SENCo-FORUM

Points from the SENCo-Forum

Seeking inclusion within the SEND Code’s guidance

Not surprisingly, there are different perceptions about how the terms of the 2015
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Code (the Third Code) can support
inclusion. In their role of extending their schools’ capacity for inclusion, SENCos
experience these differences, and this column refers to two examples recently
raised in Forum messages. The first occurred when a SENCo reported: ‘my head
thinks there are too many pupils on our SEND Support list’. The immediate
response from others was to reassure the SENCo that there is no officially speci-
fied percentage. The Third Code states (para. 6-38) that ‘in deciding whether to
make special educational provision, the teacher and SENCo should consider all
of the information gathered from within the school about the pupil’s progress’ as
well as consulting the pupil (as relevant), and the parents/carers. The Code also
has much to say about the teacher’s capacity to personalise support through
‘Quality First Teaching’. This is reflected in the ‘graduated approach’ recom-
mended in previous Codes, and now described as an ‘assess, plan, do, review’
strategy. Not surprisingly, many comments on the SENCo-Forum welcome these
exhortations, but also reflect an acknowledgement that the circumstances under
which teachers are currently working place considerable constraints on their real-
isation. The present rate of change in curricular content, as well as the withdrawal
of the erstwhile system of ‘levels’, has created major challenges for teachers’
day-to-day work. Over and above these demands, there is the difference in the
number of pupils with whom teachers at the primary and secondary phases come
into contact, which affects teachers’ familiarity with individual pupils. Within the
‘assess, plan, do, review’ strategy itself, the Code rightly places much emphasis
on formative assessment, which depends on teachers’ understanding both of the
sequence of progression within the areas of learning to be acquired, and of
the interdependence of the steps in the sequences. The understanding underlies
the support which SENCos offer teachers in planning remedial interventions, and
in reviewing the implications of the pupil’s response. The question may then
arise as to whether a chosen intervention might meet the Code’s criterion of

© 2016 NASEN
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8578.12140
being ‘additional to or different from’ provision ‘made generally . . . in schools’
and so determine whether a pupil is placed on the ‘SEND Support’ list.

Messages on the Forum indicate that understandings of what constitutes ‘Quality

First Teaching’ range widely. As mentioned above, the scope that is available is
certainly constrained by the pressures resulting from the Government’s change
regime. Constraints caused by schools’ own systemic characteristics have been
mentioned in previous ‘Points from the SENCo-Forum’ columns, and SENCos
often make attempts to extend schools’ inclusive capacity by tackling such con-
straints. However, messages also indicate that there is considerable uncertainty
about how the Code’s pronouncements about support should be interpreted. For
example, should pupils who use text-to-speech equipment but manage age-
equivalent achievement be put on the ‘SEND Support’ list? Is there a gradation
of additional or different support equipment which should be noted? How far
should the additional effort which pupils who depend on using equipment to
achieve age-equivalent levels be taken into consideration? Pupils who are ‘diag-
nosed’ as having a specific ‘labelled’ condition are usually included, but those
with non-specific broader lower attainment may not be. This latter group has
been discussed on the Forum, with some arguing, for example, that a range above
and below average cognitive function is to be expected in a ‘normal’ population
of children. However, the Code (para. 6-23) makes the point that ‘some learning
difficulties and disabilities occur across the range of cognitive ability and, left
unaddressed, may lead to frustration, which may manifest itself as emotional or
behavioural difficulties’. SENCos’ views differed as to how far pupils demon-
strating behavioural or emotional difficulties but without consequent low achieve-
ment should be included on the ‘SEND Support’ list.

The second example of SENCos’ discussions about differences in interpretation

dealt with the familiar issue of SENCos’ accountability for pupils’ progress. A
SENCo in a secondary school had been criticised for a pupil’s lack of progress.
There is general acceptance of the principle of accountability among both SEN-
Cos and teachers, but much uncertainty about the parameters within which it is
applied. The discussion related to the targets which were set for the effectiveness,
over time, of provision for a pupil, such as ‘closing the gap’, ‘value added’ and
‘accelerated progress’. This issue arises in relation to ‘inclusion’, where the role
of SENCos involves ‘removing barriers’ to achievement. One argument promoted
the idea that, if the contextual barriers to a pupil’s learning are removed, then
that pupil’s progress within the National Curriculum could be expected to reach a
‘normal’ rate. Another argument countered this assumption, in that, if a pupil has
special educational needs, there are factors within the child which in themselves

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would cause slower progress regardless of the removal of contextual barriers.
The consensus was that both arguments were potentially valid, but that in the
majority of cases there would be cumulative interaction between the benefits of
contextual enhancement and the impact of a pupil’s needs, and so it would be
simplistic to expect a ‘normal’ rate of progress. This does not detract from the
assumption that, for all children, there exists the challenge of a ‘next step’ of
progress.

Discussion of the second example also noted that there are issues about the valid-
ity of the ‘metric’ that is used, for example, to measure progress within the
National Curriculum subjects. Right from the initiation of the National Curricu-
lum, assessment of attainment has been based on the achievement of successive
‘levels’, for which, however, there was no evidence that they represented equal
‘units’ of progress that could be used in mathematically justifiable calculations.
This tended to be disregarded, and so attainment ‘levels’ came to be used to eval-
uate comparative ‘progress’ to establish the ‘value added’, ‘acceleration’ and
‘closing the gap’ comparisons mentioned above. At a gross level, the compari-
sons clearly had a degree of meaning in individual cases, but these did not fully
justify accountability demands and their implications. The current trend to stand-
ardisation of measures is presumably intended to address these issues of validity,
but even these remain relative to particular population samples and the times at
which they are derived, as was acknowledged in the recent controversy about
Key Stage 2 SATs data. The Forum discussion proposed that setting pupil targets
should be personalised with respect to the individual needs of a pupil – a feature
of the formative assessment promoted within the Code. For example, a pupil
with spelling difficulties might be given a speech to text facility in writing. It is
well-known that such a facility enables a pupil to achieve a much higher level of
verbal expression in writing. However, the pupil’s use of a much wider range of
vocabulary can then itself have an impact on spelling achievement, in addition to
any specific spelling-focused support. Consequently, separate targets should be
set for written expression and for spelling, according to the particular progression
acquisition sequence that the teacher has chosen in planning the teaching. This
detailed personalised progression framework can then offer a more valid refer-
ence for assessing the rate of a pupil’s progress in the acquisition of the particular
learning, independent of any ‘levels’ associated with a prescribed curriculum
assessment system.

Discussions on the Forum of the above aspects of uncertainty in interpreting the

Third Code’s guidance on inclusion offer members welcome support, and an
opportunity to consider points of view that differ from their own. It is particularly

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appreciated at present, when SENCos are finding it increasingly difficult to
access specialist support services in those local authorities which have discontin-
ued them because of funding cuts.

K.Wedell, member of the SENCo-Forum

To join the SENCo-Forum please see: http://lists.education.gov.uk/mailman/
listinfo/senco-forum or email: senco-forum-ownner@lists.education.gov.uk

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2016 © 2016 NASEN