SEND

Children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

SEND stands for special educational needs and disabilities.

A child or young person aged from 0 to 25 years has special educational needs or disability (SEND) if they: 

• have a learning difficulty or disability which makes it much harder for them to learn than other pupils of the same age
• they require special educational provision to be made for them

Mendip Green is an inclusive school. It is a single storey building which is accessible on a large, flat site. The building is accessible by the main entrance or through the individual classrooms. There is a disabled toilet and shower as well as a hoist. Mendip Green has a Hearing and Language Resource Base (HLRB) run by a qualified Teacher of the Deaf (Mrs Sarah Barton), an ASD Hub (The Cove) run by a qualified SENDCo (Miss Kelly Baker and Mrs Lisa House), as well as bespoke cognition and learning hubs, nurture groups, gross motor skill groups and speech and language groups provided by specialist learning support assistants.

Mendip Green Primary School is a certified member of the Makaton Friendly Scheme and is an accredited Elklan Communication Friendly Setting.

Further details of our mainstream and specialist provision for children with SEND can be found in the sections below. Exciting news and updates from our SEND groups can also be found in our News section.

Mendip Green SEND Information Report

The purpose of the information report is to inform parents and carers about how we welcome, support and make effective provision for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). We are committed to providing equal learning opportunities for all our children regardless of race, gender, special educational needs and / or disabilities (SEND). We are part of the Extend Learning Academies Network (ELAN) and some of our policies that support this document are adopted from ELAN and some are school specific. View document

Our Special Needs and Disabilities Coordinators are Mrs Kerry Neate and Mrs Ashleigh Melhuish.  They are supported by Mrs Jayne Marsh (Assistant SENDCo). The SEND team are contactable via the school office.

We plan SEND support for our children using the ‘Assess, Plan, Do, Review’ cycle. This is also known as the graduated approach. The views of the child and their family are prioritised and given careful consideration throughout the cycle. The ‘assess, plan, do, review’ cycle can be repeated as many times as needed to help the child progress. Some children will show good progress after the first round of support is put in place, but those with more complex needs might benefit from the cycle being repeated several times.

If you have concerns about your child's progress at school around any of the following areas the first person to speak to about your concerns is your child’s class teacher: reading, writing, number, social and emotional development, behaviour, communication, physical or sensory.  However, if you still have on-going concerns, you may wish to speak with our SENDCos - Kerry Neate and Ashleigh Melhuish - who are contactable via the school office. 

If any special educational needs are identified, the SENDCo will work with you and your child's class teacher to plan how to best help your child. The support your child receives and the progress they make may be recorded through an Individual Support Plan (ISP). Parents are offered the opportunity to meet with their child’s class teacher, support staff and Kerry Neate to review their child’s Individual Support Plan and write the new one at the ISP Clinics. These are a twenty minute consultation held three times a year. 

Our Pastoral Team, Lorraine Young (Pastoral Lead) and Sarah Handcock (Pupil and Family Support Worker), are also available to meet with parents to discuss any social and emotional issues which they feel may be affecting their child’s ability to learn. They can work with small groups and/or with individual children depending on the child’s specific needs. Appointments can be arranged via the school office. 

If you still have concerns that your child's needs are not being met, please contact the headteacher, Mr James Oakley. 

Also on the team:

Mrs Jayne Marsh (Assistant SENDCo)

Our ELAN Accessibility Plan and ELAN SEND and Inclusion Policy are available in the Policies section of our website.