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SENDIAS Support to Schools and other Education Settings

We offer support to education settings to influence, or further improve, whole school engagement with parent carers who have children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).  This is by way of information, resources and offering overview training on the ‘Structured Conversation’.

Below, we outline a 3 step process for the SENCO to follow, to demonstrate the school’s commitment and good practice in working with parent carers.

As a school, are you willing to:

• commit to working with parent carers as outlined in the Education Partnership Protocol (STEP 1)
• demonstrate your good practice in working with parent carers (STEP 2)

If so, then email us (send.ias@westsussex.gov.uk) and we will send you a password to this Protected Area Login Page to access information and resources that may help you with this process, and support you further with your engagement with parent carers.

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THE 3 STEP PROCESS: 

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Step 2 : Questionnaires

• Download and complete school questionnaire (below) to demonstrate the school’s good practice in communicating and working with parent carers
• Download two copies of the parent carer questionnaire (below) and get parent carer(s) of two of your children with SEND to complete. 
• Send all 3 completed questionnaires to us: send.ias@westsussex.gov.uk

Step 3 : Certificate

We appreciate that for some schools Step one can take some time if you are reliant on another department uploading the information to your website.  Therefore,  if you feel able to do so, you may wish to continue with Step two  whilst you are waiting for the ‘EPP’ document to be added to your school’s website.  You don’t need to do anything for Step 3 (if you have met all criteria) except wait for your certificate  to arrive!

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Certificates awarded so far:

Broadwater C of E Primary School	Parklands Community Primary School
Shoreham Beach Primary School	Slinfold C of E Primary School
Southbourne Infant School	Springfield Infants School
St Andrews C of E Primary School	St Catherine’s Catholic Primary School
St James C of E Primary School	Stedham Primary School
Summerlea Comm. Primary School	Thomas A Beckett Infant School
William Penn Primary School

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Certificate Renewal: If your certificate is up for renewal and you are the SENCO that was at the school when all criteria was originally met, we only require two questionnaires completed by parent carers of pupils with SEND at your school.  This is to ensure you are continuing to demonstrate the same good practice in working with parent carers.   If you are not the SENCO that was in the position when the school was first awarded the certificate, we will also require you to complete a school questionnaire in addition to the completed parent carer questionnaires.  Once this has been done, and criteria met, we can send you your up to date certificate which will last for a further 3 years.

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Please note: If all criteria has been met, the only reason for not sending a certificate would be if we became aware that there are a pattern of concerns about a school’s engagement with parent carers to the extent that intervention and support is being giving to the school.  In this circumstance we would not be able to award a certificate until the concerns had been resolved.  However, we would contact you to explain the decision.  We will be happy to support you with our information and resources and advise where possible,  to help you develop and improve your engagement and co-production with parent carers. Once this has been resolved, we would be able to send the certificate out to you.

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If you are a school and are interested in inviting someone from the service to attend your SENCO locality group, to explain the opportunity above in more detail, please email: send.ias@westsussex.gov.uk