Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)

At Swing Gate, we believe that everybody has an entitlement to personal, social and intellectual development and must be given an opportunity to achieve their potential in learning through a broad and balanced curriculum. We have high expectations for all our pupils in respect of their achievements, attitudes and well-being. Everybody is unique in terms of characteristics, interests, abilities, motivation and learning needs and we embrace these wide diversities

Our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator is Mrs Zandy Ayres - senco@swinggate.herts.sch.uk

• SEND Statement
• SEND Information Report September 2022

The Local Authority has conducted a review of their services and has developed a new local offer. You can find out more here. 

They have also put together a  helpful introduction video to the local offer that is viewable here. 

You can access their ‘digital library’ full of all kinds of useful and fun materials to help support families of children with SEND. Also highlighted below are services that may be of interest to our families:

• Services for parents, carers and families (hertfordshire.gov.uk)  From this page you can find all the different types of support that parents and carers of children and young people with SEND might be able to access, including information on support groups, mental health, parenting courses and how to access services such as SENDIASS
• Getting help at school from your SENCO (hertfordshire.gov.uk) This page explains what the role of a SENCO is, and how parents and SENCOs can work together to achieve the best results for a pupil. It may help you to work with a parent and set out for them what to expect and how to ensure things run smoothly.
• If your child is too anxious to go to school (hertfordshire.gov.uk) This page is designed to help parents whose children’s attendance is low due to anxiety, and has advice on how to support them and where to go for help
• Contact a SEND service (hertfordshire.gov.uk) This page has contact details of the different SEND services, including details of Advice Line for EPs, the SLCA team, the SpLD team and others
• New to SEND (hertfordshire.gov.uk) This page has information and advice for those whose children have just been diagnosed with SEND, or have suspected SEND.

• The Hertfordshire Autism Quality Offer
  The Hertfordshire Autism Quality Offer aligns with the SEND Quality Offer - Hertfordshire’s statement on high quality provision and outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. The Autism Quality Offer describes the special educational provision that settings are encouraged to have available for children and young people who have autism or social communication needs and includes links to resources and training available to settings across Hertfordshire.      
• HCC Social, Emotional and Mental Health Quality Offer  
• HCC Speech Language and Communication Needs Quality Offer   
• Herts ISL Dyslexia information
• SENDSAS Early Years Offer - February 22
• SEND SAS Emotional Wellbeing and Behaviour Offer
• SEND SAS Offer for Children in the Early Years Overview - Feb 22
• SEND SAS Offer for Emotional Wellbeing and Behaviour Overview  
• DSPL Dacorum Autism Resource Information

You can read our Accessibility Policy here.

DSPL (Delivering Special Provision Locally) 

As a member Hertfordshire school we are fortunate to be able to access services through DSPL (Delivering Special Provision Locally). This county-wide initiative, works to improve the range of provision and support services available for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, aged 0-25. Their aim is to secure a range of provision, support services and resources in each area that:

• meets the needs of children and young people with SEND aged 0-25 as close to home as possible
• improves outcomes for wellbeing and attainment
• widens choice for children and parents/carers
• removes barriers to learning
• uses resources effectively.

DSPL send regular updates on the courses they offer and support available for us to share with our families every 2 weeks. To find out more visit their website here.