Dr Rob Long considers how this assessment and reporting tool can help support your school’s behaviour strategies…
SNAP-B is an online diagnostic assessment that profiles 17 social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBDs), which without identification may limit a pupil’s potential to learn.
Focusing on a pupil’s strengths, as well as weaknesses, SNAP-B offers a rounded approach by suggesting interventions and strategies for use both in school and at home.
1 | Three domains
In school, children and young people have three main relationships: how they relate to themselves, to their peers and to adults. SNAP-B profiles across all of these behavioural strands by gathering data from pupils, teachers and parents/carers.
For example, where anger, depression and anxiety are assessed in the ‘relationships with self’ section, the ‘relationships with adults’ section will look at defiance and needing attention.
By highlighting strengths and areas of concern across the three domains, SNAP-B will produce a fully rounded profile of the young person.
2 | Assess – Plan – Do – Review
SNAP-B was designed to follow the Assess – Plan – Do – Review model, as set out in the 2014 SEND Code of Practice.
After the initial questionnaires have been completed, the strategies suggested by SNAP-B can help teachers to plan by suggesting targeted interventions that address a pupil’s specific needs. These can then be monitored over time.
This format also allows teachers to work collaboratively with both parents/carers and individual pupils, in order to gain a rounded perspective of a child’s behaviour at each stage of the process.
3 | Pupil involvement
A definite strength of SNAP-B is that it does not rely solely on adult input. Pupils may have different priorities from those of adults, so SNAP-B offers an opportunity for the young person to be actively involved with discussions about their strengths and areas to develop.
The ‘What I Feel’ questionnaire assesses a pupil’s academic and social self-esteem to give an insight into their perception of themselves as a learner, while a ‘Pupil Voice Record’ function allows the pupil’s voice to be captured and recorded more informally as a conversation.
4 | Intervention tracking
Early intervention is beneficial, not least because many of the SEBDs faced by children can lead to serious difficulties when they reach adulthood.
SNAP-B includes a resource bank of practical interventions that can work alongside ideas, resources and approaches already in use in your school to help reduce these barriers to learning.
Once the relevant interventions have been selected, a summary of what’s being implemented will be automatically added to SNAPB’s School and Home Reports for sharing with class teachers and parents/carers.
5 | Repeat testing
To help demonstrate the effectiveness of any given plan of action, SNAP-B allows you to create multiple assessments for each pupil.
The option to re-assess pupils throughout the year means you can explore whether an intervention should be continued, expanded on, replaced with something else or stopped altogether.
At a glance progress monitoring is also possible, with SNAP-B letting you select and compare up to three previous Core Profiles within one report.
Key points
- Multiple users can be granted access to SNAP-B, thus ensuring that its questionnaires are completed by those teachers and/or support staff that know the pupil best.
SNAP-B is developed by the award-winning publisher and resource specialist, RS Assessment from Hodder Education. The company’s products are all created in collaboration with teachers and learners – if you would like to get involved, consider joining its teacher team.
For more information call 01235 400 555, email onlinesupport@rsassessment.com and visit risingstars-uk.com/snap-new.
