INTERNATIONAL JUBILEE PRIVATE SCHOOL

Introduction

International Jubilee Private School aims to provide an outstanding education for each student and to prepare them for the real life challenges.

All children and young people with SEN are valued and respected. They are equal members of the school. As such provision for pupils with SEN is a matter for the school as a whole; all teachers are teachers of pupils with SEN. The governing body, subject coordinators, SENCo and all other members of staff have important responsibilities.

Objectives

To ensure that the culture, practice, management and deployment of resources are designed to meet the needs of all pupils with SEN.

To provide an appropriate learning environment that meets the special educational needs of each child and enable them to work to their full potential.
To ensure that the needs of pupils with SEN are identified, assessed, provided for and regularly reviewed.
To work in partnership with parents to enable them to make an active contribution to the education of their child.
To take the views and wishes of the child into account.

Roles and Responsibilities

The key responsibilities for the SENCo include:

Manage the day to day operation of the school’s SEN policy.
Co-ordinating provision for children with special educational needs.

Liaising with and advising colleagues.
In collaboration with the class teacher and subject coordinators, managing school based assessment and completing documentation required by outside agencies.
Overseeing the records of all children with special educational needs.
Contributing to the in-service training of staff.
Liaising with external agencies including educational psychology services, health and social services and voluntary bodies.
Liaising regularly and closely with the Subject Coordinators.
Maintaining a range of teaching resources to enable appropriate provision to be made.
Teaching individuals and groups of children both in the classroom and by withdrawing the children from the classroom as appropriate.
Ensuring the on-going monitoring and evaluation of the provision for pupils with SEN including assessment of progress and attainment.
Working with class teachers to ensure they are aware and meet their responsibility regarding provision made for SEN pupils.
Supporting teachers in the identification, assessment and provision made for children with SEN.
Supporting class teachers with the IEP process.
Liaising with parents to inform, consult and encourage them to take a supportive role in their child’s learning.

The key responsibilities for the subject coordinators at School include:

Day to day management of all aspects of the school’s work including SEN provision and evaluation of SEN across the school.

Ensuring that the SENCo

- manage processes throughout the school

- is accountable for assessing progress/attainment of children on register

- Class teachers are able to hold staff to account for provision made for SEN children

- is the leading practitioner in terms of action/practice for staff

The subject coordinators will keep the administration informed of all issues relating to SEN.

The key responsibilities for the administration at School include:

Ensuring that the necessary provision is made for any pupil who has special educational needs.

Ensuring that the ‘responsible person’, in this case, the subject coordinator, has been informed by the SENCo that a pupil has special educational needs and that those needs are made known to all who are likely to teach them.
Ensuring that the teachers in the school are aware of the importance of identifying and providing for those pupils who have special educational needs
Ensuring that pupils with special educational needs join in the activities of the school together with pupils who do not have special educational needs.
Reporting to parents annually on the implementation of the school’s policy for pupils with special educational needs.
Ensuring that parents are notified of a decision by the school that SEN provision is being made for their child.

The key responsibilities of teaching and non-teaching staff

All teachers are teachers of children with special educational needs supporting the identification and assessment of pupils and making the appropriate provision.
All teachers have responsibility of directing the work of TA’s to support pupils with special educational needs.
TA’s work to support pupils with special educational needs under the guidance and direction of class teachers.
The overall responsibility of the planning and delivery of the IEP is the responsibility of the class teacher.
The IEP’s for children are written and reviewed by the class teacher.

The key responsibilities of the Social Worker

The Social Worker makes arrangements for outside agencies to support the special educational needs of any student admitted in the school.
To teach Special Needs Students to interact with the teachers and other students.

Admission Arrangements

The School Administration is responsible for the admission arrangements of SEN students. The school acknowledges full responsibility to admit pupils with already identified special educational needs, as well as identifying and providing for those not previously identified as having SEN. According to the updated ADEC Policy, Policy 48: students with special educational needs, it states that the admission policy in school follows the school obligations as specified in the Federal Law No. 29 of 2006 on the rights of disabled, the council regulations and policies. The students with special needs (simple to medium cases) are admitted according to the age group and semester sequence. The school shall impose extra fees on the guardians in return for providing extra support for the student, provided that these fees don’t exceed the percentage of 50% of the approved school fees for the other students.

Identification, Assessment, Provision and Review

Identification & Assessment - early identification is vital.

At IJPS, we are aware that any child admitted to the school may have had their special educational needs identified and that some may not. For children transferring to our school, the SENCo will check to ascertain any existing special educational needs that are going to require additional support or provision.

To help identify children with special educational needs that are going to require additional support or provision in our school, we measure children’s progress by referring to their performance monitored by the teacher, subject coordinator and SENCo as part of ongoing observation and assessment. This includes:

The outcomes from thrice yearly baseline assessment.
Pupils’ performance against the level descriptions within the curriculum.
Standardized screening or assessment tools, i.e. READING RUNNING RECORDS

The school is also open and responsive to expressions of concern by parents and takes account of any information that parents provide about their child. When appropriate, their concerns can be included in their child’s IEP.

On entry to School, teachers and subject coordinators assess each child’s current levels of attainment in order to ensure they build upon the pattern of learning and experience for the development of an appropriate curriculum. The school makes full use of all information passed to them by previous schools.

Assessment is not regarded by the school as a single event, but rather as a continuing process. It involves the child’s learning style the style of teaching staff. Classroom organisation, teaching materials, teaching style and differentiation are considered carefully so that each child is enabled to learn effectively. On-going observation and assessment provides feedback to teachers and parents about the child’s achievements and forms the basis for planning the next steps of the child’s learning.

The assessment of children reflects as far as possible their participation in the whole curriculum of the school. The class teacher and SENCo may break down the assessment into smaller steps to aid progress and provide detailed and accurate indicators. Assessments may be conducted as part of a whole class, in a group or on an individual basis.

Intervention

When a teacher or the SENCo identifies a child with SEN, the class teacher provides interventions that are additional different from those provided as part of the school’s to or usual differentiated curriculum and strategies.

The SENCo and class teacher ensure the active help and participation of parents in developing and implementing an appropriate programme of intervention and support for the child with special educational needs in their homes.

Provision

In order to target the provision to meet the needs, the SENCo regularly audits the needs of pupils across the school.

Provision for SEN pupils is organised so that progressively more powerful interventions can be used to meet increasing need. Further action in terms of intervention is based on the progress that each pupil makes. Where progress is not adequate for a particular pupil, additional action is taken to help that pupil to learn more effectively. The range, type and intensity of intervention are also reduced as the child makes progress.

Decisions about intervention are made on an individual basis, by a careful assessment of the pupils’ difficulties, consideration of the pupil’s individual approach to learning and how the intervention will work within the school and classroom context.

The action taken may include provision of different learning materials, special equipment, group or individual support by the SENCo. The intervention decided upon is recorded as an Individual Education Plan.

Individual Education Plans (IEP’s) are written for all pupils in the SEN program. They are working documents for all involved with pupils and give information about the child’s difficulties, strengths and learning styles.

Individual Education Plans show the planned targets addressing priority need for each child, success criteria, teaching strategies to be used, the provision to be put in place and when the plan is to be reviewed. The child’s teacher, in consultation with the SENCo formulates the IEP together.

Review

Individual Education Plans are reviewed termly by the subject coordinator class teacher, TA and SENCo. Parents are consulted as part of the review process, during a meeting.

If it is possible, the child will be participating in the meeting to be involved in making the IEP and to cite their opinions and ideas to improve more.

In addition to the review of the IEP’s, children also have a formal review of their statement, annually. The SENCo initiates the review process and is responsible for the co-ordination of an annual review meeting, usually held at school.

Where a child is at serious risk of disaffection or exclusion, a behaviour modification plan will be implemented. This will be in addition to the IEP and will not be used to replace the graduated response of special educational needs.

Access to the Curriculum

All pupils are entitled to a broad, balanced and relevant curriculum. All pupils with SEN are taught for all of the week with their peers in mainstream classes by class teachers and study the curriculum appropriate for their age:

Provide suitable learning challenges
Meet the pupils’ appropriate learning needs
Remove the barriers to learning and assessment

With advice and the support of the SENCo, teachers match the learning to the needs and abilities of the pupils. They use a range of strategies to develop the pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills. Where appropriate, materials are modified or support is provided to enable pupils with SEN to access the learning or the assessment processes.

We, as a school, are committed to an inclusive approach to education. We believe targeted support should be focused within a classroom situation. When to maximize learning, we ask children to work in small groups or in pairs for a more effective learning.

Students with SEN will have a modified exam if necessary for a more effective performance during exams (local and international). A change in font, size and spacing if needed.
An extra 10% time is available for children during examinations.
One to one adult support can be given to assist with the reading of questions or the adult may act as a scribe or amanuensis.

Monitoring and Evaluating the Success of the Education Provided for Pupils with SEN

The school, including the school administration is committed to regular and systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of its work. In this respect, the school administration report annually to the parents upon the quality of education provided for and the achievements of pupils with SEN. The school employs a series of methods to gather data for analysis including:

Regular observations of teaching styles by the subject coordinators.
Analysis of the attainment and achievement of pupils with SEN.
Success rates in respect of IEP targets.
Inspection of teachers’ planning and pupils’ work.
The views of parents and the pupils under SEN.
Regular monitoring by the school administration (principal).
Maintenance of assessment records (e.g. baseline results and running records) that illustrate progress over time.
Regular meetings between SENCo, class teachers and TA’s

The role played by parents of pupils with SEN

In accordance with the SEN Code of Practice, the school believes that all parents of children with SEN should be treated as equal partners. The school has positive attitudes to parents, provides user-friendly information such as parents-teachers’ meetings. Morning meetings for curriculum areas in their child’s IEP are arranged with an invitation for parents to attend. The school strives to ensure that parents understand the procedures and are aware of how to access advice.

Parents will be supported and empowered to:

Recognise and fulfil their responsibilities as parents and play an active and valued role in their child’s education.
Have knowledge of their child’s entitlement within the SEN framework.
Make their views known about how their child is educated.
Have access to information, advice and support during assessment and any related decision making processes about special educational provision.

The school strives to involve parents and keep them fully informed. We take account of the wishes, feelings and knowledge of parents at all stages. We respect the validity of differing perspectives and seek constructive ways of reconciling different viewpoints.

The SENCo is available in school every day. Parents can contact the SENCo directly however, sometimes a class teacher may indicate that a parent wishes to talk with the SENCo and this is followed up promptly.

The subject coordinators are willing to meet with any parent who has SEN matters to discuss. We inform the parents of any outside intervention and share the process of decision making at every opportunity.

Written by: Deanne Ysabelle S. Gruta

Reviewed By: Nada Elkayssi