Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo)
Special Educational Needs Coordinator
My name is Miss E. Chesworth and I am the Special Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) at South East Stafford Academy Trust
I have worked as a class teacher at Leasowes for a number of years and have recently taken on the role of SENCO across our Academy Trust. My teaching experience has given me valuable insight into supporting children at different stages of their learning journey. As a class teacher, I have worked closely with a range of educational professionals to ensure that children with SEND have the right provisions in place to meet their needs and to reach their goals and flourish academically and personally.
As SENCO, I am responsible for overseeing the school’s special educational needs provision. I hold a First Class Honours Degree in Primary Education, I am Makaton trained, and I am currently studying for my National Professional Qualification for SENCOs.
I am passionate about ensuring that inclusivity is woven into the fabric of our schools so that all children with additional needs are supported to thrive and reach their full potential. It is important to me that all pupils with SEND are at the heart of our school, fully included in every aspect of school life, and valued as an integral part of our community.
Aims
To include all children and identify their needs at the earliest opportunity.
To provide the opportunities to help all pupils, regardless of ability, to achieve their potential and learn for life.
Role of our SENCO
Responsible for:
- Developing and reviewing the school’s SEN policy.
- Coordinating all the support for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND)
- Ensuring that parents are:
| Involved in supporting their child’s learning |
| Kept informed about the support their child is getting |
| Involved in reviewing how they are doing |
| Liaising with all the other people who may be coming in to school to help support the child’s learning, e.g. Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychology |
| Updating the school’s SEN register (a system for ensuring that all the SEND needs of pupils in this school are known) and making sure that records of children’s progress and needs are kept |
| Providing specialist support for teachers and support staff in the school, so that they can help children with SEND in the school to achieve the best progress possible |
What are Special Educational Needs?
A child or young person has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her. A learning difficulty or disability is a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age. Special educational provision means educational or training provision that is additional to, or different from, that made generally for others of the same age in a mainstream setting in England…. Health care provision or social care provision which educates or trains a child or young person is to be treated as special educational provision.
Code of Practice 2014
The Special Educational Needs Information Report can be found under SEND on our website or click this link.