will be involved throughout the process.

There is a range of ways this can be done, for example:

• Termly parents/ carers evenings;
• Ongoing discussions with a class teacher and/or SENCO;
• An ‘open-door’ policy, where parents and carers are welcome to come into school to discuss any concerns they may have;
• Through regular reviews of their child’s SEN Support Plan/ EHC Plan.

We are always keen to hear from parents about their child’s experience.

We would also like your views about the content of our SEN Information Report. If you would like to comment please complete the online form in the Contact Us section of our website.

Compliments are always greatly received and can be passed on either directly to staff and the SENCO, or formally recorded via our regular questionnaires to parents or in the form of a letter to the Head Teacher.  These positive comments will be published on this area of our school website.

We hope that complaints about our SEND provision will be rare, however, if there should be a concern  the process outlined in the school Complaints Policy should be followed.

Further information can be found in the Complaints Policy in the School Policies section of your website or by visiting the Durham County Council Local Offer website.

If you would like to discuss your SEND requirements in detail please contact the school to arrange an appointment.

All of our school policies can be found on the website but the most important ones for parents of children with SEND are listed below:

• NX Special Educational Needs Policy
• Equality Policy Statement
• Equality Information and Objectives
• Accessibility Plan
• Anti Bullying Policy
• NX Complaints Procedure

If you would like to discuss your SEND requirements in detail please contact the school to arrange an appointment.