Special Educational Needs in Tameside
Special Educational Needs in Tameside
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An information film for parents of children with special educational needs get the help they're entitled to.
Text Only Version
Jim Taylor - Assistant Executive Director for Services for Children and Young People
Hello my name is Jim Taylor, I'm the Assistant Executive Director for Services for Children and Young People and I work for Tameside Council. I'd like to welcome you to this DVD and this DVD will help provide information for you if you think your child has a special educational need. The DVD will describe all the processes that you might need to go through to help your child through their educational setting. Because of the Children Act, Tameside Council was able to bring together the education service and children's social care under one umbrella service called Services for Children and Young People. The five outcomes which you'll hear about later on in the DVD, are extremely important for every child and we think every child matters. I'd like to thank the Parent Partnership Service for producing this DVD and I really hope you get some great information from it, thank you.
Debbie Wood - Parent Partnership Service Co-ordinator
There's never a silly question from a parent because it's all new to them when they start off on this road so please, please come through, we're here to encourage partnership working between parents, schools and settings.
Wendy Clifford - Parent
I'm really pleased that I got him sorted early on, you know with the help of the Parent Partnership because I think the early years are the years that it's critical to get it right to be honest.
Helen Hobday - Head of EBD Outreach Support Services
When schools and parents and my service are all working together that's when you see the biggest success.
Voiceover
Some children may have special educational needs known as SEN, this means they have a greater difficulty in learning than other children of the same age and this may be down to a learning difficulty, a behavioural difficulty or a disability, and some children have very complex needs because they have a combination of all those difficulties.
Now we do find that most children can be supported in mainstream schools but if a lot of extra help is needed then we have special skills offering specialist resources which may be the best option. Various types of skills will be explained shortly. In some cases, help is needed throughout a child's entire time at school, others need short-term support and assistance. Some children have difficulties with all academic work, while others struggle in certain subjects. Then again, some have difficulty mixing socially, or find it hard to behave properly in class.
Claire Bibby - Head of Inclusive Services
You find children with special educational needs in a wide variety of settings; in pre-schools, in nurseries and in what we call mainstream schools - that's just the normal school down the road where everybody goes. They might have very specific needs, for example, they might need to use sign language and then it's useful for them to have friends around them who also use sign language and teachers who are used to doing that as well, or they might be learning particularly slowly and need a high level of group work and some of these children go to resource schools is what we call them where there are special facilities for them there. So we have in Tameside resource schools for children with hearing problems, with visual difficulties, autistic spectrum disorders and some primary age children who've got significant learning needs as well. We're actually about half way through a re-building programme it's going to take about fifteen years, where we're re-building all of our special schools alongside mainstream schools. So that those children who've got the most complicated needs can learn and play alongside a wider range of other children if that's what's possible for them.
A parent has a right to say they want their child to go to a mainstream school and if they express that preference then the Council has a duty to make sure that it does everything in its power to make sure that that happens. Parents also have a general right to say where they'd like their child to go to school and as a Council we have to start from the place where that will happen unless its deemed that the school can't meet the child's needs or if the child goes there then it'll stop other children learning or perhaps if it's actually very much more expensive than an alternative which the Council thinks will meet the child's needs just as well.
Voiceover
The Government have produced this document called the Code of Practice which sets out all the information you need to know about special needs. Details are in here about the identification of SEN, roles and responsibilities, but it also stresses that the role of you, the parent, is crucial. Your knowledge, views and experience about your child are essential to the process in supporting them through their education. Wherever possible, the Code says children with special educational needs should attend their local school and have the right to be educated in all curriculum subjects. Reference for this document will be given at the end.
Educating children in Tameside involves professionals from Health, Social Care and Education. All these services are working together to ensure better outcomes for children and young people. The five main outcomes are ‘Be Healthy', ‘Stay Safe', ‘Enjoy and Achieve', ‘Make a Positive Contribution' and ‘Achieve Economic Wellbeing.'
We all pretty much take food and health for granted but there are four main areas of need; communication and interaction, cognitive and learning difficulties, behaviour and emotional difficulties, and sensory and physical.
Many children have communication difficulties ranging from speech and language delay, specific language impairment, to levels on the autistic spectrum.
Sara Finn - Team Leader of CLASS
CLASS stands for Communication, Language and Autistic Spectrum Support, working with children with what we call specific language impairment or with social communication difficulties that includes autistic spectrum disorders in schools across Tameside and we work in pre-school settings, maintained and non-maintained, early years, we work in private nurseries and day care centres and then we work in the mainstream primary and secondary schools and we're just starting to link up with the special schools as well.
Teachers, support assistants and speech language therapists who go into mainstream schools and work with the children or with the school staff to actually support them and try and meet their needs in a mainstream setting and many of those children are on the autistic spectrum. We also do training for schools, we'll do work with parents in the home and we'll actually do one-to-one work with the children themselves or perhaps work small group work or working alongside them in the classroom really to help them to access the curriculum.
There's a lot of evidence to say early intervention is the key especially with children on the autistic spectrum the earlier you can pick them up, the more successful the outcome is in terms of being able to include them in a more mainstream environment. We also actually run two resource bases which are attached to mainstream schools, one primary and one secondary and those resource bases have been set up specifically to meet the needs of children on the autistic spectrum who could actually access a mainstream curriculum but because of their social and communication difficulties, they need a higher level of support than can actually be achieved in a mainstream school.
Voiceover
Some children have moderate, severe or profound learning difficulties which quite often affects the child's ability to read, write, organise themselves and solve problems. Emotional and behavioural difficulties can involve disruption in class, hyperactivity or even isolation. Children excluded from school may be sent to Pupil Referral Units where they're found an alternative setting.
Helen Hobday - Head of EBD Outreach Support Services
We work with pupils experiencing emotional, behavioural or social difficulties in mainstream primary, secondary settings and in nurseries and in private nursery and early years settings. We work with the children sometimes on a one-to-one basis, sometimes in a classroom or a setting to give them strategies to improve their behaviour and to try and help them express their emotions in a more positive manner. For some young people it is a very long process but for others it can be quite a short process, six to twelve weeks, and you can actually effect quite a positive change.
We're principally accessed through schools, through schools having made a conscious decision that they've got a young person with this sort of a difficulty and they would inform the parents and ask the parents' permission to begin to get my service involved which quite often has involved some with the Educational Psychologist, however, if a parent is concerned about their youngster they are perfectly within their rights to go and ask the school if they could access our service. Once we get together and work as a team that's when we have the biggest success when schools and parents and my service are all working together, that's when we see the biggest success.
Voiceover
The final category includes children with profound visual and hearing difficulties. In Tameside there's a specific service which supports children with these difficulties and their parents. It's called the Sensory Support Service.
They could also have severe physical or medical problems which may require adapting a school using lifts or ramps, or the use of specialist equipment and support aids. Obviously not every child's needs fit neatly into one of these sections. For some children they may have a combination of needs. To help parents, schools, Local Authority Officers and other agencies in identifying children's SEN and meeting their needs, Tameside Council has produced this document called ‘Matching Provisions to Needs' reference to this document will be given at the end, and each Council has a Parent Partnership Service which supports parents and carers through the SEN process.
Debbie Wood - Parent Partnership Service Co-ordinator
We're an impartial confidential service for parents and carers who have children with Special Educational Needs or additional needs. We offer parents information, support and guidance about the Special Educational Needs process and services within Tameside that might support their children. We support parents who have children nought to nineteen so that covers early years settings, school age children and further education as well.
We tailor our support very much to parents individually and what they want from the service. Some parents want information from us about the processes and services within Tameside. Other parents want more practical support from us such as home visits to go through the information with parents, some parents want us to accompany them into schools to meetings about their children so we very much speak with the parents about the type of enquiry that they've come through with and what type of service and level of service that they would like from us.
We're a parent self referral service where parents themselves make contact with the service so we very much tailor what we do according to the wishes of the parent. We offer training to parents about the processes of Special Educational Needs and we are able to also facilitate training within schools and to other services through the Council. There's never a silly question from the parent because it's all new to them when they start off on this road so please, please come through. We're here to encourage partnership working between parents, schools and settings.
Voiceover
Let's now hear from a parent who's needed the support of the Parent Partnership Service to help with her young son.
Wendy Clifford - Parent
Reece is eight years of age at the moment just finished Year 3 and he has a condition called Neurofibromatosis. He was quite disruptive within the school environment, quite hyperactive and just disruptive to the classroom really, running around and at the beginning it was really quite traumatic I mean obviously my daughter's been through education, had no problems there so when I started experiencing problems with Reece I really didn't understand a lot of stuff that school was telling me about a lot of just things that I needed to do for Reece. I would have just found it really confusing, I would have just left it to school to sort and I wouldn't have been involved and I'm really pleased that I got him sorted early on you know with the help of the Parent Partnership because I think the early years are the years that it's critical to get it right to be honest.
Voiceover
Ok let's now look at what you need to do if you're concerned about your child's educational progress. The first person to speak to is the person who's best known your child either in early years setting, school or college.
Jayne Whitehead - Learning Support Officer
Dependent on their age if they're early years they can contact the Health Visitor who will then put them in the right direction of who to speak to. Primary schools if they go to the class teacher or the head teacher. Secondary school they could go to the class teacher, form tutor or head of year who will then put them in touch with whoever may do some assessments to find out if there is a problem or need.
You put something in writing, you make notes of what the problem is so that you don't forget when you do have a meeting, you can ring up to arrange a meeting with the head teacher or class teacher or speak to somebody at parents' evening. If there is a concern the people that you have had the first meeting with may want to speak to the SENCO, the Special Educational Needs Coordinator, and there will be a SENCO in both primary and secondary levels that they can contact and then meetings will be set up and paperwork will be put in place that parents will get copies of.
If they're not happy they can again speak to the head teacher if it's secondary or even contact a governor who is linked to Special Educational Needs. They all make progress at different rates so just because you've got a concern with your particular son or daughter doesn't necessarily mean that they will have Special Educational Needs, it all depends on the rate that they are progressing at.
Voiceover
You've heard about the SENCO, let's find out more about their role.
Alison Tolly - Learning Support Manager, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO)
Essentially, I'm responsible for the day-to day running of the school's SEN policy, translating into terms that basically means that I'm responsible for putting timetabled support into classes for members of my department, I'm responsible for the record keeping of students and obviously records of the provision that we put into place. I also do some teaching myself, some specialist teaching of students with special needs and I also meet with outside agencies very very frequently and also liaise with parents and carers on a regular basis.
We have what we call a graduated approach or a staged approach to meeting needs. We have students that are at School Action and essentially we have those students on an IEP with specific targets that are translated through all areas of the curriculum. We then review those targets after a period of say six months and then if the student's made progress then obviously we do another IEP, we continue to monitor, but if the child hasn't made adequate progress we then involve external agencies. Examples of external agencies would be the Educational Psychologist, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapist; depending on obviously what the student's needs were and then obviously we'd move the child to School Action Plus and monitor their progress again for a period of time.
What we do is we get feedback from subject staff and then I invite parents in and we obviously discuss the progress that they've made and we involve the parents and the students in sort of setting the next targets on the next IEP.
Voiceover
Your child may need to be assessed by an Educational Psychologist, let's hear about their role.
Shona Cameron - Educational Psychologist
Well there are many different levels of involvement depending on what the school have asked of us. Usually the school make a referral to our service and that would involve the parent and they would always work in conjunction with the school and the parent to find out what they're wanting of our service. We'd have a consultation initially with the school and that then could involve into a more in-depth assessment of the child so working one-to-one with the child, carrying out assessments of reading, assessments of their learning styles and their learning ability, it may also involve observations in classrooms having a look at their play the different ways they play with the other children and interact, their social skills when they're older looking at how they're working and adapting, supporting and working independently by themselves in the classroom and in and around school. It may also involve training as well as working training supporting students and staff in schools.
Voiceover
It's all about assessment, checking every child's progress and making sure they get the support they need. But a small number of children need a Statutory Assessment and that can lead to a Statement of Special Educational Needs. Again, you'll be encouraged to be involved in all the stages of this process.
Liz Heeley - Education Officer
Some of the children may require further assessment and what would happen would be the school or the parents may request an assessment from the Council. The Council has six weeks to make a decision on whether to proceed with the assessment. During that time, the parents will have received a letter to say that the Council are considering the request. We would also be writing to other professionals to let them know that we may be considering further assessments of the child. After the six weeks we would make the decision, then we would write to the parents saying whether we would follow through for the assessment or whether we would say that at the present time school can meet the needs on the School Action Plus.
If we decide to go forward with the statutory assessment, we write to the parents again giving them a form to fill in to say their views and then we also write to all the professionals which might be an Educational Psychologist, it could be the doctors, Social Services and any other services that have been involved with the child and ask for reports from them and we've got ten weeks to gather all this information. It then goes to the panel to decide whether it's appropriate to give Statements of Special Educational Needs. We will look at all the evidence that's been provided and if the panel decided to make the Statement of Special Educational Needs a proposed Statement will be given to the parents within two weeks. However, sometimes the panel decides not to proceed with the Statement of Special Educational Needs because they feel the child's needs can be met with School Action Plus and in that case a note in lieu may be issued to the parent.
Voiceover
But please remember most children's needs are met through School Action or School Action Plus. Very few youngsters need a statutory assessment and you don't need a Statement to get extra help in school.
Steve Openshaw - Senior Education Officer
A Statement of Special Educational Needs, it's a legal document and it belongs to the child and parents and the school and it's a document that's going to help the school and everybody else concerned to make a child make adequate progress. It's got six different parts, the first part of the Statement gives the details of the child and the parents. Part two outlines the child's special educational needs and part three outlines the objectives to the child that relate to the child's special educational needs.
The provision that would need to be made available for the child to make adequate progress like how the Statement's going to be monitored in the progress of the child, how that's going to be monitored. In part four of the Statement we write the name of the school the child will actually attend but that's not put in initially until after some further consultation with parents. In part five we outline things that have come up through the statutory assessment process, information about a child's non-educational needs and then in part six we say a little bit about how those needs can be met.
The Statement will actually stay with the child has go through their academic career until it's not needed any longer and it's Statement will actually be reviewed through the annual review process. It's a meeting that involves everyone concerned around a child and their education so parents should be invited, the pupil, the school, different local authority support services and someone from my team would go one of the case workers and the idea of the annual review meeting is actually to look at the progress the child's made, to review the objectives in the statement and the child's special educational needs and make a decision as to whether the statement needs amending.
Voiceover
As we've seen most children with Special Educational Needs are catered for by staying among their friends at the local mainstream school. Children then often receive small group work in one-to-one support sessions and what if you need special help?
Tameside has several special schools. All children attending a special school will have a Statement for their Special Education Needs. They tend to have smaller classes with specialist teachers.
Julie Koziarski - Assistant Head Teacher
We've got a wide range of children here, we've got children with complex language needs who need symbols to help them understand and to communicate. We have children with emotional and behavioural difficulties who need a lot of adult support to get them through the day. We have children who have moderate learning difficulties or complex learning difficulties which means that they have difficulty learning to read and write. Inclusion is about how a child feels about themselves, they belong to the school in which they're in, they're happy. One of our children said inclusion's about being happy and that all the children are happy here because of the way we gear the day to meet the needs of the children, the way we gear the curriculum to meet the children and the way we use things like symbols, like I.T., the language we use for children and we view ourselves as an inclusive school.
Every class in school is linked to the mainstream school and they enjoy some activities together. All the children go back to their local mainstream school for a day a week or half a day to have things they like, Science or P.E. The younger children go to a nursery once a week and the children from the nursery have been here.
Voiceover
Above all, Tameside aims to provide an inclusive education service which offers excellence and choice and which takes into account the views of both parents and learners.
Each child is assessed and their needs are individual to them. Whether your child attends a special school or a mainstream school, they'll receive an inclusive education. Young Nathan is a perfect example of just what can be achieved at a special school.
Donna Oldham - Parent
Nathan's now eight, he started the special nursery when he was two. He did two years, went into a mainstream school which was a very good school but personally for him it didn't work out. He's happy, he's able to walk unaided round the school, he couldn't stand unaided when he first came here. He accesses the entire curriculum, he's involved in everything regardless of his disability and it's important to him because he's very, very competitive. It boosts his self esteem, it boosts him, he feels just like one of the other children whereas he never really has before, before coming here. He gets lots of praise that really boosts him.
He talks about his day like he's had the best day ever every day. We never thought he would achieve the things that he has done but with the right support he's achieved more than what he's been capable of in the past so he starts doing an afternoon a week in mainstream school, the mainstream school that he came from, and they've welcomed him back, they've said that he can go back and he will access their curriculum just like he accesses it here.
Voiceover
But if you are not happy about any decision made about your child then don't forget you can always discuss it with the person who made that decision, and you can always contact the Parent Partnership Service for information, support and guidance and there are two other actions available to you. One is the Disagreement Resolution Service and the other is the Special Education Needs and Disability Tribunal. The Disagreement Resolution Service is where an independent mediator facilitates a meeting between you and school or you and the local authority, whoever the disagreement is with.
Before a referral to this service is made, it's expected that you will have already tried to resolve matters through local procedures. The tribunal called SENDIST is also independent and considers appeals. You can contest various elements in your child's Statement and some of the decisions made by the Local Authority but you must appeal within two months of any decision you disagree with. For more information about either of these services, you can contact the Parent Partnership Service for further details.
Jim Taylor - Assistant Executive Director for Services for Children and Young People
So, it can be a complicated subject, but hopefully this DVD has helped to dispel some of the myths and explain some of the jargon to you. We've not been able to cover every type of Special Educational Need or indeed every type of process, but I hope now that you feel as though you've got some more information and you feel confident to be able to help your child in their education. Good luck.