Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Our Virtual School team works with schools and other educational settings, as well as social care teams and carers, to help improve the educational journey and outcomes for Children in Care from Early Years to the end of Year 13. Advice and information is also available for young people beyond Year 13.

Our aim is to ensure all Children in Care have the best possible education that matches their needs and enables them to realise their potential. We support and challenge practitioners to have the highest aspirations for every child and young person, including those with SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities), in line with RADY (Raising the Attainment of Disadavanted Youngsters) principles.

Through the PEP (Personal Education Plan) meeting and monitoring of progress and attainment, the Virtual School will understand those children requiring extra help and have an additional need or SEND, and how these needs are being met.
Targets and interventions are agreed and written to support the child/young person’s education progress, their interests and voice.
Interventions are reviewed at subsequent meetings and adjusted according to the progress achieved.
These contribute towards the school’s graduated response to meeting the child’s special educational needs.
PEP meetings should be linked to other education focused meetings such as SEND/ EHCP (Educational Health Care Plan) Annual Review.

For our SEND children, we:

Monitor the use of PP+ so that it has the maximum impact for our children
Ensure targets are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed, often referred to by the acronym SMART.
Ensure PEP targets are linked to long term EHCP outcomes, where applicable.
Make sure all SEND information is updated on the PEP
Track the progress of EHCP requests and annual reviews.
Work closely with the Staffordshire SEND team and those of the child/ young person’s area authority to facilitate SEND provision

Schools are responsible for identifying and matching their provision to meet the needs of any child on their roll.

Local offer:

SEND Local Offer

SENDIASS

Staffordshire Parent Carer Forum

Graduated Response Toolkit:

Early Years Toolkit

School Toolkit

Post-16 Toolkit

Enhanced Assess, Plan, Do, Review:

This is an early, pre-statutory, intervention and forms part of the Graduated Approach. It is available to all Staffordshire schools requiring additional support and resources in order to support pupils with SEND. Make a request using the One Form.