Special Educational Needs and Disabilities at Frogwell Primary School

Our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo) is Mrs Victoria Davies. Mrs Davies normally works on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with a half day on Friday. This is sometimes subject to change due to meetings with professionals.

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 (https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/local-offer/ordinarily-available-provision)

 Frogwell Primary School hosts a Resource Base for children who are identified by the Local Authority as having Complex Needs. These are needs beyond those which any mainstream primary school can meet.

The Local Authority allocate places for children who will access the Resource Base. This is not accessible in any way by attending the mainstream school at Frogwell.

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. The mainstream pupils are in six classes.
• More pupils are known to be eligible for the Pupil Premium than the average (41% as of July 2024, approximately 15% higher than the national average).
• 26% 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%)
• 22% of our mainstream pupils have a SEN Support provision
• All pupils in the Resource Base have an EHCP
• All areas of the school are accessible to children with gross motor difficulties. This includes disabled toileting facilities.
• Pupils are placed in the Resource Base by Wiltshire Council as part of the SEND provisioning process. Admission to mainstream 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 adaptive 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 a 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 targeted intervention programme) are required, the class teacher will ensure that this is delivered and monitored. If progress remains limited after the intervention,the class teacher will liaise with the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) and where appropriate the Headteacher (if support involves allocation of staffing), to discuss further support/ referrals that are required. 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, refer to or signpost external professional support such as:
  • Parenting classes (through the Family Hubs and Triple P Parenting courses)           
  • School Nursing Service
  • Mental Health Support Team
  • Child and Adolescent Mental Heath Service (CAMHS)
  • Ethnic Minority Advisory Service (EMAS)
  • Specialist Special Educational Needs Service (SSENS) which includes:
    • Behaviour Support
    • Learning Support
    • Social & Communication Needs
  • Educational Psychology service
  • Occupational Therapy
  • Speech and Language Therapy

Frogwell Primary School also has staff specialising in Emotional Literacy Support (ELSA) and a pastoral assistant team 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.

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.