St Andrew’s Primary School is a single-form entry school with around 270 pupils from Stockwell and Brixton. It is on a mission to inspire confidence in its children and get them to be the best that they can be. As a Church of England Primary School, we want to create a happy, stimulating, secure and safe environment with inclusivity and wellbeing at the heart of everything we do.
The increasing number of children with high needs
The number of children requiring extra support is rising. In England there are just under 1.5 million pupils with special educational needs (SEND). This has increased by 77,000 since 2021. The number of SEND pupils currently receiving additional support via educational, health and care (EHC) plans is 355,566.
The numbers, which have been on the rise since 2016, build a picture of the growing problem, and it is a challenge that I am experiencing first hand in the classroom.
I have 25 children and 8 of those have SEND. This is more or less the average across the rest of the school in other year groups. These children require extra help from teaching assistants (TAs) so they can engage more effectively with their learning.
TAs are vital. We have children with high needs who struggle with basic sentence structures and cannot read fluently enough to interpret questions in the reasoning papers in Maths alongside children who have high ability but who need to be stretched to fulfil their potential.