SEND in Ordinary Classrooms by Michelle Prosser Haywood

by Michelle Prosser Haywood

In Michelle’s first column she proposes that as an early career teacher, you will need support and mentoring to be a teacher of SEND and understand the technical language that surrounds supporting learners identified with SEND.

On the popular TV programme, The Great British Bake Off (GBBO), amateur bakers are given three challenges: a signature bake, a technical challenge and a show stopper. The bakers have planning time for the signature and show stopper bakes and can practice these at home. The technical challenge, however, is the blind test, the one challenge, whereby very little information is provided. A recipe is given, but the instructions assume a knowledge of technical language and can include specific words such as cream or whisk or they could be simply ‘bake a sponge’, and the expectation is that the bakers would have enough knowledge about baking to understand and undertake the task effectively. When you were a student teacher on an Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programme, you will have followed some ‘teaching recipes and styles’ provided by your training provider and your mentors on teaching placements, but it is when you enter your classroom for the first time, as an ECT (Early Career Teacher) you may face a number of the technical challenges and many of them could be considered to be around being a ‘teacher of SEND’.

This is perhaps no more evident than when faced with a class list for the first time and being told ‘there are some pupils with SEND in this class’. SEND is a broad category, and firstly there are four areas described by the SEN Code of Practice (2015); communication & Interaction, cognition & learning, social, emotional & mental health difficulties and sensory and/or physical needs, these are then divided into a further thirteen categories which are reported by each school to compile the annual DFE Statistics return. If you are a mainstream class teacher you will also have to make a distinction between the learners in your classroom who receive SEN Support and have an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and you may also be required to identify pupils who are ‘making less than expected progress given their age and individual circumstances’. This could be characterised by progress which is significantly slower than that of their peers, fails to match a previous rate of progress, fails to close the attainment gap and the attainment gap continues to widen. There are currently 14.9% of pupils with special educational needs, of whom 3.1% of learners have an ECHP. At SEN support the most common primary need is Speech, Language and Communication (SLCN) at 23% and for EHCP it is Autistic Spectrum Disorder at 29%. Teaching is recognised as a journey and your work with pupils with SEND should be no different. As an early career teacher there may be more unfamiliar language than other areas, but there are ways your school and the wider education sector can support you to become a ‘teacher of SEND’ and recognise suitable interventions and reasonable adjustments. Some of the suggestions below,may be good starting points. Ask the SENCO. Every mainstream school is expected to have a SENCO, and although they may have additional and different roles in each school, they can be your first point of contact around the needs of learners with SEND in your classroom.

The SENCO may be leading on additional and different provision but may not be planning all the interventions for each individual class, so it is likely you are going to need some support on what reasonable adjustments and interventions are required. It is essential to understand the SEND Policy including how pupils with SEND are identified, how to informally and formally gather evidence to demonstrate need, and how to undertake an assess, plan, do, review, cycle. Furthermore, it is worthwhile understanding the procedures on requesting a Statutory Assessment for an ECHP, if it is deemed necessary to meet the learners’ need. It is most likely that it is the delegated SENCO’s role, but external agencies such as Educational Psychology Service will need to be involved and these services may make these arrangements directly with you, if the learner is in your class. As part of your Continuing Professional development (CPD), learn from others. Make time to visit other classrooms not just in your school, but other schools in your local area, academy group or cluster and take an observation schedule with you, which considers how different learner’s needs are met. Consider classroom management for example, how the room is organised, what resources and intervention are used and ask the teacher whose class you are visiting why they have arranged their classroom in that way, and why they are using particular resources. Also find opportunities to meet with external agencies and visit specialist provision such as special schools and PRUs. Also remember that you can manage your own CPD too, by reading key publications such as the TES and Schoolsweek (both often found in school staff rooms) and joining organisations such as The Chartered College, nasen and The British Dyslexia Society. In future columns I will discuss some of the ‘technical terminology’ introduced here in more detail so you are faced with a technical challenge of your own, you will be well equipped and confident to tackle it yourself.

Michelle Prosser Haywood, is the Head of ResearchSEND at the University of Wolverhampton.