Blessed William Howard is an inclusive academy where every child is valued and respected as a child of God. We work to support all our students to make progress in their learning, their emotional and social development, and their independence including those with SEND. High-quality teaching is monitored and ensured through classroom observations; termly work sampling; moderation of assessments; teacher meetings with SENCo; school data and progress tracking.
Students with SEND will be placed on the SEND register, which is accessible to all staff in the School. Students on the register will either be coded ‘E’ (Educational Health Care Plan); M (monitored) or ‘K’ (other students who receive SEND support).
All teachers are teachers of special educational needs. The SEND Code of Practice is followed and all teachers receive training in the SEND Code of Practice. Blessed William Howard Catholic High School recognizes that it is the teachers’ responsibility to meet the needs of all children in their class through high-quality teaching, classroom organization, seating arrangements, carefully planned lessons, a range of teaching styles, teaching materials, and differentiation.
Blessed William Howard Catholic School has a dedicated team of qualified teaching assistants including higher-level teaching assistants, two assistant SENCo's, and SENCo. The team provides support in the classroom, out of class in 1:1, and in small groups. They have received a range of training, have the excellent subject knowledge, and provide outstanding levels of support for academic learning and emotional support.
Some pupils require targeted intervention. These are planned onto a provision map and interventions are delivered by Teaching Assistants. Interventions may include small group or individual work.
All pupils have access to a supervised homework club which runs Monday – Thursday until 4.00 pm, during this time support is offered via Student Support Staff.
All students with a disability will be provided with “reasonable adjustments” to facilitate their access to the curriculum.
All students are set individual curriculum targets based on national criteria and data from Key Stage 2 tests. Targets are revisited termly and discussed with students and parents at parent consultation evenings.
Where a student is failing to meet expected levels of progress, interventions will be put into place and the outcomes of these monitored at data points, in meetings with the Pastoral lead, and with the SENCo.
When action is required to support increased rates of progress, this will follow a graduated response model: Assess, Plan, Do, Review.
o Assess: The School will assess the pupil’s needs using teacher assessment, experience, previous attainment, and data tracking against peer and national data.
o Plan: Parents/carers will be invited to a meeting to plan support and intervention. The student will receive a pupil passport/profile and all teachers who work with the student will be made aware of the child’s needs and support required.
o Do: Subject teachers will implement the plan in their daily teaching and retain responsibility for the pupil if 1:1 or small group support is needed outside the subject.
o Review: The parent will be invited to a review of the impact of the support and this will be evaluated at a termly meeting. The subject teacher will revise support in line with the outcome of the meeting.
SEN support will be recorded on a ‘pupil passport’ which will have clear expectations and targets for the student. Progress will be monitored and reviewed termly at a meeting with parents, the pupil, the Pastoral lead, and where necessary, the SENCo.
If progress rates are deemed to be inadequate, despite additional support and interventions, advice will be sought from external agencies with the permission of the parents/carers.
Such agencies may include:
o Autism Inclusion Team
o Hearing Inclusion Team
o Visual Inclusion Team
o Educational Psychologist Service
o CAMHS
o Occupational Therapy
o School Nurse
For pupils who may have significant or more complex needs or who fail to make expected levels of progress despite SEND support, the School or parents may consider requesting an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP) that will be undertaken by the Local Authority.