Learning Support (SEND)

Highgate Wood School is firmly committed to inclusion and to supporting all our students to achieve their best.  Many of our students will have different needs and some are working at different levels to their peers.  We take a graduated approach to identifying and supporting all students and students with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities. Our SEND offer is based on our students’ needs with most of our students accessing a full mainstream curriculum with support from the Learning Support team, where needed.  Some require additional support through interventions provided by our internal inclusion teams or by external agencies.

Highgate Wood School’s SEND policy, aims and objectives:

SEND Policy and Information Report 2022

Our SEND Policy and Information Report aims:

• To promote an inclusive ethos at Highgate Wood School which ensures that all students feel valued and that the needs of all students are met
• To enable all students, including those with SEND, to reach their full potential by providing a rich, stimulating, challenging and personalised curriculum and high quality teaching
• To ensure the highest expectations are applied to the standards and progress of students with SEND, so that any underachievement is identified and effective strategies and interventions are put in place to address this
• To ensure that barriers to learning are identified at the earliest possible opportunity and addressed through a range of appropriate interventions
• To ensure that students with SEND are well prepared for the next stage of their education and beyond, to adulthood, having received a high quality education which has met their individual academic, social, physical and/or emotional needs
• To work collaboratively with students, parents, teachers and other stakeholders to design the best educational provision for students with SEND
• To ensure the school meets its public sector equality duty as set out in the Equality Act 2010
• Meet all SEN requirements and provisions contained in the statutory Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice and the following legislation:
  · Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 , which sets out schools’ responsibilities for student with SEN and disabilities
  · The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 , which set out schools’ responsibilities for education, health and care (EHC) plans, SEN co-ordinators (SENDCos) and the SEN information report

Assessment

Students facing challenges in their learning are likely to need additional strategies, or a different provision beyond the routine high-quality teaching in the classroom,  in order to meet their needs. The SEND Code of Practice states that, for these learners, school staff need to remove barriers to learning and put effective special educational provision in place through SEND support. The Code of Practice requires early years provision to adopt “a graduated approach with four stages of action: assess, plan, do and review” which is a model that is also adopt by many secondary schools.

At Highgate Wood School the SEND support takes the form of a four-part cycle (assess, plan, do, review). This is what this looks like at Highgate Wood School:

Contacting the School for advice or support if Parents/Carers suspect their child has difficulties with learning and is not diagnosed with a learning difficulty

• The parents’ first point of contact is always their child’s form tutor for pastoral issues, or their subject teachers for specific subject issues. These can be progressed to Head of Departments or Head of Year, where necessary (see website for contact details)
• If it is a specific subject issue, then this may be dealt with at a subject level with guidance and support from the subject specialist and/or Head of Department. If parents have further queries, or the learning difficulty is across a range of subjects, then please contact our SEND admin officer, Ms Faber, using the form  below
• Parents should expect a response to their inquiry within two working days
• The initial response will be sent either by the SENDCO, Maya Angelou Centre Manager or SEN Administrator and it will be an acknowledgement of the parent enquiry
• The parents will then be contacted within five working days to discuss the enquiry in greater depth, and next steps will be confirmed
• Please refer to the SEND Wave Two Referral Flow Chart above to see how we will follow up with the enquiry
• Once the SEND referral has been investigated, parents will be contacted and a discussion about the outcomes from the referral will occur
• Parents will be involved in the final decisions with regards to the support and next steps
• Please note that the outcome of the SEND referral investigation may be a recommendation for the parent, with our support, to seek further support from an external agency, including accessing support from the local authority
• Please find more details on what is available in Haringey here

Support for Students with existing SEND

Support Students with SEND (SEN K):

• Every student with SEND will have a student profile that identifies their strengths, areas of difficulty, specific learning needs, recommended strategies for support, and specific interventions
• The student profile will only be adjusted each year to reflect the specific identified interventions, where appropriate, for the academic year
• Unless there are any new developments or specific changes in a student with SEND needs, the student profile will only be reviewed and altered at the end of each Key Stage.
• Parents and the student will be involved in the review and alterations of the student profile

Support for Students with SEND (EHCP):

• Every student with SEND will have a student profile that identifies their strengths, areas of difficulty, specific needs, recommended strategies for support, and specific interventions
• Every year there will be an Annual Review Meeting where parents and the student will review the experiences across the academic year and will discuss next steps with regards to support
• The student profile will be adjusted each year to reflect the specific interventions for the academic year, and to include any specific outcomes agreed at the Annual Review Meeting
• Parents and the student will be involved in the review and alterations of the student profile

Contacting the school if a student has an existing diagnosis (SEN K or an EHCP) and the parent wants to discuss support and progress

• Parents can monitor progress through the school assessment and reporting schedule
• Parents can discuss progress and implementation of support at Pastoral Review Day and at Parents’ Evenings during the academic year. (Parents of students with an EHCP will also discuss progress at the Annual Review)
• The parents’ first point of contact is always their child’s form tutor for pastoral issues, or their subject teachers for specific subject issues. These can be progressed to Head of Departments or Head of Year, where necessary (see website for contact details).
• If it is a specific subject issue, then this may be dealt with at a subject level with guidance and support from the subject specialist and/or Head of Department
• If parents have further queries, or the learning difficulty is across a range of subjects, then please contact our SEND admin officer, Ms Faber, using the form provided below or here
• Parents should expect a response to their inquiry within two working days
• The initial response will be sent either by the SENDCO, Maya Angelou Centre Manager or SEN Administrator and it be an acknowledgement of the parent enquiry.
• The parents will then be contacted within five working days to discuss the enquiry in greater depth, and next steps will be confirmed.

Access Arrangements for examinations at Highgate Wood School

Please view Access arrangements at HWS – Parent info for details of our processes to enable support for students during public and internal examinations.

Learning Support Team