Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Initially please speak to your child’s form tutor. If you would like to speak to our SEND department, please use our contact details which can be found in the ‘worried about a child’ section above.

We can only screen for dyslexia, and this will provide an overview of your child’s strengths and areas for development. Screening reports are then shared with teachers so they are aware of how to support your child through Quality First Teaching in the classroom.

This depends on the referral – please speak to the pastoral team for further information regarding your child’s referral.

Yes the school can refer your child for a diagnosis of ADHD, ASC or other referrals needed such as to the Speech and Language Therapy team. These referrals are completed by the SENDCo with support of the pastoral team/teachers. You may prefer to discuss this with your GP as they can facilitate a referral too.

This is dependent on the level of provision that your child with SEND requires. An application can be made if you think your child cannot be supported by the provision already available in the school. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact the SEND department

As a school we have a wellbeing service that can support students with a variety of emotional difficulties. Please speak to your child’s class teacher or pastoral team for further information.

High Needs Funding (HNF) levels are dependent on need. The money school receives can be used in a variety of ways to support their needs.

The British Dyslexia Association says:

Dyslexia is a neurological difference and can have a significant impact during education, in the workplace and in everyday life. As each person is unique, so is everyone’s experience of dyslexia. It can range from mild to severe, and it can co-occur with other learning differences. It usually runs in families and is a life-long condition. It is a specific learning difficulty.

We are bound by the Kent (local authority) definition for Dyslexia which can be found in their policy at:
https://www.kent.gov.uk/education-and-children/special-educational-needs/send-strategy/dyslexia-policy

Therefore, if your child has a significant weakness in single word spelling and/or reading (and has had good educational opportunities, teaching and interventions) then they may meet the Kent criteria for dyslexia.

For us to gain a better understanding of your child’s literacy skills (this is where weaknesses are most evident) we can run a ‘strengths and weaknesses’ screener. This identifies a possible dyslexic profile or dyslexic tendencies. It helps us identify weaker cognitive skills such as phonological processing (being able to identify and manipulate the sounds in words) which can signify dyslexic tendencies.

We would then want to gather information from you and the class teacher, and look at a child’s work. A screener is a limited snapshot of a child’s ability – it is important we gather a full picture and look at interventions over time too.

Therefore, we can screen your child for a possible dyslexic profile and to help us identify possible interventions, but this is not the same as a dyslexia diagnosis. We cannot diagnose dyslexia in our school. This would need to be an independent certified assessor. It is an educational diagnosis that is life-long and results from high levels of psychometric testing that our staff are not qualified to use. This is private and comes at a cost. Assessors look for a discrepancy between a child’s general ability (like their IQ) and a child’s literacy skills.

Our teachers have dyslexia awareness training and can make adaptations to their teaching so that your child can access the curriculum like their peers. Very often, good strategies for dyslexic children are good for all children. Our focus is always on good teaching and good interventions, rather than the label.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition. There is no ‘test’ for autism. Instead, a paediatrician will collate evidence about a child’s social communication skills, repetitive or restrictive interests and sensory differences so that a judgement against particular criteria can be made.

Schools can make a referral for assessment, where the school agrees that there are differences that should be explored. Once a referral by school is sent to the relevant team, initial screening takes place. If a child is then put on the pathway, parents/ carers can expect to wait approximately 3 years before being notified about an appointment. ASC is not diagnosed at this appointment. Once an appointment is offered, the child is invited to a longer ‘joint communication clinic’ where a highly specialised speech and language therapist and a paediatrician work together to make a diagnosis, or not.

If a child has identifiable autistic traits, the school will implement ASC strategies whether they have been referred for assessment or not.

ADHD is a condition that affects individuals’ behaviour. The same principles apply as with ASC referrals. A referral is made to the relevant health team. We need to see inattentive or hyperactive/ impulsive behaviour that is significantly different from the majority of the peer group and across different environments to refer.

There is no single test for ADHD. Instead, information is collated from home/school and a certain ‘threshold’ must be met when comparing parent and school scores – as well as when the child is observed in clinic.

Medication is a possibility depending on the severity of the ADHD and parent views.

Some children have a diagnoses of ‘ADHD–inattentive type’, which used to be referred to as ADD (no hyperactivity).

As with ASC, if a child presents with symptoms of ADHD that are impacting their learning, the school will implement strategies to support irrespective of formal diagnosis.

Dyscalculia is a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers. It is inherent rather than just being ‘weaker’ at maths. A child will display intrinsic difficulties with their quantitative understanding of number at a basic level – i.e. show them 3 counters, then 6, and they could not quantify that one set was larger than the other, nor could they give sensible estimates for each quantity.

We cannot diagnose dyscalculia. This would fall to an Educational Psychologist or a certified assessor, and would likely be a private educational diagnosis.

The important thing is to understand a child’s mathematical gaps and work with them through intervention and class-based support.

This is also called Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). This affects a child’s gross and fine motor skill development and sometimes their sensory profile. It can arise with other specific conditions – dyslexia, ASC, ADHD etc.

Does the teacher see functional difficulties with a child’s self-care skills? E.g. changing for PE, gross motor coordination in PE, fine motor skills – scissor and pen skills, knife and fork skills, handwriting? Does the child appear clumsy and less able to coordinate their movements than peers? Struggles to throw and catch in PE? We need to evidence 3 different functional areas that the child struggles with.

If we see the above, then the child probably has had/needs intervention anyway.

A child with a DCD diagnosis requires support from an Occupational Therapist. The OT service needs to see that the school has put in appropriate interventions such as Clever Fingers for up to 50 sessions, before a referral can be made. Therefore gathering what is needed for an OT referral can take some time.

Once the referral is made, the wait can be 3-4 months before parent and child is invited to clinic (if the referral criteria is met). The OT can then identify strengths and weaknesses and help parents and school develop a programme or strategies that will help the child compensate for their motor weaknesses.

We can run a speech and language screener to identify potential areas of weakness. It can also help us identify additional interventions your child may need, which will also provide evidence to help us make a referral to the NHS speech and language therapy team, if intervention does not have any impact.

Some children experience a speech or language delay.  The difficulty is likely to resolve itself or ‘catch up’ or it could be a disorder, which is where more specialist intervention may be needed.

We know that children with speech and language difficulties may go on to have difficulties with learning, particularly literacy, though this is not always the case. Again, the SEND team works closely with teaching staff to identify and address any gaps through high-quality adaptive teaching.