Special Educational Needs and Disabilities at Frogwell Primary School

Our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo) is Mr Tom Filer.

The following overview outlines the ways in which Frogwell Primary School aims to meet the needs of pupils who are identified as having Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND). This information is known as our Local Offer and complements the Core Offer provided by Wiltshire Council.

In addition to this local offer, Frogwell Primary School is privileged to host a Resource Base for children who are identified by the Local Authority as having Complex Needs. These are needs beyond those which a mainstream primary school can meet. 

What is The Local Offer?

• As part of the Children and Families Bill 2014, all schools in Chippenham are required to make available their local SEND offer to families.  This details how they can support children and young people with a special educational need and/or disability (SEND).

• A child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.

Definition of SEND

A child ...has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she:

• Has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or
• Has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools.

Code of Practice (April 2014)

Overview of the school

• Frogwell Primary School is an average sized primary school with approximately 200 children on roll. The school includes a specialist Resource Base for children with Complex Learning Needs which has planned places for 25 children and is currently approximately 20% over-subscribed. The mainstream pupils are in seven classes with one single-age class per year group.
• More pupils are known to be eligible for the Pupil Premium than the average (34% as of Autumn 2022, approximately 10% higher than the national average).
• 21% of pupils in the mainstream school are identified with a Special Educational Need or Disability
• 4% of our mainstream pupils have an Education, Health or Care Plan (EHCP), which is roughly double the national average of 2.3%)
• 17% of our mainstream pupils have a SEN Support provision15.5% of pupils in the school overall, including the Resource Base, have an EHCP (all Resource Base pupils have an EHCP)
• All areas of the school are accessible to children with gross motor difficulties. This includes disabled toileting and showering facilities.
• Pupils are placed in the Resource Base by Wiltshire Council as part of the SEND provisioning process. Admission to Frogwell Primary School will not fast track a pupil with SEND to Resource Base provision.

Our curriculum and children with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities

The support a child receives to enable them to get the most from our curriculum will be tailored to their needs, through differentiated teaching, use of specific or specialist equipment and resources and personalised invention programmes. To achieve this goal, Frogwell Primary School ensures teaching is matched to the needs of each child. This is achieved in the first instance through high quality first teaching.  

Some children may require more focused support and additional adults, where appropriate, may be used to meet this need. Some children who have a special educational need may require a personalised targeted intervention to support their learning and enable them to access the curriculum.

Parents who have questions about how their child is learning should in the first instance make contact with their child’s class teacher. This can be done in a number of ways:

• speaking informally to teachers after the school day, or request a formal appointment. 
• coming to one of our Parent / Pupil / Teacher Consultation Evenings. These happen twice a year, usually in the autumn and spring.

Training and Resources

• Frogwell Primary School considers the needs of each child on an individual basis.  In the first instance, all children receive high quality first teaching which matches children’s needs. Where additional resources (such as a specific intervention programme) are required, the class teacher will liaise with the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) and where appropriate the Headteacher (if support involves allocation of staffing), to develop a personalised programme of support for your child.  All intervention programmes are evidence based, and are used to narrow the gap between a child’s attainment and the attainment of their peers.
• As appropriate, Frogwell Primary School is able to access or signpost external professional support such as:
  • RISE Pre-School and RISE Family Support
  • Parenting classes (through the RISE Trust and Triple P Parenting courses)
  • Equine Assisted Learning              
  • School Nursing Service
  • Relate's Time to Talk Counselling Service for children
  • Ethnic Minority Advisory Service (EMAS)
  • Specialist Special Educational Needs Service (SSENS) which includes:
    • Behaviour Support
    • Learning Support
    • Social & Communication Needs
  • Educational Psychologists
  • Child and Adolescent Mental Heath Service (CAMHS)
  • Occupational Therapy
  • Speech and Language Therapy

Frogwell Primary School also has staff specialising in Emotional Literacy Support (ELSA) and a dedicated Pastoral Support Manager to support pupils and parents.

We also strive to make all our classes as inclusive as possible, by developing systems and equipment that are designed to remove barriers to learning.

The SEN provision process (Plan - Do - Review)

• Frogwell Primary School strives to identify any special educational need as early as possible in order to provide the appropriate support. We do this by:
• ​​Working with the pupil, parents and other organisations to complete a "One Page Profile". This short document allows us to identify with the child their strengths, likes, dislikes and most important their aspirations (long and short term). This document is then used as the foundation to all other support and allows us to set short, medium and long term targets for the child. This support document specifies the child's targets and the steps that are taken to reach the target. As outlined above where additional resources (such as a specific intervention programme) are required, the class teacher will liaise with the SENCo so that a  personalised programme of support for the child can be devised.  All intervention programmes are evidence based, and are used to narrow the gap between a child’s attainment and the attainment of their peers, and remove any barriers to learning.
• If after following the above support the school still feels the child needs are not being met through all the actions it has taken, a new document will be written. This document is called "My Support Plan" and is intended as a first step towards requesting specialist support or resources to enable a child to learn effectively. This plan is reviewed by members of the SEND panel in Wiltshire Council who agree whether or not additional funding should be provided to support the child's needs. If funding is agreed this and the support that will be released will be detailed in an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), also known in Wiltshire as a "My Plan".

In all of the above:

• Appropriate assessment procedures will be in place which will inform ambitious and achievable targets for a child.  These are designed in collaboration with the child, class teacher, and SENCo where appropriate.
• We aim to allow children to play an active part in their targets and the review of their progress. This process also includes parents and carers who we encourage to play an active role in helping children to achieve their best and to also meet the targets that have been agreed.
• Our goal is to hold three planning and review activities a year. Parents and children are invited to take an active role in this process. Between these agreed review periods, if we notice a child is progressing quickly to meeting their end of year goals or if they are struggling with certain goals we may invite all parties to review actions earlier.

Communication

• At Frogwell Primary School, we place high value on working collaboratively with parents to ensure successful outcomes for all children.  We aim to have an open-door policy where parents are encouraged to take full and appropriate involvement in their child’s education.  
• Parents are also able to find out about their child’s progress through Parent / Pupil / Teacher Consultation Evenings in the autumn and spring, SEND review meetings, Annual Reports, Reading Records and both formal and informal discussions with a child’s teacher.
• Parents also receive an Annual Report at the end of the year that identifies a child's achievement in each curriculum area and, where necessary, sets targets for future development. An optional Parent / Pupil / Teacher consultation is available by request at the end of the academic year.

Other than in exceptional circumstances, your child’s class teacher will keep you informed through discussion in person, over the phone, or by letter, email or text. Frogwell Primary School prides itself on being a school that actively listens to all children and puts their needs as paramount in all that we do. 

Transition

Frogwell Primary School 

• Has close links with a number of pre-schools in Chippenham, in particular Spring RISE with whom we share our site. Staff from our school also visit many of the pre-schools in Chippenham to ensure a smooth transition from Foundation Stage 1 (nursery / pre-school) to Foundation Stage 2 (Reception class).
• Has close links with each of the three secondary schools in Chippenham and works collaboratively with each to ensure a smooth transition from the end of primary school to the beginning of secondary school. We also arrange additional visits to each of the secondary schools for children with additional needs prior to them starting school.
• Actively encourages new parents to visit our school. These visits can be arranged through the school office.