Research School Network: Blog: Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools By Emma Lloyd, SEND/​Inclusion Improvement Lead at Trust in Learning Academies (TiLA)

I often come across teachers and support staff who struggle to navigate the pathway of labelling a child or young person and identifying the needs of that child or young person. Understandably many teachers, support staff and parents shy away from labelling a child with a specific Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) need to avoid that child or young person becoming a sum of the label and therefore the whole child or young person is missed.

Yet, having a diagnosis can help tailor the provision schools give children and young people in their settings. Having a specific Speech, Language and Communication Need (SLCN) or Hearing Impairment (HI) or Visual impairment (VI) allows, not only explicit understanding of the needs of the child or young person, but also the explicit provision enabling them to make progress across the curriculum.

However, identifying SEND needs should not be about a pure diagnosis and label. A diagnosis or label should not be seen as a limiter to the child’s progress. A child with a Social Emotional, Mental Health (SEMH) label can still achieve academically. SEMH may be closely associated with behaviours that challenge but encompasses a myriad of needs from high anxiety/​low mood, self-harming behaviours as well as diagnosed mental health conditions. These may be barriers to progress but do not necessarily mean a child or young person can’t achieve, with the right support.

Once you have that diagnosis, we should be asking ourselves as educators – so what? And how?

If a child or young person has a diagnosis of Autism, for example, this may indicate they have a set of traits and behaviours which fall into social understanding and communication, sensory processing and integration, and flexibility of understanding/​processing information. This ​‘triad’ of differences do not look the same in all children and young people with Autism. It is, therefore, vital that we know the individual to ensure we know how to remove individual barriers. It may be that the sensory processing element of their autism is the biggest barrier, for example, a noisy environment, a busy corridor or the feeling of the uniform. Whilst these may not directly impact on the classroom learning – they could impact on the ability of that child or young person to focus and be ​‘ready to learn’ therefore knowing the individual needs and what will help them be ready to engage with meaningful learning is vital.

With 1.7% of pupils with autism in schools being recorded in England (DfE, 2019) and with approximately 70% being educated in mainstream schools, it is essential that school staff understand how to ​‘build an ongoing, holistic understanding of pupil and their needs’ (EEF, 2020).

The Code of Practice outlines the cycle of ​“assess, plan, do, review” to help identify and understand need and to work through approaches and interventions to support these needs. This ​‘graduated approach’ needs to be a working partnership between all the stakeholders involved, from the pupil at the centre, their parent/​carers and the school staff. It is a process.

The assessment element is about having a full holistic view of the child or young person and their needs, motivators, aspirations etc from multiple perspectives. The review element is key in finding what is working and what is not.

The easiest approach for this is to use though strategies which are evidenced to already work (and are often in a teacher’s pedagogy toolkit already). This may be adapting the use of graphic organisers to help support children and young people which sequencing or working memory difficulties (associated with a range of needs from dyslexia to autism). It may be around how technology is used to support pupils with SEND needs, or it may be other scaffolding strategies which support the child and young person to access and engage with the curriculum.

This is the implementation of the plan. This needs to be clearly communicated with class or subject teachers and support staff, may need explicit explanation or pre learning for the child or young person to access and clear communication with parent/​carers who may be able to support or use these strategies in the home environment too. Fidelity to an approach is needed whilst it is embedded to be able to review success of use.

Reviewing the success, fidelity and impact of the strategies implemented is crucial. It may be that the review is a mid-point and the ​‘do’ needs to continue with or without a tweak or it may be that the strategy or approach is not working, and a review of other approaches can happen. It is important to gather the child’s perspective – they may be able to identify that active ingredient of success (or failure).

With increasing pressures of schools and greater squeezes on the system, being needs-lead rather than diagnosis-led is increasingly important. As educators, we can not diagnose needs but if we know the children and young people in our classrooms, we can identify those barriers and use a graduated response to identify needs and put in support as early as possible.