SEND

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

This page is designed to support all our learners and their parents with information about Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. All staff at The Oaks Academy are dedicated to creating an inclusive culture for all our learners and we have an open-door policy for parents. Please use the tabs on the left to navigate your way through the page.

Vision

All staff at The Oaks Academy are dedicated to creating an inclusive culture for all our learners and we have an open-door policy for parents.

At The Oaks Academy, we have high expectations and set suitable targets for all students. At this school, a special educational need is defined in accordance with the 2014 SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 Years. A student is defined as having SEND if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. At school age, this means he or she has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others the same age or has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream school (Taken from 2014 SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 Years – introduction xiii and xiv).

We Inspire to aim high

Every pupil at The Oaks Academy is encouraged to aim high, this includes our pupils with Special educational needs (SEND).

We believe in ourselves

In the SEND department we work closely with the SEND pupils to develop their skills and confidence. All our SEND pupils access the personal development programme through PSCHE, form time and assemblies.

We achieve academic excellence

All subjects are open to our SEND pupils at KS3 and KS4. We believe that our pupils with special educational needs and disability (SEND) have the right to access the full curriculum.

Aims

The Oaks Academy aims to:

Ensure SEND pupils achieve their full potential, both academically and socially.
Each teacher has a clear understanding on how to adapt and scaffold their lessons to ensure all SEND pupils are not only able to access their lesson but able to thrive and achieve their full potential in that lesson
Learning Support Assistants provide the correct support to SEND pupils who require the extra support.
Continued professional development is in place to ensure staff are equipped with the skills to support the SEND pupils.

The Trust aims to:

Our aim is for every pupil to fulfil their potential in all areas of development. We achieve this via early needs identification and providing support as necessary in response to these needs. We believe that all teachers are teachers of SEND.

Our key principles are:

To identify, at the earliest opportunity, barriers to learning and participation.
To enable all children, whatever their special educational need or disability, to receive appropriate educational provision through an ambitious, broad and balanced curriculum.
To involve parents/carers in planning and supporting at all stages of their child development.
To ensure that pupils with SEND have a voice and are given opportunities to express an opinion and that this opinion will be considered in matters affecting them.
To work closely with external support agencies, where appropriate, to support the needs of individual pupils.

We implement an Early Identification Pathway. Early identification and adaptations to teaching ensure that most children’s needs can be met as part of the school’s normal provision.

A child is classed as having Special Educational Needs if they have a learning difficulty or disability that requires special educational provision to be made for them.

They have a learning difficulty or disability if they have:

A significantly greater difficulty in learning than most others of the same age, or
A disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools.

Special educational provision is educational or training provision that is additional to, or different from, that made generally for other children or young people of the same age by mainstream schools.

We review the support children receive and the progress they make regularly by assessing pupils needs, putting plans in place, delivering support and then reviewing this support. This creates a review process we call our graduated approach.

The School’s SENDCO is Helen Holland

She is responsible for the day to day operation of the school’s SEND Policy and can be contacted by:>

Telephone 01270661223

Email: hholland@theoaksacademy.co.uk

SEND Policy

Our SEND Policy contains information on how we aim to support children with special educational needs. It states the school's vision and aims for SEN and includes information about the principles that shape the day-to-day processes of the school.

SEND Information Report

The SEND Information Report explains how the school's SEND Policy is used and applied in our school context.

Accessibility Plan

The school’s accessibility plan indicates the actions we are planning to take to make our school as inclusive as possible.

Other useful sources of information

Cheshire East Local Authority publish a Local Offer. This offer has links to the support available in this local area related to special educational needs. It can be found here