The mystery and complications of SEND

11 June, 2020 —

The mystery and complications of SEND

The 1st in a series to simplify the mystery of SEND through the lens of the EEF recommendations in their 2020 guidance report

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by Greenshaw Research School
on the 11th June 2020

SEND is complicated. There is legislation which seeks to clarify in the form of the SEN Code of Practice (CoP, 2015), but this runs to 292 pages. Then there is the fact that SENCos must now undertake National Accreditation within 3 years of undertaking the role – worth a third of a master’s qualification – which taken together with the CoP, cements the notion of complication.

Research is complicated. When looking for evidence that the decisions you are making in school are the right ones, the huge amounts of factors and limitations into any one thing you may choose to focus on are mind-boggling, and require days of concentration to wade through what evidence there is. And evidence is never cut and dried – there will be counter claims which can add to the headache of trying to distil through to the essence of a problem.

People are complicated. The heady mix of our pupils, parents, staff, SLT, and governors creates a complete melting pot of diversity on so many different levels that to try to tackle it all simultaneously (as we do!) can tie us in ever-tightening knots.

So we must simplify. Especially when faced with the after-effects of a global pandemic which has meant that our most vulnerable children have already missed 10 weeks of schooling and counting. We all want to close the attainment gaps, which seemed a daunting task back in February 2020 when the children were in our classroom, but now they’re not, the chasm just yawns ever expansively in front of us.

Even before Covid hit, the Education Endowment Foundation published their latest guidance report: Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools. The introduction from the newly installed CEO, Professor Becky Francis, illustrates the SEN and FSM gaps with this graphic and quote, giving us motivation for change:

‘The attainment gap between pupils with SEND and their peers is twice as big as the gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and their peers. However, pupils with SEND are also more than twice as likely to be eligible for free school meals.’
Becky Francis, SEND guidance report (2020)

Yet, it was 10 years ago that Ofsted published a review into special educational needs and disabilities slamming the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom, laying the blame solidly at the feet of the schools for the misidentification of SEN.

‘However, we also recognise that as many as half of all pupils identified for School Action would not be identified as having special educational needs if schools focused on improving teaching and learning for all, with individual goals for improvement.’
Ofsted, Special education needs and disabilities review (2010)

Subsequently, the Code of Practice was updated with the number of classifications leading to the status of being ‘on the SEN register’ reduced from 3 to 2. The numbers on the SEN register then reduced, which can be seen from the latest figures from the DfE:

Special educational needs and disability: an analysis and summary of data sources (May 2020)

The DfE have suggested that the decline from 2010 has been a consequence of better identification (particularly following the jab from Ofsted), however, there is no explanation given for the current 2‑year trend which has just started to uptick again.

Whatever the reasons you may believe for the increase, the fact which is inescapable is that schools nationally have deemed nearly 15% of their cohort as requiring educational provision which is ‘different from or additional to’ the vast majority of pupils (SEN Code of Practice, 2015). It is this 14.9% of pupils who have the biggest gap from their peers in terms of attainment and therefore they are worthy of our attention.

‘6.15 A pupil has SEN where their learning difficulty or disability calls for special educational provision, namely provision different from or additional to that normally available to pupils of the same age.'
DfE, SEND Code of Practice (2015)

And it is within this language that we may have historically come undone. ‘Different from or additional to’ provision sounds special doesn’t it? It sounds altered to the norm. It sounds like removal from a ‘normal’ classroom to undertake some ‘different’ activities somewhere else. It sounds like we have to be meticulous in evidencing that we have done these different and special things to ensure that the child makes progress.

So we have done all these things. As attested to by the 2017review of special education in secondary schools, we have grouped these low-attaining pupils together to enable the resource to be better managed; we have removed these pupils from the mainstream for a portion of their educational provision so that they can access this ‘different’ teaching; and we have employed additional adults to support in the classroom, pointing them in the direction of our most needy learners, asking them to ensure they understand.

I would also suggest to you that, as well as being caring, welcoming, calming and highly inclusive, SENCos are highly proficient in the production of an Excel spreadsheet. The problem is that these spreadsheets haven’t said anything different about the progress of pupils with SEND, despite the production of evidence that we’ve been trying.

‘Different from or additional to’ has a lot to answer for.

And so the latest EEF guidance report breathes some perspective into the complication that has been SEND in our secondary schools. Within the 5 recommendations, the sense of creating teaching and learning which is of the highest quality sits front and centre, something which Ofsted tried to point out in 2010, even if they did it in a way which put the backs up of the profession at large.

Now bolstered by a wealth of evidence which bears out this conclusion, we need to sit up and listen so that the SENCo’s spreadsheets in our schools start to give us some good news.

Ro King