Our Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Provision
At St Thomas Centre Nursery School we believe that all children are entitled to have their individual needs appropriately supported in order to fully participate in nursery life and to achieve their highest potential across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage. We believe in a 'can do approach' where positive solutions are sought to ensure children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities are treated equally and can learn alongside their peers. All staff hold high expectations for all children including those with SEND. Experiences and teaching is carefully planned and based on building on what your child already knows, can do and can understand. Teaching is differentiated to meet the needs of all children. Children’s learning and progress is closely tracked.
Rhiannon Hyde and Lauren Davidson are responsible for the day to day provision of education for children with SEND. The named governors with responsibility for SEND are Margaret Sullivan (Cluster) and Laura Brodie (Federation).
At St Thomas Centre Nursery we are committed to:
- Ensuring an entitlement for ALL children to a broad, relevant and differentiated curriculum reflecting children's cultural background, interests and aptitudes.
- The earliest possible identification of a child's SEND.
- Involving parents/carers from the onset, ensuring they are fully involved in decisions about their child.
Types of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
There are four main areas of need in the SEND Code of Practice (2014). A child may need support in one or all of these areas. This may change throughout the child’s school life.
Communication and Interaction
Children with Speech, Language and Communication needs may have difficulty in communicating with others. They may have difficulty understanding what is being said to them or saying what they want to do. They may not understand or use the social rules of communication. Children may have very differing needs that change over time.
Cognition and Learning
Some children may find it more difficult to learn than others and not make as much progress in their learning as others. Sometimes this can be specific to one area or more areas of learning.
Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties
These may be shown in many different ways. These could be through challenging or disturbing behaviour or finding it difficult to manage emotions. However it must be remembered that young children often find it hard to control their emotions and can frequently display challenging behaviour. This is often part of their normal development!
Sensory and /or Physical Needs
Some children with vision impairment (VI), hearing impairment (HI) or multisensory impairment (MI) will require specialist support and/or equipment to support their learning. These difficulties may be age related and may fluctuate over time.
Did you know?
Nursery Schools are significantly more likely to be supporting children with specific Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) as they have teachers who are trained Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators.