Q2: Who are the best people to talk to in this school about my child's difficulties with learning / Special Educational Needs or disability (SEND)?

Our SENCo - Mrs Hayes. Mrs Hayes, in conjunction and close liaison with the head teacher, takes  responsibility for:

  • Coordinating all the support for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) and developing the school's SEND Policy to make sure all children get a consistent, high quality response to meeting their needs in school, in line with changes at statutory and at school level, in conjunction with the head teacher.
  • Ensuring that you are:
    • involved in supporting your child's learning;
    • kept informed about the support your child is getting;
    • involved in reviewing how they are doing.
  • Liaising with all the other people who may be coming into school to help support your child's learning eg. Speech and Language Therapy; Educational Psychology; Occupational health, The LA Early Help team (who offer family liaison and support where they feel they can be of assistance); Senior advisory teachers (who can assist with advice, training and guidance for tried and tested interventions and who can signpost school to more specific support as needed.
  • Updating the school's SEND register (a system for ensuring all the SEND needs of pupils in this school are known) and making sure that there are appropriate records of your child's progress and needs.
  • Providing specialist support for teachers and support staff in the school so they can help children with SEND in the school achieve the best progress possible.
Our class teachers (sometimes this may be more than one teacher depending on which class your child is in and the overall needs of that class). They are responsible for:

  • Checking on the progress of your child and identifying, planning and delivering/co-ordinating the delivery of any additional help your child may need (this could be things like targeted work, additional support) in conjunction with our Inclusion Manager as appropriate.
  • Planning appropriately and setting achievable, measurable suitably challenging targets based on any previous progress. Sharing and reviewing these with parents termly enabling appropriate planning for the next term for all – pupil, parent and teaching team.
  • Ensuring that all staff working with your child in school are helped to deliver the planned work/programme for your child, so they can achieve the best possible progress. This may involve the use of additional adults, outside specialist help and specially planned work and resources.
  • Ensuring that the school's SEND Policy is followed in their classroom and for all the pupils they teach with any SEND.
Our Headteacher - Mrs Hill. She is responsible for:

  • The day to day management of all aspects of the school, this includes the support for children with SEND and the co-ordination of the role of SENCo.
  • Delegating responsibility to the SENCo and class teachers whilst still ensuring that your child's needs are met within the setting that St Mary of the Angels offers.
  • Communicating appropriately to the Governing Body to make sure that they are kept up to date about any issues in the school relating to SEND.
SEN Governors -  Mrs Corbett. They are responsible for:
  • Making sure that the necessary support is made for any child who attends the school who has SEND.