What are Special Educational Needs?

The Horizon School SENDCo is Allison Millington

The Horizon School SEN Teaching Assistant is Sharon Shadforth

Definitions of special education needs taken from section 20 of the Children and Families Act 2014.

A child has special educational needs if he or she has learning difficulties that call for special educational provision to be made.

A child has learning difficulties if he or she:

• Has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age.
• Has a disability which prevents or hinders the child from making use of educational facilities of a kind provided for children of the same age in other schools within the Local Authority.

The Horizon School, Hartlepool values the abilities and achievements of all its students, and is committed to providing each student with the best possible environment for learning. All learning here is underpinned by quality first teaching and differentiation.

Upon arrival at The Horizon School each student is assessed and this determines whether any further support is required by the SEN Team.

Support could include:

• Additional support in their learning within the classroom setting
• Referral for specialist assessment, eg, Speech and language, Occupational Therapy and/or Educational Psychologist
• Where these support strategies are not effective, an application may be made to the Local Authority SEND teams for an Education and Health Care Plan.
• Personalised intervention