SEND Information

Contacts and Other Information

Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCO) in St John Vianney Catholic Primary School

Mrs L Mills – please ring the school office 01744 678570

Our vision statement is the back drop for all we do in school, including our work with our pupils with additional learning needs. This document gives families information about the variety of ways we ensure we support our children with special educational needs (SEN) to achieve their potential. We provide a full range of educational and pastoral support to all and our pupils with SEN make very good progress. The information here is general; each child is an individual and will receive unique provision and resources where necessary.

There are a number of reasons why a child may be identified as having SEN:

  • They are having significant difficulty with their learning and making far less progress than would be expected.
  • They have a specific learning difficulty, for example dyslexia.
  • They have emotional or mental health difficulties.
  • They have difficulties with social communication and interaction.
  • They have sensory and/or physical needs, for example visual impairment.

For all pupils at St John Vianney Catholic Primary School who have an additional need we:

  • Value and recognise the expert role families play in their pupil’s lives and work closely in partnership with them.
  • Employ an experienced Inclusion Manager (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) to lead on SEN provision across the school.
  • Deliver high quality teaching, adapting the curriculum and our resources to ensure pupil can access the learning.
  • Use pupil-friendly targets and needs-based individual education plans (IEPs). We involve pupils, parents and staff to write, implement and review them.
  • Assess and review the learning of our SEN pupil, using that information to inform future planning and teaching
  • We produce individual provision maps (IPMs) to support the pupil’s needs.
  • Provide teaching assistants across the school to work with SEN pupil and also, importantly, support other pupil so that the class teacher has more opportunities to work with the SEN pupil.
  • Hold regular pupil progress meetings for teachers and teaching assistants with the Inclusion Manager, to review pupil, interventions and resources and to adapt provision where necessary.
  • We support our families with pupil with SEN, formally through review meetings and informally through our “open door” approach. Families are also advised of other services and organisations which may offer further advice and support.
  • Seek support and advice from outside agencies such as: Community Paediatrics, CYPS, Speech and Language Therapy and the Educational Psychology Service etc.  to ensure each child’s needs are fully identified and understood and to learn from specialists how best to support our SEN pupil.
  • We evaluate intervention groups and strategies on a termly basis.
  • Teaching resources are routinely evaluated to ensure they are accessible to all pupils.
  • Use ICT (both hardware and software) to promote access to the curriculum.
  • Whole school policies such as those for behaviour, anti-bullying and SEN are evaluated on a regular basis with a focus on the impact upon pupils with SEN (Read our SEND Policy).
  • Ensure our school activities and trips, as far as possible, are accessible to all SEN pupils. Activities are evaluated in terms of their positive impact on the learning success and inclusion of pupils with SEN.
  • Hold twice yearly review meetings with families for pupil with a higher level of SEN.
  • Provide on-going training to teachers and teaching assistants in meeting pupils’ needs in the classroom.
  • Liaise closely with secondary schools at transition times to ensure SEN pupil information is clearly communicated and recommendations heard so that the move to secondary school is as smoother as possible.

For pupils who have a higher level of additional need, in addition to all the above, we provide a key worker:

  • To support the pupil to work on their individual targets.
  • To support access to the curriculum
  • To provide pastoral support.
  • To deliver specific targeted interventions where necessary.

Specific provision is also provided for different areas of need. If you require further information we would urge you to contact the school or arrange a time to visit and have a look around our provision.

If you have any concerns about your child’s SEN progress or provision, we would urge you to come into school and discuss matters further with your child’s class teacher or the school Inclusion Manager. Alternatively, the school parent support advisor (PSA) or Senior Leadership Staff would also be available to help. Although we would always hope to resolve any issues or concerns informally by working in partnership with parents, school complaints procedures are in place. Please click on the link for further information.

St. John Vianney Catholic Primary School, Elton Head Road, Sutton Heath, St. Helens, WA9 5BT