Support for SEND in NorthernIreland

Whatsupportisthere for teachers, SENCOs, schools and families in NorthernIreland? We provide an overview of nasen’sNorthernIreland AdvisoryGroup, including ways in which the group can supporthighquality teaching and learning in NorthernIrelandfor pupils with SEND.

Historically,the NorthernIrelandbranch of nasenconsisted of acommittee of professionals with awide range of experience,knowledge and expertise who worked togethertosupport practitioners andadvocate for the children of Northern Ireland.The committee’svision wasrealised primarily through conferences andstudy days offering localisedsupport to schoolstaff.The committee provided relevant high qualityand affordable continuing professional development (CPD)through multi-agency networking.

The visionhas been further developed by thenew nasen NorthernIrelandAdvisoryGroup(NIAG),which was formedinOctober2018. This voluntarygroupconsistsof seveneducationprofessionals withawealth of knowledge, skills, experience and expertise to support the work of nasen.The group alsohas expertise in theNorthern Ireland Department of Education’s(DE) overarching SEN categories.

THE GROUP’S KEY OBJECTIVES ARE TO:

•support practitioners in Northern Ireland

•improve learning for all children and young people with SEND

•promote nasen as an inclusive organisation with outstanding SEND CPD opportunities and the sharing of good practice.

From 2018 to 2022, the work of the nasen NorthernIreland Advisory Group encompassed developing partnership working within Northern Ireland with the following bodies:

Department of Education (DE)

Education Authority(EA)

Granada Learning (GL)Assessment Classroom2000(C2K)

Education technology(Edtech)

NorthernIreland Teachers Collaborate (NITC)

Learning SPACE(Specialised Product c s Aiding Child Education).

The group also adaptednasen resources to supportpractitioners in Northern Ireland, takingaccount of NorthernIreland legislation andthe workofthe DE and the EA.These included:SupportingSEND by Observing Learners,Tools to Enable and SupportReasonable Adjustments, and Providing Advicefor Understanding ADHD and Supporting Childreninthe Classroom.

In collaboration with the EA,1,200 nasen resource packs were produced, 600 of whichwere distributedatEAtraining sessions(pre-Covid) for all SENCOsinNorthernIreland.Followingthis, 242 SENCOsaccessed nasen’swebsite forsupport and 375SENCOs accessed the adapted resources

As with many organisations, there wasongoing workthroughout thechallengesoflockdown, including online meetings, the continued link with EA andthe productionofadapted introductorydocumentsfor nasen’s CPD webinars. The groupalso submitted consultation responses on behalf of nasen for the DE’s draft SEN CodeofPractice (January2021) andthe EA’s specialist support formainstream schools (April2021).

Resuming Normality And Moving Forward

Post-pandemic, face to face meetings resumed to consider howtomove forward.Withnasenmembership now free to access,join nowtokeepuptodate: https://nasen.org.uk/register.Opportunities for CPDare available, alongwithhigh-quality,researchbased resources andhelpful ideasonhow to improve learningfor childrenand youngpeoplewithSEND.

Share Your Views

The opinions of thesector are crucial: Pleaselet us know of anythingyou wouldlike the nasenNIAGtoconsider in order to provide support foryou or other practitioners in NI. Learningfrom each other canprovide many benefits,soifyou have good practice to share, or informationonanythingthat works well foryou in yourschool, thispracticecan be shared with other schools.Pleasecontact welcome@nasen.org.uk