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SEND

Special Educational Needs

Our Team

Director of Inclusion - Mrs K McBeath

Primary School SENCO - Miss L Appleby

Secondary School Senior SENCO  - Mrs S Lewis

Supporting The Balanced System® in Schools



What is SEN/D – Special Educational Need and/or disability?

A child and young person has SEN/D if they have learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made.

A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if they have significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age or has a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools.

Definition of special educational needs (SEN)

A child has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them.  A learning difficulty means that the child has significantly greater difficulty in learning than most children of the same age.  (Adapted from - SEND Code of Practice (0-25) 2014)

Definition of disability

A child has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment, and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.  The disability prevents or hinders the child from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for other of the same age.  (Adapted from - SEND Code of Practice (0-25) 2014)

Four Broad Areas

The SEND Code of Practice 2014 outlines four broad areas of SEN need, which are:

  • Communication and Interaction – Speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD), Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC)
  • Cognition and Learning – Moderate learning difficulties (MLD), Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD), Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD), Specific Learning difficulties (SpLD) such as Dyslexia, Dyscalculia
  • Social, Emotional and Mental Health difficulties – Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
  • Sensory and/or Physical needs – Visual Impaired (VI), Hearing Impaired (HI), Multi-sensory impaired (MSI), Physical disability (PD)


    Local Offer

Kent SEND Local Offer

Easy Read Guide from IASK explaining the local offerSEND information on the Local Offer

Community Child Health

Their community child health service assesses and manages children with a variety of developmental problems and neurodisability. Their team include clinical psychologists, clinical nurse specialists and therapists.

They also work with other agencies to provide initial health assessments (IHAs) for Looked after Children, medical assessments for Education, Health and Care plans (EHCPs), adoption medicals and safeguarding medicals for children with suspected child abuse.

Community Child Health


The Pod – Children’s Therapies

NHS Children's therapies information with films, resources and links that can help your child achieve their therapy goals.  The Pod has been developed by the Integrated Children’s Therapies teams, provided by Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust. Unfortunately they do not cover our area, however the link below has some fantastic information available:

Children's therapies - The Pod


Oaks National Academy

Specialist classroom for students with additional needs, offering a range of specialist subjects.

Oaks National Academy


Special Needs Jungle

Parent-led information and resources

Special Needs Jungle