Esther Asensio Castillo

SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL
NEEDS & DISABILITIES
(SEND)
What is SEND?
A child or young person has SEN if they
have a learning difficulty or disability
which calls for special educational
provision to be made for him or her.
This is the definition of SEND presented
in the XIII point of the Special
Educational Needs and Disability code
of practice (January 2015), created by
the Department for Education and the
Department of Health from UK.
But, what do learning difficulty or
disability means? How do you know
that this child of Compulsory school age
or young person have it? It can be
because of two different causes:

That person has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than

the majority of others of the same age.
That person has a disability which prevents him/her from
making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of
the same age in mainstream schools.

All the schools have the SEND policy which details how the staff have
to do its best providing the necessary things for any pupil who has
special educational needs. It means that all the teachers have to
know how to identify and provide for all those pupils the best
resources and the best options for them to develop reaching their own
best.

Esther Asensio Castillo

Inclusion
Inclusion
is
about
the
presence,
participation and achievement of all our
children. UNESCO. (2005). Guidelines for
inclusion: Ensuring access to education for
all. Paris.
It is an important point to take into account
SEND children, all the children in St
Osmunds School will be merged in the
activities of the school with all the other
children. It is about providing all the pupils
the same opportunities, living the same
experiences
and
sharing
all
these
moments within the same space; including
lessons, playtimes, meal times, religious worship and school trips.
Moreover, in St Osmunds School they all are aware about the
particular needs of individuals, it means that all the children and staff
of the center know about that. It is done in order to make the children
feel more involved with their colleagues and responsible about
helping the whole school to achieve a happy inclusion in a calmed
and comfortable atmosphere.
In my opinion it is a really good point that St Osmunds takes into
account, because making the children aware about the needs of their
colleagues make them feel more united, like a team. It is a way to
reinforce the values they are always talking about (the Golden Values)
in a practical way, making them feel part of the school and a support
for helping to include everyone in the same way. I think it is lovely
because children are growing up surrounded of true reality, learning
that all of us are different and it is beautiful because we can all learn
from each other.
But it has to be hard as a teacher to doubt if you are doing your best
for all your students. There are a lot of things that we as future
teachers will have to take into account, and what if I forget about
something, or I dont release I am not doing it right? Well, that is why
St Osmunds School includes in their policy a set of questions to ask
oneself. It is important to continually review what we do, and this

Esther Asensio Castillo

questions are the ones that help St Osmunds teachers and maybe
can help us in a future:

Do our children achieve as much as they can?

Are there differences in the achievement of different group
children?
What are we doing for those children who we know are not
achieving their best?
Are our actions effective?

Identification, assessment and provision

In St. Osmunds school, all the teachers are teaching children with
SEND, that is why it is a day-to-day responsibility or as Miss Velia
Hartland (the SEND coordinator) says it is a whole school
responsibility. That is why every class is a continuous cycle of
assessing, planning, teaching and reviewing taking always into
account the different abilities and interests of children. The school
assures that the majority of their children will learn and progress
through the curriculum, but there will be children who wont do it.
Those children have to be identified in order to assess them and start
working on their own capacities in order to be able to provide them
with all their special needs.
The Special Educational provision will be given to all those SEN
children identified. This children are generally needing support within
those four areas of need:

That is why, all the children going in St. Osmunds School in the age
of 4 are assessed in their current levels of attainment in order to
ensure that they are at least on the level established during the
childs pre-school years. Then, if the child is identified as SEND, this
information is given to SEN Support from these early years in order to
start facing the situation with the SEN Coordinator and the teacher.

Esther Asensio Castillo

Following, the school will gradually start recognizing this children

through SEND support with the help of specialist expertise who will
attend the difficulties that the children will be experiencing. But it is
important not to forget about the hard work that Miss Velia Hartland
does in all this process of identifying, planning and provision of all
those children with SEND, as I have said before she is the SEN
Coordinator and all the work she has to do is amazing. Moreover,
when talking with her you can see that she is a really enthusiastic
worked who just loves their job.

The staf
As I have already explained, all the staff in St Osmunds School works
really hard in order to integrate completely all the children in the
community. It is also important to clarify that all the teachers,
teaching assistants and learning support staff who work with children
with SEND are overseen by the SENCO (Mrs. Hartland).
Mrs. Hartland is in the school across Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday, because during the other days she is doing the same
work in another school. That is why the staff has to know a lot about
the issue, because Velia is not always there in order to assist them.
Moreover St. Osmunds is provided with Additional support for all
those children designated as needing Special Education for some
external professionals provided by the NHS (National Health Service).

Procedure
Finally, I wanted you to know how the procedure of treating the SEN
children goes. It has to be followed when starting any observation and

Esther Asensio Castillo

assessment of any children or when changing the way of treating a

child with SEN.

Class Teacher SENCO Head Teacher Governors

Local Authority Secretary of State for Education.

Bibliography
Webs:

Special Educational Needs and Disability code of practice

(January 2015):
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attach
ment_data/file/398815/SEND_Code_of_Practice_January_2015.p
df

Guidelines for Inclusion: Ensuring access to Education for all:

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001402/140224e.pdf

Documents:
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Report that
St. Osmunds School provided to me.