The Good, Bad And Ugly Habits Of SEND Provision
When it comes to overseeing and managing a school’s SEND provision, what habits distinguish the honourable sheriffs from the self-serving outlaws? Jarlath O’Brien shares his thoughts…
I started out as a teacher in a comprehensive, moved to a selective independent school and went on to work in three different types of special schools. I’ve worked with young people from the ages of 2 to 19; children who’ve gone to Oxford or Cambridge; children who’ve gone to prison and some who’ve died from life-shortening conditions.
I can therefore claim to have a wide perspective on our education landscape. I have seen policies, curricula and practises that have resulted in exceptional provision for young people with SEND, and provision that has made it extremely difficult for those young people to survive, let alone thrive.
Here, I’ll share with you what I have come to see as some of the good, bad and ugly habits of SEND leadership…
The Good
Parental engagement
The single most effective, lasting and transformational thing a school can do to improve its SEND provision is pour time and energy into its relationships with parents. Far too many parents have to fight to secure what the rest of us would consider to be a basic entitlement for our children. They will know far more about their children than we ever will, and if we don’t treat them as equals we will be missing a trick.
They will be our best supporters – so get to know them early, invite them in, be open, honest and transparent and it will pay dividends.
Thorough preparation
The best leaders prepare their schools before the children even arrive. They know their new cohort, can spot where their CPD needs are and get busy filling them. You may know that you have a child with SEND arriving next year with a rare condition, such as fragile-X syndrome. Getting ahead of the game by sourcing some specialist training and advice early on and talking to the child’s current school is smart. It’s also a massive early win with the parents.
> The best schools I know truly believe that good teaching for children with SEND is good teaching for everyone. They know that there isn’t a special box of resources that you pull out when you teach a child with Down’s syndrome or autism (though that’s not to say there aren’t specific things you need to know about such conditions and how to factor them into your teaching – there definitely will be). Instead, they have high expectations, baseline well and are clear about what the child(ren) can and cannot yet do, and plan ambitiously from there.
Foster independence
Good leaders will ensure that their curriculum is set up to give children with SEND the best possible chance to live and work independently as adults. If you think that sounds blindingly obvious, you can read my book Don’t Send Him in Tomorrow to see just how dire the life outcomes for people with SEND are. Insisting, for example, that you can no longer spare curriculum time for work experience may not be in the best interests of each and every child.
Plan for transitions
Planning for the transition out of your own school well in advance is crucial. Take the deputy headteacher and three TAs from a local primary school who spent a morning at our school late last year. They have a child in Year 5 who may move to a special school for their secondary education.
They visited our classes to learn what they need to do over the next two years, as they’re acutely aware that they could build dependency that may make transition difficult for the child.
The Bad
Lack of induction
You have an induction programme for teaching assistants, right? I am shocked and saddened when I consider the number of schools that don’t offer their TAs an induction, even in just the basics. Some TAs arrive with no experience of working in schools at all, yet we expect them to work with children who, in some cases, have very complex needs. They will go on to work with some of our most vulnerable children, yet they receive the least CPD.
Give them a high quality induction and make sure they’re paid to attend all your INSET sessions. Give them some time to visit a couple of special schools too, and they’ll come back brimming with ideas.
Lack of appraisals
The same goes for appraisals. In my view, failing to offer an appraisal to any colleague communicates that we believe that member of staff’s contribution to the school isn’t worth discussing. Give TAs an appraisal just like your teachers, and let them know what a damn good job they’re doing.
Pupil isolation
I have met children who have spent their time almost exclusively educated at their own workstation in a corridor or by the coat pegs in the name of ‘inclusion’. Do you ever look at the proportion of time a child with SEND is actually spending outside of their class? Try it. It’ll be enlightening.
In the same vein, analyse how long children with SEND are taught by TAs and how long by their class teacher(s). Some children with SEND are being effectively educated in a school of one child, since they spend all week with a TA.
The Ugly
Illegal exclusions
There are, unfortunately, occasions when it’s clear that a school simply doesn’t want a particular child in their school any more, or to even cross that threshold in the first place.
The disgraceful use of illegal exclusions – whereby children are prevented from attending school by their headteacher – is one of the most shameful aspects of our profession that research has shown affects children with SEND. If a school feels the need to exclude a child, then they must follow the statutory processes set down in law.
(Not so) coded language
Something I frequently hear about from prospective parents is schools that use language that’s carefully selected to make it clear what kind of schools they are. ‘We’re an academic school’; ‘We only do GCSEs’; or (and this is an exact quote) ‘If your child has any form of additional needs then this is not the school for your child.’ It could be argued in most cases that such statements are open to interpretation, but parents of children with SEND may well simply hear ‘We don’t want you’.
There is much that we must do as a nation to improve the life outcomes for children with SEND – but it all begins in the classroom, and the steps I outline above are a good place to start.
Good habits checklist
- Provide CPD that includes all staff, including your office staff and site maintenance team
- Share information among all staff regarding the progress of children with SEND. It can be hard for staff to feel that they’re doing a good job if they think the progress they’re observing is slower than what they’re used to
- Establish partnerships with special schools; they will often be very keen for mainstream schools to make use of their outreach and CPD services
- Place educating children with SEND at the heart of what you do, rather than tucking it away out of sight. Make it normal, important and visible, and it’s less likely to be thought of as ‘other’.
- Check that children with SEND aren’t overrepresented in sanctions such as detentions and fixed-term exclusions. They are grossly over-represented in national figures, so look at your own trends and be clear about what you’re going to do to improve matters.
About the author
Jarlath O’Brien is the headteacher of Carwarden House Community School in Surrey and the author of Don’t Send Him in Tomorrow, published by Independent Thinking Press
