All children and young people should be supported to enable them to make progress and achieve the best possible outcomes in their learning journey.
For the majority, their needs can be met through high quality inclusive teaching, which includes using adaptive teaching strategies, identifying needs and intervening early using evidence-based interventions.
High-Quality Teaching (HQT) (previously Quality First Teaching) is simply a way of describing a range of inclusive teaching strategies that are designed to effectively engage, motivate and challenge all learners in a setting. HQT is part of the ‘ordinarily available provision’ in settings and forms a big part of meeting the needs of children with SEND. Improving HQT will improve outcomes for learners with SEND.
Some of the key elements of High-Quality Teaching include:
Giving children clear instructions
Adapting the learning environment
Responsive planning
Building positive relationships
Making reasonable adjustments
The video below is a really useful introduction to high quality teaching and how this should be delivered to learners.
Adaptive teaching is teaching that responds to the strengths and needs of all pupils in a class. It means that teachers should adjust their approaches to teaching and learning to enable the whole class to participate rather than setting different outcomes or tasks for different learners. It takes account of the different learning styles that children and young people have. For instance, some learners may be able to understand a topic by listening to a teacher talking, but others understand better when they have a ‘hands-on’ practical experience.
Reasonable adjustments are changes that can be made by a person, school or organisation to support someone so that they are not disadvantaged compared with others. Under the Equality Act 2010 schools and settings are required to make ‘reasonable adjustments’. Reasonable means fair, sensible and also considers the costs involved in the changes.
Reasonable adjustments could include:
A child wearing a different piece of uniform to accommodate their sensory needs
Starting and finishing lessons at slightly different times to avoid crowded and noisy corridors
Making alternative arrangements for accessing school activities which include large groups, such as assemblies and sports days
Having access to a calm area
Providing movement breaks or sensory circuits
Carefully planning school trips to ensure that all children can take part
Reasonable adjustments should be discussed with your child’s school or setting.
Find further information on The Education Hub by the Department for Education.
If a child or young person is struggling with their learning, they may need extra support to help them progress. SEN support is designed to help learners with SEND to make progress in their learning and development. Educational settings have a legal obligation to identify needs as early as possible, involve families and to put the appropriate support in place. The expectations are set out in the SEND Code of Practice 2015 .
A child or young person does not need a diagnosis to receive SEN support.
SEN support can take many forms, including:
A special learning programme for your child
Extra help from a teacher or a learning support assistant
Creating or changing materials and equipment
Working with your child in a small group
Observing your child in class or at break and keeping records
Helping your child to take part in the class activities
Making sure your child has understood things by encouraging them to ask questions and to attempt tasks they find difficult
Advice and/or extra help from specialist services such as educational psychologists or specialist teachers.
This list is not exhaustive. Please speak to your child's SENCO about what support they may offer.
What Is the Graduated Approach?
To determine whether SEN support is necessary, your child's setting will make on-going assessments usually referred to as the cycle of assess, plan, do, review (APDR). You will be involved and your views will be required throughout the process. You should be kept up-to-date with your child's progress. Young people, aged 16 to 25, should be fully involved in designing their own SEN support and provision.
Assess
Your child or young person's difficulties must be assessed so that the right support can be provided. This should include, for example, asking you what you think, talking to professionals who work with your child (such as their teacher), and looking at records and other information. This needs to be reviewed regularly so that the support provided continues to meet your child’s needs. That might mean getting advice and further assessment from someone like an educational psychologist, a specialist teacher or a health professional.
Plan
Your school or other setting needs to agree, with your involvement, the outcomes that the SEN support is intended to achieve and record this in a formal SEND Support Plan – in other words, how your child will benefit from any support they get – and you need to be involved with that. All those involved will need to have a say in deciding what kind of support will be provided, and decide a date by which they will review this so that they can check to see how well the support is working and whether the outcomes have been or are being achieved.
Do
The setting will put the planned support into place. The teacher remains responsible for working with your child on a daily basis, but the SENDCO and any support staff or specialist teaching staff involved in providing support should work closely to track your child’s progress and check that the support is being effective.
Review
The support your child receives should be reviewed every term with your involvement. You can then decide together if the support is having a positive impact, whether the outcomes have been, or are being, achieved and if or how any changes should be made.
