Comprehensive

In this third edition of the Mainstream Inclusion Resources newsletter, I'm going to look at the principle "Comprehensive". There are 5 principles in the SEND Code of Practice, which I remember by "ACCTUp": Accessible, Collaborative, Comprehensive, Transparent, and Up to date.

How much is enough?

A comprehensive database will be one that helps SENCOs and teachers find the information they need. There will be enough resources to help make a professional decision for a particular learner. And having resources in a database means people will find what they're looking for more easily than downloading a Word document or PDF, or clicking through many, often practically identical, web pages.

One concern raised in a discussion with specialist inclusion professionals from Calderdale was that creating the database would be an arduous task. Adding categories and tags to hundreds, possibly thousands, of resources would take "forever". It's certainly not a trivial job, so we're considering every category and tag very carefully.

How much is too much?

Take the age, or key stage, of learners for example. We could use natural ages from 3 to 18. We could use school years from reception to year 17. We could use key stages: early years, KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4. But in the end we settled for early years, primary, secondary, and post-16. Trying to tag a resource more tightly than that felt like it would either restrict a resource, or require more clicking when we're adding it to the database.

In this case, being more comprehensive would have an overall negative impact.

Workshop with SENCOs and the SEND team

When we're looking at the category "area of need", we're having a much wider discussion. The Code of Practice has four broad areas: communication and interaction, cognition and learning, social, emotional and mental health, and sensory and/or physical. But just using those categories isn't going to be very helpful in finding a resource. So we've looked at a list from the Education Endowment Foundation. Here are a couple of examples for each broad area.

• Communication and interaction > speech, language and communication needs
• Communication and interaction > social communication and interaction differences
• Cognition and learning > general
• Cognition and learning > specific
• Social, emotional, and mental health > emotional needs
• Social, emotional, and mental health > conditions
• Sensory and/or physical > visual impairment
• Sensory and/or physical > hearing impairment

Even this list only gave us 21 options, and probably won't be granular enough to be helpful. So we're looking at making the input form more helpful by sequencing the choices, area of need, then sub category, then specific need.

• SEMH > conditions > ADHD
• SEMH > emotional needs > attachment

We're now testing with professionals from the Specialist Inclusion Teams, and we'll be refining these lists to best suit the needs of our teachers and learners.

Of course different councils will want to tailor these lists based on their own needs, and we'll work with them to make sure they reflect their specific circumstances.

If you'd like to chat about how we can help make your mainstream inclusion resources more accessible, get in touch.