Special Educational Needs

As part of our policy to ensure that our provision meets the needs of each individual child, we take account of any special educational needs or disability a child may have in order to make reasonable adjustments within the school to meet the children’s needs. We seek to identify any special educational needs at an early stage in order to provide appropriate support for each individual child. We are an inclusive school and strive to meet all the children’s needs. There are occasions when children have additional needs requiring them to receive extra support. This support may be in the form of assistance from a dedicated classroom assistant, a specialist assessment (for example an Educational Psychologist), therapeutic intervention (for example Speech and Language Therapy or Occupational Therapy) or specialist teaching etc. We already work successfully with a variety of external professionals both from Barnet as well as from the private sector, mostly from Binoh (Norwood). As an independent school, we do not have the funding to pay for additional support for children with Special Educational Needs. This is paid for by parents in addition to the school fees if local authority funding is not available. Where appropriate, we work together with children’s parents and their local authority to request funding via a statutory assessment. There may very rarely be occasions, both before and after admission, where we feel that the extent of a child’s Special Educational Needs are such that it is not possible for us to meet their needs and instead their needs would be better met in a state school. We would discuss this thoroughly and sensitively with parents and we would explore other avenues of support before coming to any final decisions about this.