Inclusion

At Acacias Community Primary School we acknowledge and cherish the fact that every child is different and every child counts. We strive to allow all of our pupils to achieve and succeed to their full capabilities and beyond, and we believe that in order to do this we must embrace the differences in our pupils and support these differing needs. We aim to provide a relevant broad based curriculum within a caring environment in which all pupils can develop towards their full potential regardless of ability. As a school we do our best to ensure that the necessary provision is made for any pupil who has inclusion needs and those needs are made known to all who are likely to teach them. The school uses its best endeavours to ensure that teachers in the school are able to identify and provide for those pupils who have inclusion needs.

 

Meeting Diverse Needs

At Acacias we recognise that in order to achieve the school aims we must actively seek to recognise and meet the very diverse needs of our pupils by:

  • Monitoring the achievement and well-being of all our pupils and the quality/nature of the learning opportunities they are offered.
  • Tracking each pupil’s academic progress, alongside unnderstanding their social and emotional skills and needs, and using the resulting knowledge to plan provision for the individual or groups of pupils.
  • Correctly identifying and then seeking to overcome potential barriers to pupils’ learning or their full participation in school life.
  • Developing and deploying our resources to best reflect the various levels of need experienced by pupils.
  • Sharing any concerns we may have regarding a pupil with their parents or carers and then seeking to work together with them, for the good of the pupil.
  • Liaising closely with professionals from other Children’s Services or Health agencies involved in the care and support of pupils.
  • Providing teaching and non-teaching staff with the support and training they need in order that their work promotes the best outcomes for each pupil.

 

The Inclusion Team:

We have a dedicated Inclusion team led by our Inclusion Manager (and SENDCo), Mrs Riley, who has a strategic overview of the needs of our pupils with inclusion needs and the interventions that are in place to support these needs, and manages inclusion on a day to day basis to ensure the provision is in place to allow children to access their learning. Alongside the Inclusion Manager we have;

  • Mr Sadat - SEN teacher
  • Miss Whittaker - Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) teacher,
  • Mrs Bradley-Byrne – Numbers Count teacher,
  • Mrs Stanley – EAL Intervention teacher,

 

Multi-agency working

External support services can play an important part in helping the school to identify, assess and make provision for pupils with additional educational needs/inclusion needs. By working with external agencies, we will be able to provide integrated, high quality, holistic support focused on the needs of the child. Such provision should be based on a shared perspective and should build, wherever possible, on mutual understanding and agreement. Support provided by external services should adopt a flexible child-centred approach to service delivery to ensure that the changing needs and priorities of the child and their parents can be met at any given time. The expertise of professionals from outside agencies will be used in order to further assess a child’s needs, and provide a more focused level of intervention, with specific advice being sought and put into practice.

 

Working in partnership with parents/carers

Parents hold key information and have a critical role to play in their children’s education. They have unique strengths, knowledge and experience to contribute to the shared view of a child’s needs and the best ways of supporting them. It is therefore essential that school actively seeks to work with parents and values the contribution they make. At Acacias we have an open door policy where parents/carers are welcome any time to make an appointment to meet with either the class teacher or SENDCo/Inclusion Manager and discuss how their child is getting on. We can offer advice and practical ways that they can help their child at home. We believe that a child’s education should be a partnership between parents/carers and teachers, therefore we aim to keep communication channels open and communicate regularly, including through providing information about the interventions that children are receiving.

The Inclusion Team have produced a number of leaflets designed to enable parents to support their children at home. We currently have the following leaflets available to download:

If any of the leaflets refer to resources you do not have, please speak to a member of our team and we will be able to help you and hopefully provide you with the resources needed. 

Links with other schools/academies

When children move school, either at phase transfer or at any other time, primary schools are required to transfer school records for all pupils within 15 school days of the child ceasing to be registered at the school. However, when transfer arrangements are made in advance information will be sought or provided in time for appropriate planning by the receiving school.

The Inclusion Manager/SENDCo will work with professionals from local secondary schools to ensure that when a pupil with inclusion needs, including SEN, starts there the school will be in possession of a good deal of useful information about the child, including any detailed background information collated by the Inclusion Manager, copies of relevant documents and any information relating to their inclusion needs. This will allow smooth transition between phases, and will ensure that necessary provision is continually made.

 

Further details

You may also find it useful to refer to our SEND page (here), which includes details of our provision, our 'local offer' and Manchester's local offer. Our Inclusion policy can be viewed here.

 

If you wish to discuss Inclusion further, please make an appointment to see the Inclusion Manager, Rebecca Riley.