Special Educational Needs
Mrs S Boxall is our SENCo. Parents can contact her on sboxall@ditton-inf.kent.sch.uk or ask for an appointment via the school office. Mrs Boxall works on a Wednesday and Thursday.
Miss Davis is our Inclusion, Attendance and Family Support Officer and helps Mrs Boxall in her role. She works every weekday.
Mrs Fermor is our Speech and Language Teaching Assistant. She works Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
The Department for Education (DfE) issued a new, Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice in June 2014 to replace the 2001 Code. This statutory guidance came into force from 1 September 2014 and was updated in January 2015.
The SEN Code of Practice (2015) defines SEN as:
A learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.
- Has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or
- Has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools to mainstream post-16 institutions.
The SEN Code of Practice (2015) defines four broad areas of need:
- Communication & Interaction
- Cognition & Learning
- Social, Emotional & Mental Health (SEMH)
- Sensory & Physical Needs
At Ditton Infant School, we use a range of strategies and interventions to support individual children across all four broad areas of need. Here is our current offer:
|
Area of SEND |
Intervention |
Description |
|
Communication and Interaction (C&I) |
Speech sessions |
To support pupils to distinguish between and pronounce discrete speech sounds accurately. |
|
Language sessions |
A programme to develop understanding of language. This includes: concepts, verb tenses, following instructions, pronouns, negatives, questions, verbal reasoning and vocab association. |
|
|
Time to Talk |
A programme to develop oral and social interaction skills for reception and KS1. Children will develop: listening, increased understanding of vocabulary, conversational skills and awareness if the needs and feelings of others. |
|
|
Pre-teach vocabulary |
An opportunity to pre-teach vocabulary boosting pupils’ confidence before the learning tasks. |
|
|
Language for Thinking |
A structured approach to help children’s language develop from the ‘here and now’ to the ‘how and why’. Supports children to apply language skills to reading comprehension. |
|
|
Lego sessions |
LEGO sessions promote social interaction, turn-taking skills, sharing, collaborative problem-solving and the learning of concepts. |
|
|
Cognition and Learning (C&L) |
Phonics catch up sessions |
Additional phonics sessions to close gaps on Little Wandle assessment |
|
Pobble |
Targeted writing programme to develop writing fluency and address key skills |
|
|
Switch-on writing |
Personalised reading and writing intervention for children and young people who are underachieving across the primary and secondary age range. |
|
|
1:1 reading |
Additional 1:1 reading sessions to develop fluency and comprehension |
|
|
60 second reads |
Develop reading speed, fluency and comprehension. |
|
|
Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) |
Wellbeing boosts |
Boost confidence and wellbeing in school by giving pupils the opportunity to complete wellbeing activities and talk through their feelings in school. |
|
Talkabout self-awareness and self esteem |
A programme developed to support self-awareness and self-esteem. |
|
|
Talkabout Friendship skills |
A programme developed to support the development of friendship skills. |
|
|
Drawing and Talking therapeutic interventions |
A gentle, non -intrusive 12 week programme method to support children who need a little help to process past trauma. Sand play is also offered to replace the drawing element. |
|
|
Physical and Sensory (P&S) |
Sensory circuits |
A sensory circuit is a form of sensory integration intervention. The session is split into 3 parts- alerting, organising and calming. The calming section provides proprioceptive (deep pressure) input. |
|
BEAM |
A gross motor programme developed for children with coordination difficulties to do in small groups, at school. |
|
|
Clever fingers |
Fun and motivating activities to develop fine motor skills. |
|
|
Write from the start |
The Teodorescu perceptuo-motor programme to develop the fine motor and perceptual skills for effective handwriting. Book 1 and book 2. |
Children do not have to be on our SEN register to access these interventions. If the class teacher or SENCo observes difficulties and decides an intervention would benefit your child, we would contact you.
Please look at our Inclusion and Special Educational Needs Policy and SEND Information Report for parents to find out more about special educational needs and disabilities in our school.
Inclusion and Special Educational Needs Policy 2025SEND Information Report 2025
Please look on the following link to access Kent's Local Offer
Kent County Council Local SEND Offer
The NHS Kent Community Health offers parental support and information via 'The Pod'. This includes making referrals to speech and language, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. You can access the link below:https://www.kentcht.nhs.uk/childrens-therapies-the-pod/
If you would like further advise, these are charities that offer support.
https://www.iask.org.uk/ https://wearebeams.org.uk/https://kentpactnew2022.co.uk/
