SEND Report and Documents
SEND Information Report 2022-23
Each year every school provides parents with details on its website as to how it supports children with special educational needs and disabilities and what support parents can expect if they have concerns about their own child’s education.
At Whiteknights we believe that all children should be able to access education and that all children are able to make progress with their learning. Growing Greatness is achievable for all.
The termly systems and processes for monitoring and assessing all pupils gives us all (pupils, parents, class teachers, senior management, Governors and the Head) regular feedback on progress that the pupil is making, and allows us to step in and make changes if necessary. This cycle of planning, doing, assessing and reviewing forms a graduated approach to supporting all pupils to achieve their best.
What are Special Educational Needs and Disabilities?
We refer to the term “Special Educational Needs” if a pupil has ongoing significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of his or her age in one or more areas. A pupil has a disability if there is a condition which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided in schools. The difficulty or disability may relate to:
- communication and interaction
- cognition and learning
- social, emotional and mental health
- sensory or physical conditions.
What should you do if you have concerns about your child at school?
Speak to your child’s class teacher. Either make an appointment via the school office or speak to the teacher at the end of the school day. All teachers are able to provide support and guidance on how best to support pupils with their learning. Pupils do best in school when there is a good relationship between home and school and developing and maintaining links between the two is a highly effective way of supporting your child.
Where else can you look for help and support?
Our Inclusion Team are always available to meet with you to discuss concerns about your child. This team is led by Mrs Bridget Reynolds, Assistant Head, ably assisted by Ms Claire Collard, our Home School Link worker. Again, contact the school office to make an appointment. If you prefer to contact Mrs Reynolds or Ms Collard by email, their contact details are as follows:
Mrs Reynolds – senco@whiteknights.wokingham.sch.uk
Miss Collard - hslw@whiteknights.wokingham.sch.uk
Mrs Reynolds, who is an experienced class teacher and holds the national diploma in Special Educational Needs Co-ordination, can provide advice on strategies to support children with their learning both at school and home.
If your child needs ongoing additional support in school Mrs Reynolds will meet with you and your child’s class teacher to co-ordinate this support. Targets will be agreed between all parties through a support plan and you will be invited to school on a termly basis to discuss your child’s progress against these targets. The school will keep a record of those pupils who have a special educational need.
Where appropriate, Mrs Reynolds is also able to access external services to provide support and guidance to help a pupil make the best possible progress; this includes such services as speech and language support, educational psychology advice, learning support advice and children’s mental health service advice.
For a few pupils their educational needs are exceptionally great in which case Mrs Reynolds will work with the family to apply to the local authority for an Educational Health Care Plan which recognises the extent of the child’s educational need and places on the local authority a statutory responsibility to ensure that the pupil has the most appropriate form of educational support.
Miss Collard’s role in school is to provide support for pupils and families where emotional, social or health needs may be affecting a child’s wellbeing and progress in school. This support can be both short term or in the form of longer ongoing assistance. Miss Collard is also able to direct families to parenting support and other external sources of guidance. If you think she may be able to help you contact the school office and they will put you in touch with her.
Staff training
At Whiteknights one of the guiding principles by which we believe all pupils make the best possible progress is for them to have the most time possible with a first class, high quality teacher. Ongoing training for class teachers is an important part of our annual cycle of training and development. At Whiteknights we are also fortunate to have a highly skilled and experienced pool of Teaching Assistants who also receive regular training to enable them to deliver intervention programmes, which are co-ordinated and monitored by Mrs Reynolds.
Are there any other sources of information and help available?
The school provides a detailed breakdown of how a pupil’s special educational needs or medical needs are supported through the SEND policy. This is updated annually and can be found on the school website.
As part of this policy every school must have a Local Offer which details the specific types of support that it can provide a pupil. At Whiteknights our Local Offer is part of our SEND policy (view below). Our Local Offer is in turn part of the support that is provided to families within the Local Authority and this can be accessed for our families that live in the Wokingham area by clicking here. For parents living in the Reading area there are similar sources of information on their website http://www.reading.gov.uk/localoffer
The health service websites are also a really useful source of information. The Children and Young Persons (CYPIT) site (https://cypf.berkshirehealthcare.nhs.uk/) is a valuable place to find information. Look for the toolkit tab to access guidance sheets for many areas of concern for parents of young children.
National advice sites such as the National Autistic Society and the British Dyslexia Trust are also useful sources of information:
http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/
If you still have concerns:
The school’s complaints procedure can be found on our website under by clicking HERE, and parents may also contact the Wokingham Borough SEN team on 0118 9746216. (If you are a Reading resident approach the Reading Borough SEN team on 0118 937 2674.)
If the SEN team is unable to resolve your concerns, you may wish to contact Wokingham Special Educational Needs and Disability Information Advice Support Service – SENDIASS - 0118 9088233 mailto:sendiass@wokingham.gov.uk. (For Reading residents Reading Information, Advice & Support Service for SEN provides similar advice on 0118 9373421 mailto:iass@brighterfuturesforchildren.org.)
These are services that all authorities are legally required to provide for parents and carers who have a child with special educational needs, with or without an education health care plan. Although part of the local authorities these services offer impartial advice and support. Leaflets about their role can be found in the school office.
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