Universal
Inclusive Quality First Teaching should be in place to support all children develop their thinking and learning skills.
The ‘Assess, Plan, Do Review’ cycle should be used to consider how to adapt the curriculum and differentiate tasks if a child/young person is not making expected levels of progress.
Additional
A plan of additional support, detailing appropriate evidence-based interventions, should be put in place and the ‘Assess, Plan, Do, Review’ cycle followed. Staff should liaise with appropriate support agencies to accurately identify needs and appropriate provision to meet those needs.
Assess
- Monitor through diagnostic (formative and summative) testing e.g. reading, spelling, phonics, number etc. along with standardised tests
- Formative assessment /feedback featured in lessons and evidenced in marking policies
- Summative assessment and analysis
- Progress and assessment data
- Information shared with all school staff and partners
- Consider other factors, such as;
- Communication and Interaction,
- Physical/Sensory,
- Social Emotional and Mental Health.
- Audit staff skills
Plan
- Involve learner and their parents/carers in process of understanding what their difficulties are and what needs to happen for the learner to make progress
- Teacher, in consultation with SENCo, learner and parents/carers plans a time-limited intervention carefully matched to identified needs and chosen from those that have been found to be effective by monitoring and results
- Intervention(s) are timetabled, ensuring that resources (including time and trained staff) are in place
- Deployment of staff is paramount to ensure learners are given the set time specified for the programmes of support
- Teachers, supported by the SENCo, ensure that there are opportunities for skills to be applied and revised in whole class activities
- Plan activities- different from/additional to the class
- Plan regular time for communication between teacher and person delivering intervention to monitor progress and adapt targets/focus as necessary
- SMART targets and outcomes are set and shared with learner/parents
- Targets are dynamic and are modified to match progress
- A record keeping system is in place to monitor progress.
Do
- Planned interventions delivered by trained teaching staff
- It is important that members of staff working with the children and young people are mediating learning experiences carefully, to increase the opportunities for success in learning.
- Interventions are monitored to ensure accelerated progress
- Intervention can be delivered within a whole class as part of guided work or in another part of school, however the class teacher is still responsible for ensuring and monitoring that learning progress occurs
- Class teacher continues to work closely with staff involved in delivering interventions to assess impact
- Record progress towards intervention targets on a regular basis.
Review
- On-going monitoring of intervention to ensure quality of delivery and progress towards targets e.g. observations
- Repeat tests following intervention to check progress
- Obtain learner and parent/carer’s views about the impact of the intervention
- Where little or no progress is being made, class teacher and SENCo review suitability of intervention and re-plan
- Where progress has been limited, return to assessments and consider further involvement of Support Services.
Sometimes assessment over time, which takes into account response to appropriate intervention, can highlight that a pupil is experiencing specific learning difficulties.
Severe and Complex/Specialist
In following the Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycle and implementing the advice from specialist services, it is envisaged that very few children/young people will require an Education Health and Care Assessment and Plan.
The referral for an EHC Assessment needs to demonstrate evidence that advice has been sought and acted on, following ongoing ‘Assess, Plan, Do, Review’ cycles. This evidence should then be able to demonstrate why the child/young person requires this high level of intervention and provision.
School staff can also request support from the Specialist Outreach Service to help them to meet the needs of children and young people with severe and complex needs.