At Leigh Academy Bearsted we aim to provide an education which is exciting, engaging, ambitious and accessible to all children. We celebrate and acknowledge that all children are unique and different and through quality first teaching we plan to ensure learning is suited to our pupils’ strengths and is supportive of their needs.
The academy environment is constructed to enable full curriculum access which values and includes all students, staff, parents and visitors regardless of their educational, physical, sensory, social, spiritual, emotional and/or cultural needs.
We are committed to taking positive action in the spirit of the Equality Act 2010 with regard to disability and to reinforcing our culture of inclusion, support and awareness within the school. Our modern building is adapted well to enable children with physical disabilities to learn alongside their peers.
Our inclusive and nurturing practice has been officially recognised through the nationally accredited ‘National Nurturing School Award’, which after a rigorous assessment process, we were successful in achieving in July 2025.
We were commended by the assessor for the commitment shown to creating a truly inclusive environment, physical and psychological, where children and adults alike have a strong sense of belonging. Our work in the local community, particularly with Invicta Court Care Home, was also highlighted as a strength of our Nurture Practice, enabling our pupils to build positive relationships across the generations. See our Nurture Page for more information about the Six Principles of Nurture and our whole academy nurture provision.
We are also developing our provision for children who are Young Carers, in partnership with IMAGO who have recently visited the academy to provide an information session for parents and talk to the children in an assembly about what it means to be a young carer and what support is on offer. Our younger carers are supported through our wider Nurture umbrella and are part of our ‘Nurture Ambassadors’ group.
Should you have any questions or concerns about your child’s wellbeing or learning, their class teacher is the first point of contact as they know your child best. Should you need further advice from the SENDCO, you can make contact to request a call or a meeting via the CRO, Mrs Ranger, who will be happy to make arrangements to facilitate this. Mrs Ranger can be contacted via the CRO Mailbox
See the SEND Information Report for more information about our provision. You can also find out more about SEND support for children in Kent, via The Local Offer.
SENCo – Miss Nicola Flisher
To view our SEND, Accessibility and Equality Policies, please visit our Policies page.
Key websites for support and information
- Kent County Council Local Offer – Information about support and services within Kent
- Information Advice and Support Kent – Free, impartial and confidential advice and support for families who have children with SEND
- Kent Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services (CAHMS or CYPMHS)
- National Autistic Society
- British Dyslexia Association
- The UK ADHD Partnership
- Children’s Therapies – The Pod Kent Community Health
Additional Support for Families
- Space to be me – support group and activities for children with SEND
- Kent Hubs – Support for families
- SENCo: Miss Nicola Flisher
- Working Hours: Monday-Friday
Questions about your child’s progress?
Initial concerns should be raised with the class teacher. SENCO can be contacted via email, cro@bearsted.latrust.org.uk.
Frequently asked questions
The development of our universal provision is at the heart of creating an inclusive academy and enabling our pupils to flourish in the classroom. Our universal provision is available to all, and children do not need a diagnosis to access any available provision. We work on the principle that if something benefits one child, it can benefit all.
As part of our universal provision, classroom environments are designed to be calm and organised, with minimal visual noise, clutter or anything that could cause sensory overload. Each classroom has a designated ‘calm area’, with sensory resources, that can be accessed when needed.
The ‘Zones of Regulation’ run throughout the academy, and all children are taught to be able to identify how they are feeling and devise strategies to support them when they are feeling sad, anxious or angry.
Visuals are also commonplace in all classrooms, with each class having a visual timetable, key vocabulary with images where required and visual support linked to the ‘constructing sentences’ approach used for structuring writing.
The daily use of chrome books in KS2, which is now beginning to be rolled out to KS1, enables all children to have access to software such as ‘Read and Write for Google Chrome’ which has a range of accessibility including speech to text. Alongside high quality adaptive teaching, these adaptations enable the majority of children to access the curriculum and thrive in a nurturing environment, without the need for multiple interventions outside of the classroom.
Support at Leigh Academy Bearsted is based on need, not just a diagnosis. This means that we endeavour to give all children the support that they need, regardless if they have a diagnosis or not. You may also find that the provision they receive after a diagnosis stays the same, as our learning environments are designed to support all children, including those under the umbrella for neurodiversity and if they need additional interventions, these will already be in place.
This is an Educational Healthcare Plan. This used to be called a Statement of SEN. About 1% of children in mainstream schools have an EHCP. Most children with an EHCP require specialist provision (special school) and an EHCP allows a parent this choice.
An EHCP is a legal document owned by the Local Authority. It sets out a child’s needs, the provision needed to meet those needs, and the school placement. The criteria for an EHCP is stringent.
A parent can apply for an EHCP for their child by emailing the dept at SENWest@kent.gov.uk
It is so important the parent knows the school’s view, because school provides a significant proportion of the evidence to the Local Authority. School and parent should be in agreement that specialist approaches are needed to enable the child to make progress. It is not about lots of diagnoses necessarily, although any diagnosis is supportive.
KELSI contains documentation about the ‘pathway’ and timelines, but the whole process, from request to ‘decision to issue’ the plan is 20 weeks. Sometimes, if there is a lack of evidence, the process stops at 6 weeks. If a parent is unhappy about a decision, they can appeal to the Local Authority.
A school can also make a request for an EHCP but need to be sure that they have sufficient plan/do/review (3 rounds of provision plans) and evidence of what has been in place (high levels of provision) not working. Schools also need to take an EHCP request to their local LIFT meeting so that specialists can determine if anything more can be done, before an EHCP is requested. That is why a parent request, supported by the school, can be quicker.
It is worth noting that quite a few outside agencies are giving the wrong message to parents about EHCPs. E.g. your child has an ASD diagnosis – have you considered an EHCP? This advice is often given without recourse to the severity of need that an EHCP justifies.
This will be dependent on the level of SEND that your child presents with and support needed at home and at school. The process will require your child to have a personalised plan, if appropriate, that is reviewed at least 3 times and with some specialist involvement. They might be in receipt of Higher Needs Funding – which you would have been informed about via the SENDCO. If you would like to discuss this further please contact the SENDCO.
Class teachers, with the support of the SENDCo, will assess the additional support that your child needs, through the ‘Plan Do Review’ cycle. They will then put together a plan of additional targeted support that may be needed. This will be provided by the adults and resources that we have available. Schools and Academies are no longer able to apply to KCC for HNF funding to support individual pupils.
As of January 2025, the referrals process for a diagnosis has changed, and the SENDCo can no longer directly refer to Community Paediatrics.
This has been replaced with the This is me model, where parents/ carers are invited in for a meeting with the SENDCo to complete a ‘needs summary’. The assessment will identify strategies for supporting the child at home and in school, which will be evaluated at the end of a 3 month period.
If further support is required, a referral can be made to the ‘This is Me’ team, who can offer further support. Cases considered to be more complex will then be discussed by the ‘This is Me’ multidisciplinary team, who will then make the decision as to whether a Community Paediatrics referral can be made.
The waiting times for an appointment via Community Paediatrics are still significant, with the current wait time for a joint assessment being between 4-5 years. However, the ‘Right to Choose’ pathway is currently still open, which can be accessed via a GP referral. The SENDCO is unable to refer directly to Right to Choose, but is able to support with any paperwork sent from the Right to Choose provider.
You can also find further information on how to support your child at home on the Kent Community Paediatrics site, The Pod.
As an Academy, we subscribe to the Speech and Language Link programme, which consists of screeners and then intervention programmes.
The screeners can identify speech sounds that the child might be muddling/substituting, or which areas of language (e.g. instructional, vocabulary, concepts, pronouns etc) they may have difficulty with. It helps us determine how severe a problem there may be, but it is a computer-based snapshot and it is important to talk to you as a parent and glean information from the teacher.
Since the introduction of the ‘Balanced System’ in September 2024, schools are unable to make individual referrals for language therapy. However, referrals can still be made for children with a stammer, or significant speech production difficulties. Further Speech and Language support can be found on ‘The Pod’
https://www.kentcht.nhs.uk/childrens-therapies-the-pod/speech-and-language-therapy/
We are unable to diagnose dyslexia, as this can only be done by a BDA registered assessor, but alongside our universal provision, we do have additional support in place with children with Literacy difficulties or specifically, Dyslexia. These include, as required or necessary, additional phonics interventions such as ‘Toe by Toe ‘, Reading eggs, SNIP and touch-typing.
Again, these interventions are based on need, and children do not need a formal diagnosis to access them. All children from Year 2 and above have access to their own Chrome Book, and are able to use the adaptive tools to support reading and writing.