SEN support - Graduated Approach (what the LA expects education settings to offer)
If your child is:
- not making expected progress in their education or
- struggling to cope when their setting has changed their teaching methods and materials to suit their style and rate of learning
then your child may have special educational needs (SEND).
The teacher/tutor along with yourself and the school’s Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENDCo or SENCo) will work together to identify if your child has SEND and what extra support they might need.
If agreed, your child will:
- be placed under the SEN support
- will receive extra help in school according to their needs.
The SENCo at the educational setting should talk to you and discuss the support that could meet your child’s needs.
The school might decide the graduated approach to SEN Support is needed.
The graduated approach is known as ‘Assess, Plan, Do, Review’. A regular cycle of assess, plan, do, review is used to ensure that pupils with SEND are making progress.
Check a YouTube video of Slough's young people explaining the 'SEND Local Offer - Graduated Approach'. Please note: If you access the video on YouTube the subtitles maybe auto generated. Some videos may not have subtitles. Some videos may autoplay.
Assess
Your child’s needs are identified so that the right SEND support is given.
The assessment should include:
- asking parents and the child for their opinion
- talking to professionals who work with the child (such as the teacher)
- checking records of assessment and other information.
Plan
- The child’s educational setting with parents/ carers agree the outcomes (the benefit or difference made to an individual as result of an intervention) that the SEND support will achieve.
- Everyone is involved in deciding what kind of SEND support will be provided. Together they will decide when the SEN support is reviewed.
- The plan should be written down. This ensures that everybody knows what different additional support is going to be put in place to meet the child’s identified needs.
Do
- The educational setting will put in place the planned support.
- The teacher remains responsible for the child/young person and will work with them daily.
- The SENDCo and any support staff or specialist teaching staff involved in providing support, should work closely together. This is to check that the support is making a difference.
Review
SEND support should be reviewed by the time agreed in the plan.
Everyone who is involved in the process, should decide together whether the:
- SEND support is working effectively and having a positive impact
- outcomes have been or are being achieved.
Outcomes and next steps
If the SEND support:
- is working effectively and the child is making expected progress, it has been successful. The SEND support should continue within the assess, plan, do, review cycle. The student and is likely to not need any additional SEND Support.
- isn’t making a difference, or if new needs emerge during the graduated process, the setting should put in place new and different support for the student. They should then continue the ‘Assess, Plan, Do, Review’ with the new plan of support.
