A child has special educational needs (SEN) if he or she has learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for him or her to learn than most other children of about the same age.
Many children will have special educational needs of some kind during their education. Our school can help most children overcome the barriers their difficulties present quickly and easily. A few children will need extra help for some or all of their time in our school.
So special educational needs could mean that a child has:
What do we do at Samakee to help children with special educational needs?
At Samakee, we place great importance on identifying special educational needs (SEN) early so that we can help children as quickly as possible. Once it has been decided that your child has SEN, staff working with your child take into account the Samakee SEN Policy. The policy describes how we help children with special educational needs at Samakee through a step-by-step or graduated approach.
Our graduated approach recognises that children and young people learn in different ways and can have different kinds or levels of SEN. So increasingly, step-by-step, specialist expertise is brought in to help our school with the difficulties that a child may have.
If your child does not seem to be making enough progress or needs a lot more extra help, the school may contact parents so that an assessment can be carried out for your child by a Developmental Paediatrician at Merak Clinic. This is only required for a very small number of children and is only necessary if the school cannot provide all the help that your child needs. It is usually only required for children who have the most significant and long-term special educational needs which need a very detailed assessment.
The approach may include:
Children make progress at different rates and have different ways in which they learn best. Our teachers take account of this in the way they organise their lessons and teach. Children making slower progress or having particular difficulties in one area may be given extra help or different lessons to help them succeed.
NB If your child does need extra support for special educational needs or English as an additional language, additional costs may be required e.g. EAL teacher, Fast ForWord, Asdan, Learning Support Assistant or Merak Clinic services.