The current state of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision in schools is concerning.
The record number of complaints upheld by the local government ombudsman backs it up.
To help, Policy and Practice Researcher, Emily Wood, has found 23 high performing secondary schools and taken a deep dive into SEND policies to find out how they support their SEND students in the current climate.
Whether you’re a leader looking to offer your students more support, or you’re a teacher in search of some good sources of SEND input, this week’s highlight from the We Are In Beta Community will help.
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✍️ SEND policies: analysis of examples from successful secondary schools
Currently in England, over 1.5 million students are identified as having a special educational need, which has risen steadily over the last 5 years.
The attainment gap between students with SEND and their non-SEND peers is double the gap between students who are eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) and their peers.
The current climate has underlined the importance for schools to have a solid SEND policy, implemented well, in order to appropriately support the growing proportion of students with SEND.
But what do policies that go beyond the statutory guidance look like? What can we learn from them?
Want us to research policies and practices for you?
Reply to this email to tell us what policy you’re writing and we’ll do a lot of the leg work for you.
📝 How schools support SEND - what Emily explores:
the criteria she used to find schools with examples
what the key strategies schools use to support their SEND students
how to access 40+ SEND policies and SEND impact reports and
5 stand out case studies
50+ SEND support organisations and services schools reference in their policies
🔎 5 SEND policy observations
The full article shares 30+ observations from the 41 documents looked at.
Here are five that might get you thinking about what your school does:
💼 SEND expert roles - 16/23 highlight specialist roles they hire for and deploy to support students
👩🏽🏫 SEND training - 16/23 specify exactly what training they deliver to their staff
🤝 TA deployment - 1/23 codifies how TA must be deployed
🔬Research informed - 5/23 reference specific pieces of research which underpin the strategies
💻 Assistive technology - 16/23 reference which technologies they use to support their SEND students.
To read about the other 25 observations and learn how schools support their SEND students….
🗒️ 5 stand out case studies
You don’t have the time to read all the resources, so we’ve done it for you.
We’ve found the most practical bits and organised them into 5 case studies about
Extra curricular clubs; detailed SEND interventions; external support lists
Referral processes; list of staff training; mental; health identification
Deployment of TAs; assistive technology; counselling
Staff training, wave 2 targeted support; external agencies list
Powerful impact reporting; specific SEND interventions; SEND funding
If you are a member of the Curriculum Thinkers Community, read them here.
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💼 Jobs with We Are In Beta community members.
System Leadership
🏫 Assistant Director - to work alongside the Director of Primary Education - Greenshaw Learning Trust (South East (Sutton / Croydon and Bracknell).
Middle Leadership
📚 Head of English - Bridgwater College Academy (Somerset)
Teaching
👋 Teacher of Languages - Worle Community School (Weston-super-Mare)
🧬 Teacher of Science - Worle Community School (Weston-super-Mare)
On a personal note
When you’re busy with the day to day, it can be really hard to lift your head up to see what’s out there to help.
This was definitely a barrier to my ability to meet the needs of all students, especially those with SEND.
I wish I had known more about the types of SEND, how to identify them and how intervene and support.
The combination of that challenge and that desire to learn more, is what drives us at We Are In Beta.
If you want to learn more about how schools support SEND, this is a gold mine.
If you want to help us research even more policy and practice, we’re running paid research projects, this summer (and beyond).
If school data, research and unearthing success are your things, learn more here. We’d love to work with you.
Thanks for reading.
@NiallAlcock and the We Are In Beta team.
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