There's a lot of talk in the press about government thoughts on mainstream inclusion. And a lot of responses on social media.
pop pop studio is working with Calderdale and Leeds Councils to look at resources that might help SENCOs and teachers with the graduated response.
If you're interested in finding out more as this research develops, send me an email or follow us on LinkedIn.
We started by looking at how other councils have provided resources for the Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycle of the graduated response through universal, targeted, and specialist interventions.
Mainstream Inclusion resources may have 4 possible audiencesmainstream teachers and teaching assistants
SENCOs
parent carers, who may want to discuss inclusion strategies with their child’s teacher
pupils, who may want to learn strategies to support themselves
We have written up the details of the research.
We realised we needed to look at the whole school SEND process too. Working with Jenny Scott, the Specialist Inclusion Team at Calderdale used the new SEND Strategy to work out some specific focus areas.
They decided on
High Quality Teaching and Adaptations
Assessment and Early Identification
Environment
Pastoral (Behaviour and Relationships)
Preparing for Tomorrow
Voice of the Child and Family
Outcomes
Staff Skills and Training
You might decide on other focus areas for your area, based on your own strategic needs.
The council Specialist Inclusion Team can't mandate what schools do. But they can give clear expectations to settings, linked to Teacher's Standards, with resources linked to best practice recommendations.
So this was the next stage, tackled over a series of meetings with SENCOs and headteachers.
The result was a first draft with around 100 best practice recommendations.
Each of these recommendations needs specific, actionable resources. There's no point in asking teachers to do something without giving them effective resources.
Here's an example of an expectation for Assessment and Early Identification.
| Teacher's standard |
Expectations of all settings |
Best Practice Recommendations |
Resources |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Standard 6 Make accurate and productive use of assessment |
Teachers make use of formative and summative assessment to secure pupils’ progress |
- Settings have a clear approach to identifying barriers to inclusion. This is outlined in their SEND information report, clearly accessible on their website and embedded in all policies and practice. - Children and young people’s strengths, differences and difficulties in learning and behaviour are observed and monitored in a range of environments to inform planning and effective provision.
- Parent/Carer Voice and child/young person Voice are an integral part to identifying
|
Example SEND information report
Effective features of a SEND information report
JCQ Access Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustments |
We have built these Expectations into an online Whole School SEND strategic review tool. It allows SENCOs to reflect on the actual practice in the setting, and develop their own action plan for improvement.
A summary of the review is shared with the Specialist Inclusion Team, so that they can focus their work across the authority on
creating or including better resources in the database
developing training courses
We're now at the prototyping stage. We'll be working with a small group of SENCOs and headteachers, and trying to learn what works well, and what we need to adapt from our initial prototype.