SEND - Woodlands Primary Academy

At Woodlands, we endeavour to create an inclusive, supportive and aspirational learning environment that is responsive to the diversity of children’s backgrounds, interests, experience, knowledge and skills. We are committed to working together with all members of the school community. We enjoy sharing and celebrating the achievements everybody and believe in participation for all!

At different times in their school career, a child or young person may have a special educational need. The Code of Practice defines SEND as:

“A child or young person has SEND if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if they:

a) have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age: or

b) have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions.”

If a learner is identified as having SEND, we will provide provision that is ‘additional to or different from’ the normal differentiated curriculum, intended to overcome the barrier to their learning.

We work in collaboration with parents, children, teachers, support staff and the school SENDCo to gather views, identify barriers to learning and put in place the appropriate support for the learner. For some leaners, we may want to seek advice from specialist teams and services to provide support, intervention and expertise. Examples of the various specialist teams include, but are not limited to:

Educational Psychologists

Specialist/Learning Advisory Teachers

Speech and Language Therapists

Occupational Health Therapists

‘School 2 School’ advice from special schools

Support from Specialist Resource Bases (SRBs)

Please find below a link to our SEND Information Report and SEND Policy.

Our SEND Information Report is part of the Norfolk Local Offer for SEND, which can be found here. https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/children-and-families/send-local-offer

The Norfolk Community Directory is also a good place to search for activities, services and groups in Norfolk, including those that are part of the Norfolk Local Offer. https://communitydirectory.norfolk.gov.uk

The Norfolk SEND Local Offer website is full of resources that can support parents and carers of children with SEND. To help you navigate this site further and find specific guidance, definitions of terminology and break-downs of processes, take a look at this helpful document with hyperlinks to pages on the Norfolk SEND Local Offer website.

SEND UPDATES

We are launching our new framework for SEND: iCREATE. Check out our launch video to find out more!

We had SENDIASS attend our Support Empower Network café on Friday 8th December 2023. They left a variety of leaflets to support parents with:

You can find a copy of these leaflets here. If you would like a hardcopy, please speak with Miss Jowett.

Family Action came to our recent Support Empower Network Cafe – please find the handouts from this session below.

We had our first SEND cafe this week and we started with a nice informal session. We have a provisional timetable of speakers we’ll be having over this year which you can see in the link below. We will confirm dates closer to the time. We hope to see you there!

Thanks to all that attended our Support, Empower, Network café on Monday 5th. It was a shame that our speaker was unable to attend but it was a great opportunity for us to all get together and share our stories. Thanks again!

Keep your eyes peeled for our next café date which I will confirm soon! Miss Jowett

We had the lovely Laura from Family Action speak at our Support, Empower, Network café. She has shared her information PowerPoint as well as:

Welcome back everyone! This half-term we are adapting when teachers will produce their Learning Passports. All children on the SEND register will still have a meeting before the end of the Summer term. However, Reception and Y1 will have their Learning Passport reviews in June rather than May.

Our Sensory room looks fantastic! It’s being used daily and we want to say another huge THANK YOU!!!! We wouldn’t have this amazing room without the kind support and donations from all of our parents/carers. I will get some photos for next week’s newsletter. And, I will send out invitations to parents to come and take a look at it soon – so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Our next Support Empower Network cafe will be on Monday 24th April at 3.20 – 4pm. Please feel free to drop in between 3.20 and 3.30 as we will start at 3.30. The speaker will be an ADHD specialist. Children are welcome to along, I will set them up with some drawing and colouring activities outside of the room the speaker is in. I look forward to seeing you there!

Thank you again to all parents/ carers who made time to speak with us regarding their child’s Learning Passports. They will be reviewed again in the summer term.

We will be having our next Support Empower Network cafe in April and details will be shared after half-term.

The Sensory Room is coming together beautifully and getting lots of regular use! We will be inviting parents in to view this soon.

Norfolk Autism Acceptance Week is the 27th of March to the 2nd April. At school, we will be learning about differences and how to embrace them. The Norfolk Autism Partnership have some great information on if you would like to do some learning at home too – https://communitydirectory.norfolk.gov.uk/Services/9658

We have achieved the Young Carers Friendly Tick Award which means we are emphasising the standards which young carers, young adult carers and adult carers feel are necessary to ensure young carers are identified and properly supported – look out for our certificate in the Office area!

We are part of Norfolk’s ‘Flourish Pledge’. Over the next year, we have pledged the following – “WPA pledges to help children flourish by focusing in particular on our Young Carers and children with SEND. We will initiate a new monthly meeting with young carers to provide them with holistic support, and provide a home pack for school holidays. To recognise and praise progress we will award ‘Lexia’ certificates as milestones are reached. For our pupils with SEND we will award ‘Learning Passport Performer’ certificates to make them feel proud of, and praise, their achievements.“