Throughout the school we monitor and track the progress of all children by an ongoing process of planning, teaching and assessment (for details of assessments used at each phase please refer to assessment policy). Children with SEND may be identified at any stage of this process during their school life. If the child still does not make progress over a measured period and is substantially below expected levels of attainment or has behavioural and or emotional needs which are affecting their own or their class’ learning, school may seek the advice of external support services.

In addition to school assessments, we occasionally request additional diagnostic assessment from outside agencies, in particular the WRAT tests for reading, spelling and mathematics, as required by the L.A.

- § PIVATS assessments in KS1, and in KS2 showing how far below the national expectations the child is working.
- • Their performance is monitored by the teacher as part of ongoing observation and assessment.
- • Standardised screening or assessment tools.
- • Assessment from outside agencies including specialist teaching services.

This is not an exhaustive list as identification and assessments are linked to the needs and requirements of the individual pupil. Both the child and their parents need to be fully involved in the identification and assessment process. At Medlar-with-Wesham CE Primary School, we also carefully consider areas of need which are not categorised as SEND but may impact on progress and attainment including attendance and punctuality, health and welfare, English as an additional language, being in receipt of pupil premium or being a looked after child. The school strives to ensure that first class teaching of the highest quality is applied in all of these circumstances, where all pupils have access to an excellent, personalised education which is differentiated to their needs and requirements. All this aims to decrease the gap between students with special educational needs and their peers. The school also adopts the ‘reasonable adjustment’ duty under current disability and equality legislation as outlined in the Code of Practice 2014. In accordance with the Code of Practice 2014 the school will not identify behaviour as a special educational need. Any concerns relating to a child or young person’s behaviour will be described as an underlying response to a specific need which we will be able to recognise and identify clearly, for example a social or emotional difficulty.

#### ---------- SEND at Medlar with Wesham CE Primary School ----------

#### A Graduated Approach to SEND

Here at Medlar-with-Wesham CE Primary School, we adopt a graduated approach to SEND; where several steps are taken before students are added to the SEND register. As previously stated, the school ensures that the high-quality first-class teaching is a key element to all lessons. We recognise that it is the role of the class teacher to provide for every pupil’s individual needs and steps to ensure that pupils have appropriate adjustments and good quality personalised teaching should always be undertaken before we will consider pupils as having SEND.

We comply with the Code of Practice 2014 and students are only identified as having SEND if despite differentiated high quality teaching, they do not make adequate progress once they have had all the interventions, adjustments and high-quality, personalised teaching put into place. If pupils do not make adequate progress, then they are assessed to identify their individual needs as the first stage in the ‘assess- plan-do-review’ cycle. Assessments which can be carried out were mentioned in the previous section and are linked to the pupils presenting difficulties to ensure a complete picture is achieved. Parents/carers and the child are fully informed and communicated with through this assessment process.

Once an accurate assessment is completed, a decision is made whether to add the pupil to the SEND register at School Support level. Where the decision is made not to add the pupil, the SENCO will send