The first month of the new academic year is over and SENCOs across the country will have been getting to grips with all of the SEND challenges that they will face over the next twelve months.
Whether you are new to role or an experienced SENCO the start of the new term always feels daunting as everyone starts to build the relationships with their children and young people and teachers begin to seek your advice and support on specific students and their individual needs.
In this blog I outline my top ten tips to ensure that you are undertaking your strategic role without feeling out of control.
- Work closely with parent carers in everything that you are planning. There is an increased awareness of SEND amongst parent carers and many more are seeking diagnosis and Education, Health and Care plans. This appears to have been a consequence of the pandemic and the lack of language, social and emotional development in our students, especially those entering full-time education for the first time. If parent carers feel valued and listened to and involved in their child’s educational journey it is much easier to work in partnership rather than the relationship being acrimonious and challenging.
- Regularly review your SEN Register to ensure it is up-to-date. You need to monitor that your EHCP students are getting everything that is written in section F of their plan and that all relevant staff have access to the EHCP and are planning towards the outcomes in section E? You also need to consider what additional and/or different provision is being provided for your SEN Support pupils. Who is providing this provision? Who is monitoring its effectiveness?
- You should have a system in place where staff can refer students to you once they have evidence of what they have already done to meet needs in the classroom. They cannot just say they need to go on the SEN Register, that is for you, alongside staff, parent carers and the student to decide.
- Remember, you can take students off the SEN Register if they are not receiving anything additional and/or different but remember to engage with parent carers before you do this.
- Ensure that new pupils that have transitioned from another phase of education (this includes from home, pre-school and nursery) are given the support and guidance that they need to settle into their new school. Hopefully you will have discussed these students with previous providers and by now should have received any relevant paperwork and information. If this has not happened and you have concerns about a particular student, make contact now.
- It is also important that you keep in touch with the receiving setting of students that transitioned from your school in the summer, for at least the first term to ensure continuity.
- Update your SEN Information Report – This is a mandatory report that should be reviewed annually and placed on your school website. It outlines the SEND offer that your school provides. Ensure that it has been ratified by governors/trustees and where possible has had input from parent carers and students.
- Make sure that you have an annual calendar for all significant tasks that you need to undertake, this might include the review of your SEN Information Report and SEND Register but more importantly dates for reviewing progress and sharing information with parent carers of SEN Support students this should be three times per year. For students with an EHCP you will need to calenderise your Annual Reviews to ensure that you are requesting information and sending invitations in good time for each review.
- Review the deployment of your support staff – they will all have been allocated their classes and roles and responsibilities for the start of term but you may have taken new students in that you did not have information for or have students that now need more support than some that are getting it. You need to have a flexibility in how support staff are deployed and managed – After all! They are there to meet the needs of the students.
- Do you feel confident that you fully understand SEND Law and SEND funding? It is vital that every SENCO understands SEND legislation (Children and Families Act 2015), the SEND Code of Practice is only guidance so although you will follow that closely you also need to understand the legislation, this will enable you to challenge the local authority when necessary. You also need to have an understanding of SEND funding, what is allocated to your school, is it the correct amount and how is it being spent?
- Carry out a SEND Audit to see what aspects of SEND are going well and what areas need to be addressed. From the outcomes of your audit, you can produce a SEND Development Plan. Discuss this with senior leaders to see how far your planned developments are an integral part of the whole school development plan.
- Be very clear to all staff about what is expected of them – Every teacher is a teacher of all pupils including those with SEND. Does everyone understand what high quality teaching looks like and are they delivering it daily? What does “ordinarily available” provision in your school look like”? What adaptations and reasonable adjustments are being made to ensure every student is accessing education in their classroom? Who is monitoring this?
- Finally, look after your own mental health and well-being. As a leader of SEND in your school you are the advocate for all SEND pupils. They are going to need you to be strong and resilient in order to ensure that they do not get a bad deal and they get every opportunity to succeed to their full potential.
It can be a very solitary life so make sure you have a network of other SENCOs for support.