School Policies Old

GPBS Inclusive Learning & Support Policy

The School’s mission is: To provide a learning environment that supports academic achievement whilst promoting personal growth within a caring international community committed to the traditional values.

GPBS seeks to:

Ensure that all members of the community have an understanding of the principles of inclusion.
Promote confidence and self-esteem in all students
Develop independence and resourcefulness and to nurture creativity in all students.
Provide students with every opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities they need to demonstrate their potential and to make sure that they are challenged and motivated in their learning.
Support students in their social, moral and emotional development.
Identify as early as possible students who have additional and/or specific learning needs.
Ensure that students and staff returning to a UK-based educational setting are well-prepared for their transition.

Encourage parents/guardians and students to be fully involved in additional and specific learning decisions, in development and regularly review of personal learning targets.
Guide and develop best inclusive practice in our specialist support team.
Provide inclusive learning training and guidance for teachers and ensure that time is available to liaise with our specialist support team and to develop inclusive learning activities and materials.
Ensure access to an extensive range of extracurricular activities in order for students to develop individual strengths and talents.

Inclusive Learning Resources

The GPBS inclusive learning team comprises specialist education teachers and assessors, English Language teachers, and learning support assistants. The team works in consultation with learners, their parents/ guardians, teachers, counsellors and external practitioners to identify and support.

Additional learning needs including.
English as an Additional Language.
High potential, gifted and talented.
Specific learning needs including.
Literacy skills.

Numeracy skills.
Processing skills.
Speech and Language skills.
Attentional and behavioral skills.

Additional Educational Needs at GPBS

Additional Needs are experienced by students who do not necessarily have a specific learning difficulty but who are faced with additional challenges. These challenges may arise, for example, when students have:

Transferred from a different curriculum or language of instruction system.
A different length of prior schooling.

Fallen behind in their learning or find themselves underachieving.
Phigh potential abilities, gifts or talents that will benefit from individualized learning targets.

Special Educational Needs (SEN) at GPBS

Special Educational Needs are experienced for a variety of reasons and may be because of a physical, intellectual, social and/ or emotional difficulty.

Identifying a Special Educational Need

Standardized diagnostic assessments can identify a special education need. These may be administered by certificated Educational Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Audiologists, Optometrists, and specialist assessor teachers who have been trained and certified in diagnostic assessment. The Head of Inclusive Learning may request an assessment when our inclusive learning team and teachers require recommendations for best learner support. GPBS has details of Cairo-based practitioners who have an established relationship with the school and parents/ guardians are expected to comply with an assessment request within three months of the request being made.

A child is deemed to have a Special Educational Need if he or she:

Has significantly greater difficulty in learning than is expected for a child of his or her age.
Has a disability which either prevents or hinders him or her from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of his or her age.
Is under the age of five, and would be likely to fall within the definitions above, if special educational provision was not made for him or her. A learning difficulty may originate from interruption to a student’s physical, intellectual, emotional and/or social development. Some learning difficulties may be addressed by short-term interventions whilst others cannot ever be fully addressed. Our inclusive learning team develop personal learning targets that focus on both addressing the difficulty and providing strategies to progress in spite of it.

It is recognised that many students will not neatly fit into one single category of need and that many areas will be interrelated. The four areas are:

Communication and Interaction (C&I):

For example, speech and language delay, impairments or disorders, selective mutism, autistic spectrum.

Cognition and Learning (C&L):

For example, moderate, severe and profound learning difficulties, specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia.

Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties (SEMH):

For example, emotional difficulties, disruptive behaviours, hyperactivity, eating disorders, inefficient concentration, social skills.

Sensory and/or Physical Needs (S&P) Visual Needs (VI)

For example, visual impairment, hearing impairment, physical disability, medical conditions such as cerebral palsy, heart disease, spina bifida.

The Inclusive Learning (IL) Register and Levels of Support

A student is placed on the IL register when he or she is receiving support from the inclusive learning team. Information on the IL register is confidential and includes the following:

Student name, date of birth, class teacher/ tutor group.
Level of support.
Nature of support.

GPBS learning support is provided at three graduated levels that aim to maximise inclusive learning while also supporting the additional and/ or special education needs.

*Levels of* *Support*
Level 1	Quality first teaching Offers students an inclusive and well-differentiated experience in everyday lessons. This provides high quality teaching for all (not only those students who are on the Register) with support, as appropriate, to achieve age related expectations. The inclusive learning team and teachers will collaborate to put in place individual learning targets and strategies, and to monitor learning progress. Progress for students placed at level 1 on the Inclusive Learning Register will be reviewed termly by the class teacher - Early Years, Key Stages 1 & 2 - or Head of Key Stage (Key Stages 3, 4, 5) and Inclusive Learning Team.
Level 2	Offers students especially targeted, short term support to boost key skills/ key points of learning. This can enable learners to work at or above age related expectations. Booster support is targeted at a group of students with similar needs. At this level also the inclusive learning team may carry out or recommend specific specialist assessments to fine tune learning targets and strategies.
Level 3	Offers intensive targeted support including one-to-one or small group support by a specialist teacher or a learning support assistant to ensure that highly tailored support is linked to precise personal targets and timescales. Individual, specialised targets are written in consultation with students, parents and teachers and are reviewed termly. All students transitioning to Level 3 should already have or be in the process of gaining specialist reports and assessments. Existing reports must be no more than 3 years old. Where a new assessment is required this process must be completed within 6 months of the school’s recommendation. When a student continues to experience barriers to their learning and to make inadequate progress, despite the intensive level of provision provided, a case conference may be held to discuss suitability of provision, ability to access the curriculum and level of independence. At this stage the suitability of year group placement or continued enrolment may be reviewed.

Exiting The Register

Some students may require continued support as they progress on their learning journey through the school. For other students, their barrier to learning will be reduced or removed to a level at which they no longer require additional support from the inclusive learning team.
Student progress and appropriate provision is reviewed at least termly. This will result in some students receiving a change in provision and they should transition to the appropriate level on the IL register. Movement on the register should reflect the provision that is appropriate for the student at that period of time.
For example, a student at level 2 may have made sufficient progress to move to level 1. As they progress on their learning journey, the curriculum and their needs change, and it may be necessary to reinstate level 2 support. Where a student no longer requires level 1 support in class, they will exit the register. Parents will be notified.

Referral Process for Inclusive Learning Support

The majority of students with inclusive learning support needs are identified through the admissions process. For some students these needs become apparent only as their skills are developed in the classroom. GPES has a referral process in place to identify these needs.

Referral Process for Early Years

(Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5)

Referral process for the above:

Staff member is concerned about a learner

Staff member refers concern to year group leader

Learning strategies are put in place and monitored for a minimum of four weeks to assess if strategies

support learner to make adequate progress

Adequate learning progress Learning strategies continued

Progress not Adequate Year group leader submits ‘cause for concern’ form with supporting evidence to head of inclusive learning

Assessments, classroom observations, work sampling, teacher, student and parental consultation will lead to agreed actions

Access Arrangements: Support During Formal Assessments and Examinations:

Access arrangements may be provided for students on the learning support register. The type of access arrangement provided varies according to the needs of the individual student and can take a variety of forms, such as additional time, use of a word processor, a computerised reader/ reading pen or a scribe.

Access arrangements may be provided for both internal and external examinations or assessments, where historical and/or medical evidence of the special need is in place, and the access arrangement is appropriate.

Any measure proposed must not give the student an unfair advantage over other students. Parents may be advised to consult an educational psychologist or other relevant professional in order to prepare supporting documentation. Applications for access arrangements in external examinations are made according to the guidelines of the relevant body.

Applications are made in advance of the candidate’s first examination series so that the candidate has the chance to practise using the access arrangements. Where an application for special access arrangements needs to be submitted,

NCBIS requires a current specialist assessment to be provided as supporting evidence of need, most typically an educational psychological assessment report. This report should be from a qualified, independent educational psychologist or other relevant specialist who has an established relationship with the School as a provider of external services.

Access arrangements may be provided for some students whose first language is not English. Students who have been educated in English for a time period of less than two years, may be entitled to use a bilingual dictionary in examinations or assessments and will be given a 10 percent extra time allowance specifically for this purpose.

Not all EAL learners will need to use a dictionary, or will benefit from doing so, and a student who has been educated through the medium of English language for two years or more, will not be eligible for bilingual dictionary additional time in examinations.

The Head of Inclusive Learning is responsible for arranging access arrangements for students on the Inclusive learning Register in conjunction with the Examinations Officer.

The Head of Inclusive Learning is responsible for communicating with parents any support that is given during any examination or assessment.

Record-keeping and Data Management

Electronic documentation is stored on the school staff server and in a confidential inclusive learning team drive. Hard copies of key documents and communications are made and stored in each student’s confidential school file.

This is stored in the lockable filing cabinets in the office key stage offices. Minutes or ‘summary of discussion’ notes are kept of meetings with parents and shared with parents.

Lesson planning and evaluations of withdrawn and in-class support sessions are stored in learners’ inclusive learning folders. Previous copies of registers and archived notes are kept on learners who have exited the current register.

Review of Policy

This policy is monitored and reviewed on an annual basis.

Policy Details
Version date	August 2021
Last review	August 2021
Next review	August 2022
Responsible SLT	Deputy Head - Pastoral