Education, Health & Care Plans (EHCPs)

All our pupils have EHCPs plans, which are an integral part of our Assess Plan Do Review cycle (more detail below).

For details of the assessments, interventions and resources we use, please see The Ridge Graduated Response document and the Interventions page.

The Ridge Academy uses a Graduated Response to needs which are first identified by assessment.

Universal - Whole school assessment cycle including standardised summative assessment and teacher assessment. Effective inclusion of all pupils in daily, adapted and scaffolded high-quality lessons.

Targeted - Small group or 1:1 assessment to identify needs leading to small group, time limited intervention to accelerate progress and to enable pupils to work at age-related expectations.

Specialist - 1:1 individualised and targeted. For pupils who have complex needs or who are working well below age-related expectations. Likely to be life-long SEND needs. Assessment at this level will be with specialists.

For each area of need we have assessments and interventions for each level of response. The four areas of need are:

Cognition and Learning (C&L) - including: Moderate learning difficulties (MLD); Severe learning difficulties (SLD); Specific learning difficulties (SpLD), for example Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyspraxia (DCD) and Dyscalculia; Executive Functioning Differences; etc.

Communication and Interaction (C&I) - including: Speech, language and communication needs (SLCN); Specific learning difficulties (SpLD); Autism (ASD); Hearing impairment (HI); etc.

Social, Emotional & Mental Health (SEMH) - including: Attention deficit disorder (ADD); Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD); Oppositional defiance disorder (ODD); Autism (ASD); Bipolar disorder; Anxiety disorder, etc.

Physical and Sensory (P&S) - including: Visually impaired (VI); Hearing impaired (HI); Multi-sensory impaired (MSI); Physical disability (PD); Sensory processing differences (SPD); Dyspraxia (DCD), etc.

Assess

At The Ridge we have 2 layers of assessments:

The general academic assessments for all pupils in reading, spelling, writing, maths and social and emotional development - we are aspirational for our pupils and always aim for them to access their year groups’ curriculum.
Once the general academic assessments have been analysed we can then see if pupils require further assessments in specific areas in order to identify interventions that are necessary. These assessments will also form a baseline so that progress can be measured.

The further assessments include specific assessments for: sensorimotor development; speech, language and communication needs (SLCN); specific learning difficulties (SpLD); phonological processing; and visual stress. We will always inform you and ask for consent when a further assessment is being completed for your child and the results from this shared.

When we have assessed to understand the specific areas of need the class teacher in liaison with the SENDCo will design an intervention plan to meet the need and close the gaps in the pupil’s understanding.

Plan

All our pupils have an EHCP which are managed by the Local Authority (LA), however the the LA defer many management activities to the school. The SEND CoP (Special Educational Needs & Disability Code of Practice, 2014) lays out in law that all EHCPs must be reviewed annually.

The school plans their annual reviews by year group, following this pattern:

Year 6 - November/December
Year 5 - January/February/March
Year 4/3/2/1/R - April/May/June

A pupil may require an early or emergency review, this will always be in discussion with the child's parents/carers and the LA.

Every pupil also has a My Plan which is developed from the outcomes identified on the EHCP, breaking down them down into managable small steps and SMART targets.

SMART targets should be Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant and Time-bound

Pupils are invited to work with teaching staff to review and rewrite targets and provisions and pupils' views are collected freshly for each plan written. Pupils have their targets displayed in the classroom, either on an accessable display board or on their desks and are encouraged to add stickers when they feel they have met their targets. This allows them to have ownership over their targets and drives progress forward.

Parents will be asked to take part in the reviewing and production of plans during parents evenings which occur 3 times a year. The dates for the My Plan cycle at The Ridge Academy are: October half-term, February half-term and May half term, we then do a mini review in July, ready for the new academic year.

Where pupils are Children Looked After and have Personal Education Plans (PEPs) these will be written to link to the My Plans to ensure clarity of offer.

Class staff are supported by the Intervention Team and the Senior Leadership Team, to use a range of strategies, approaches and evidence based interventions, based on the individual pupil’s gaps in learning. Where possible we try and embed the provisions into normal classroom practice so that skills are generalised and not learned for a specific environment.

Take a look at the Ridge Graduated Response for details of interventions we access.

In lessons we teach the National Curriculum for the year group, using a combination of bought schemes and schemes from our Trust (Academies Enterprise Trust, AET). We then adapt the way in which we present, support and scaffold the learning to meet the individual needs of the pupils. Please see the Curriculum pages for details of what we teach.

Interventions planned by specialist professionals, for example Educational Psychologist, Speech and Language Therapist and Occupational Therapist, will be run by the class staff and the Intervention Team.

Review

Review of targets happens through a combination of marking and assessment:

Daily marking of the pupil’s work acts as an ongoing review and their learning profile can be updated as required, to demonstrate and track small step progress to inform future planning.
Assessment includes all the forms of assessment mentioned above in the Assess section.

Once the assessment has been completed the plan can be reviewed and rewritten with the pupil and parents on the schedule seen in the Plan section.

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