Agreed December 2013
Reviewed May 2020
POLICY: SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS
Mabel Prichard School caters for students aged between two and nineteen years of age with severe and / or profound and multiple learning difficulties.
Statement of Special Educational Needs
All students attending Mabel Prichard School have an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP). These are legal documents to ensure the child receives the correct provision to meet their individual needs. This EHCP is reviewed annually at a formal meeting with parents and professionals.
Named people
Kevin Burrell is the member of the Governing Body responsible for Special Educational Needs. They provide support and guidance to parents/carers if and when required and support and challenge the school in meeting their statutory requirements.
Philosophy
Throughout their time at Mabel Prichard School we have 3 key aims for all of our pupils:
- To motivate them to learn throughout their lives
- To prepare them for a meaningful adulthood
- To encourage
We have three pathways in our curriculum in order to ensure each student’s needs are met and individual strengths are recognised.
Each pathway focuses on teaching pupils to apply skills that are learnt through:
| Pre-formal | Semi-formal | Formal |
| - Language and
communication -Mathematical development -Physical and sensory development -Knowledge and understanding of the wider world - Personal, social and health education -Creative development |
-English development
-Mathematical development -Physical development -PSHE -Knowledge and understanding of the wider world -PSHE -Creative development |
-English
-Maths -P.E -Science, humanities, computing -PSHE -Arts subjects |
Our pre-formal curriculum aims to develop the essential skills for future life with a strong emphasis on engagement and learning. Communication and interaction with the world is a focus, with learners developing skills of initiation, interaction, awareness, curiosity, investigation, discovery and most importantly, persistence.
Our semi-formal curriculum aims to develop the essential skills for future life, with a strong emphasis on support to understand and stay safe and healthy in the wider world. Careful sequencing is planned to ensure progress is made as students move through the school. They learn to apply these essential knowledge and skills as they move into adulthood.
Our formal curriculum aims to develop the essential skills for future life. Careful sequencing is planned to ensure progress is enabled as students move through the school and are able to apply the essential knowledge and skills learnt as they move into adulthood.
We evaluate the impact to ensure we can review, replan and continue to make progress with:
-Learners, parents, teachers and governors.
-A variety of evidence types to inform assessment.
-A policy of verbal feedback with clear next steps.
-Visual feedback to indicate success and next steps.
-A plan, do, review -approach to evaluation.
-A meaningful, personalised assessment system.
-Meaningful data to inform improvements
Practice
- Teachers are responsible for assessing the needs of the students in their class, with the help of other professionals including Speech Therapist, Physiotherapist, Occupational Therapist and where appropriate LDCAMHS.
- Teachers review progress three times a year in pupil progress reports, which then inform a meeting with a member of the senior leadership team to look at plans for further progress and any changes to be made to ensure further progress. These are shared with parents and carers.
- Teachers keep succinct records of each student's progress including samples of work, photographs and video clips on Evidence for Learning which creates a case study of their progress throughout the school.
- Parents are informed of their student's progress at Annual reviews, parents evenings and through an end of year report.
- students have access to specialists teaching rooms e.g. sensory room, soft play room, Jacuzzi and D&T room
- The school uses a variety of teaching strategies to meet the needs of all pupils e.g. TEACCH, Attention Autism, TACPAC, 1:1 and small groups
- The school uses a varied menu of communication aides including Makaton signing, PECS, Big Macs, Proloquo2go and Communication Books
- The school provides extra-curricular activities in the form of After School Clubs and Holiday Clubs with other organisations.
- The school is highly committed to ALL staff been trained in the form of whole school INSET days, weekly teacher workshops and staff team meetings, good practice visits, a teaching and learning hub sharing evidence informed practice and a range of Continuing Professional Development opportunities.
This policy is closely linked to the Equalities opportunities and plan