I am sure that readers of my blog will wonder why I am asking such a question, but, after the recent SEND teachmeet in Oxford, I have been left wondering where we are heading in defining children as having Special Educational Needs.
There was quite a strong SEND school group represented, and who spoke during the meeting and I do follow a range of strong SEND advocates through Twitter.
It is clear, especially from Twitter exchanges, that the recent changes to SEND documentation was causing concern among the group, as reassessment of children with pre-existing statements was not always leading to expected outcomes.
Since the Warnock report in 1978 about the status of special educational needs and her definition that, during their educational lifetime, around 20% of children might exhibit some area of personal additional need, schools have had a duty to describe and cater for the needs of a group seen as potentially vulnerable if nothing was done to support them. Systems were set up around this group, by Local Authorities, to quality assure the systems of referral and decisions.
My concern is those children who are in mainstream schools who might yet not have any specific diagnosis of need, but whose needs are regularly evident to classteachers.
While locality could be a cause of issues, subject to available staffing, essentially a child described as having Special Needs in Cornwall, and with a Statement of Educational Needs applied, would be equivalent to a similar child in Newcastle. The constant across the authorities would have been the case studies developed by the school, in association with the available external experts, using the available tools to describe the child’s lack of progress against the National Curriculum Level Descriptors which were common across all schools, even if some difference might be evident in interpretation. A case study portfolio of evidence of description of the learning and other behaviours, together with interrogation of outcomes and successive decisions and adaptations/fine tunings to evident need, would show how the child was performing compared to peers.
Where Levels and associated descriptors have been removed from September 2014, I am left wondering how schools are now seeking to describe their concerning or evident children with educational needs beyond their peers. If they are being tracked against the new National Curriculum, as there are only end of Key Stage descriptors, it will inevitably just be the programmes of study for the year group that will be available, with attendant descriptors of can or can’t do…
Do teachers know what they are looking for? Here’s a crib sheet.
There was quite a strong SEND school group represented, and who spoke during the meeting and I do follow a range of strong SEND advocates through Twitter.
It is clear, especially from Twitter exchanges, that the recent changes to SEND documentation was causing concern among the group, as reassessment of children with pre-existing statements was not always leading to expected outcomes.
Since the Warnock report in 1978 about the status of special educational needs and her definition that, during their educational lifetime, around 20% of children might exhibit some area of personal additional need, schools have had a duty to describe and cater for the needs of a group seen as potentially vulnerable if nothing was done to support them. Systems were set up around this group, by Local Authorities, to quality assure the systems of referral and decisions.
My concern is those children who are in mainstream schools who might yet not have any specific diagnosis of need, but whose needs are regularly evident to classteachers.
While locality could be a cause of issues, subject to available staffing, essentially a child described as having Special Needs in Cornwall, and with a Statement of Educational Needs applied, would be equivalent to a similar child in Newcastle. The constant across the authorities would have been the case studies developed by the school, in association with the available external experts, using the available tools to describe the child’s lack of progress against the National Curriculum Level Descriptors which were common across all schools, even if some difference might be evident in interpretation. A case study portfolio of evidence of description of the learning and other behaviours, together with interrogation of outcomes and successive decisions and adaptations/fine tunings to evident need, would show how the child was performing compared to peers.
Where Levels and associated descriptors have been removed from September 2014, I am left wondering how schools are now seeking to describe their concerning or evident children with educational needs beyond their peers. If they are being tracked against the new National Curriculum, as there are only end of Key Stage descriptors, it will inevitably just be the programmes of study for the year group that will be available, with attendant descriptors of can or can’t do…
Do teachers know what they are looking for? Here’s a crib sheet.
Do we wait until year end to describe a child as below their peers, suggesting a developing need, or perhaps after two years that they are well below their peers and might be on track to be “below National standard”? Will teachers undertake diagnostic assessments on children to explore their range of needs? Will they ensure that records cover the whole span of time and describe classroom adaptations used and support given to need? Will, over time, a Gap Analysis of needs emerge, that can describe the case to external experts, such as Ed Psych or Speech and Language Therapy or OT? Will the school be able to describe exactly where the child is in comparison with peers?
Are there systems within the school where expertise is regularly shared between colleagues that ensures that the vulnerable learners receive appropriate support and challenge, and not just through the class Teaching Assistants?
Are there systems within the school where expertise is regularly shared between colleagues that ensures that the vulnerable learners receive appropriate support and challenge, and not just through the class Teaching Assistants?
We still have P levels, which, in some discussions, seem to be the only currency available to describe SEND children. So a child who might formerly have been described as a level 1c,b,a, but be in year 4 or 5 and, as such, significantly behind peers, alerting the school to a need for a request for Statutory Assessment, may now have a weakened case, if the school system is not sufficiently robust. Panels judging the merits of a case may well be looking even more closely at the quality of the school evidence. So a child could get turned down through poor school records or judgements.
It can read as if there are potentially insecure systems in place within which insecure and vulnerable learners could be and may well be failed. The lack of National models has enabled localities to develop systems that appear to be causing concern at best.
Sadly it is the potentially vulnerable who may suffer, but it is a case of “Watch this space”.
It could be a case of the law of unintended consequences at play.
It can read as if there are potentially insecure systems in place within which insecure and vulnerable learners could be and may well be failed. The lack of National models has enabled localities to develop systems that appear to be causing concern at best.
Sadly it is the potentially vulnerable who may suffer, but it is a case of “Watch this space”.
It could be a case of the law of unintended consequences at play.
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