What to do if you think your child has special educational needs

Many children will experience difficulties of some kind during their school life but for some students, difficulties may be more extensive and affect their ability to access the curriculum to their full potential. Staff at Oaklands are trained to assess students’ progress against set targets and look for any student who does not appear to be reaching their potential either in individual subjects or across the curriculum.  

So what can you do if you feel your child has a specific learning difficulty or has additional needs?

Form Tutor

It may be worth contacting your child’s form tutor to see if any issues have been raised and to discuss your concerns in more detail.  The form tutor is an integral part of the pastoral support team and will be happy to review progress and pursue avenues of support with you.

The SENCO

The SENCO has oversight of all additional learning needs and support across the school and will be able to arrange for an assessment of need and appropriate  access to intervention programmes of support.  The SENCO – Mrs Tracey Rowsell – can be contacted by telephone or email tracey.rowsell@oaklands.hants.sch.uk to discuss available provision or arrange a meeting to plan additional assessment and support.

Student Planner 

The student planner is an ideal medium for communicating with subject teachers.  If you find your child is unable to complete homework without considerable support or you are concerned that they are finding aspects of the curriculum difficult, please write a brief note in the planner expressing your concern.  This will then be followed up by your child’s tutor and/or subject teacher.