St Benedict’s C of E VA Junior School Governor monitoring report
Monitoring focus: To update SEND policy with Mimi Kirby SENCo and Sue Wootton SEND Governor Date and description of monitoring activity: Re SEND provision 2018 to 2019 March 14th 2019 at St Ben’s. A discussion took place that there was no need to change anything in the current SEND policy. Mimi confirmed that an additional SEND support up to £ 6000 per annum for each pupil was correct. When Mimi writes a report to the Governors in May 2019 concerning the Data for SEND funding this will now include a percentage of service children( if applicable )and a percentage of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller children who are the recipients of SEND support. This is taken from a pro forma from OFSTED Course handouts 2018. Mimi will investigate a Register of Gifted and Able children and whose responsibility it is to review their progress. It is important to note that County wide the needs of SEND children are being put second to financial constraints particularly in Somerset. In terms of funding from High Needs to EHCP requests have been refused which are made outside of the timetable. This obviously has an impact for children who are transferring from Infant to Junior and Junior to Secondary. As St Ben’s has both a higher than County and National average for SEND this means that the school cannot apply for funding until the documentation is completed and the County has a huge backload of documentation. At the moment Support Services are unable to visit schools as their services are required to address the workload within the County. Some parents within the County are challenging the County that it is not fulfilling their legal obligation. It is important to thank Mimi Kirby for her excellent work as a SENDCo especially within the school and her reports to the Governing Board. At the moment her one day assigned to SEND is taken up with administration which makes it very difficult for her to find time to address the other SEND issues with the school. Sue Wootton March 15th 2019