ACE Schools

All children and young people "deserve to get the support they need to thrive and prepare for happy, healthy, and productive adulthoods. For children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), or in alternative provision, this is especially vital" (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan—The Green Paper, March 2023).

SEND at ACE

As an Alternative Provision (AP), ACE works to ensure that the education students receive is tailored to meet their individual needs and designed to give them the skills to improve their chances in life whilst accessing as broad a curriculum as possible.

We aim to support the reintegration of students into full-time education in school, further education, or employment if possible and appropriate.

Definition

"Children have special educational needs (SEN) if they have a learning difficulty that calls for special educational provision to be made for them. Children have a learning difficulty or disability if they

• Have significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age; or
• Have a disability that prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in school." (The SEND Code of Practice, 2015).

All children and young people who attend ACE have needs that could not be met through mainstream provision and require additional support in order to successfully access learning, meaning all our students are identified as requiring provision that is 'different than or additional to' what is ordinarily available.

This means we record ALL our students as having some sort of SEND, although what these needs are, how they present, and what provision they need differs across ages and bases.

For many of our students, it can often be difficult to 'unpick' what is a 'traditional' SEND need from what might be a trauma response, a mental health or medical need, or a behavioural need. For many of our students, all aspects are intertwined, and we therefore take a holistic view of what the needs of the child are and put in place support, provision, and intervention that best meet these needs—whatever this might be.

This is why supporting SEND underlies all aspects of our school provision—curriculum, pastoral, or planning for the future. It is an intrinsic thread that runs through everything we do to support our students.

We follow a graduated approach to provision, ensuring that 'universal' (ordinarily available provision), which is our core offer, provides an alternative curriculum that is not only broad and balanced but is flexible and adaptive to meet a range of needs. Teaching staff have ambitious expectations for all. All students have access to quality first teaching and appropriately personalised learning activities. Preparation for adulthood is a key feature of our curriculum.

We use a trauma-informed, relational-based approach to underlie all provision, intervention, and decision-making regarding our students. We will advocate for what we believe is in our students best interests at all times.

We will ensure students requiring provision, interventions, and approaches that are additional to the core offer have access to targeted or specialist support as needed (through the graduated approach). This may include support from other professionals.

All staff at ACE are here to support students to access learning regardless of their needs. Every teacher is considered a teacher of special educational needs. Every teacher is responsible and accountable for the progress of learners in their class, even where learners have access to Teaching Assistants (TAs). Quality First Teaching is differentiated to meet the needs of the majority of the learners. Some learners will need something additional to and different from what is provided. This is our SEND provision.

Plymouth uses an orange 'Local Offer icon' to show services that define themselves as suitable for children and young people with SEND. These are part of Plymouth's SEND Local Offer. We recommend that you contact the service provider to make sure the service is suitable for your child or young person.