The SENCo Handbook

Leading and Managing a Whole School Approach

Elizabeth Cowne, Carol Frankl, Liz Gerschel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429877384
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

This seventh edition of the best-selling The SENCo Handbook has been updated to reflect the impact that the implementation of the SEND Code of Practice (DfE/DoH 2015) has had on policy and practice in schools and for SENCos. It provides vital information on statutory requirements, practical approaches to the SENCo role and responsibilities and perceptive analysis of issues relevant to all schools, Early Years settings and colleges. Debate and discussion of the different aspects of the SENCo role reveals how it has changed and will change. Written in an accessible and informative format, with numerous examples of good practice, this book will help all SENCos, headteachers and school leaders to create and implement effective whole school policies for special educational needs.

Key topics include:

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• leading and managing change in SEND policy and practice

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• developing whole school approaches to policy and practice for SEND

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• building capacity of class and subject teachers to meet the needs of all pupils

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• managing and leading the assess, plan, do, review response to those identified with additional needs

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• leading on the deployment and management of support staff

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• working with children, young people and their parents, especially in relation to those requiring EHC Plans

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• working in partnership with range of outside agencies and services

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• the historical context and management of current SEND law and administration

Photocopiable training materials are included as are new resources in appendices and source lists. The SENCo Handbook remains essential reading for those studying for the National Award for SEN Co-ordination, whilst more experienced SENCos will value its academic underpinning and practical advice on issues that matter.

1 Special educational needs

Legislative and historical perspectives

This chapter looks at the history of special education in England and Wales, particularly in relation to government legislation and advisory documents. It acknowledges where law differs in educational establishments, including maintained schools, academies and free schools. It also examines changing attitudes towards children with a range of disabilities and discusses issues that arise from changes in policy and practice. After a quick overview of early history, we look at the 1981 Education Act, which was significant in changing perspectives and practice, particularly in mainstream schools. Then we move through the second Code of Practice in 2001, extracting themes and debates from key government documents that influenced legislation and practice, to reach the third Code of Practice in 2014. We examine its importance and look briefly at the Rochford Review and its impact on teaching and assessment of pupils with SEND.

The language of disability

Ways of describing disability have changed over the last century. For example, it is now preferable to refer to children with SEND than to talk of SEND children. Certain terms are no longer acceptable. Many more children are identified in law as disabled. However, ‘labelling’ children with a disability name, or indeed the term SEND itself, has some dangers: individual differences are ignored, or self-esteem is reduced, making the children ‘different’ in the eyes of others. As Lauchlan and Boyle (2007) reflect, some parents value a ‘label’, because it helps explain problems their child is having, and may provide access to resources and support groups. However, other parents may not wish their child described as disabled. Teachers, too, may welcome a ‘label’, for similar reasons. However, seeking a ‘label’ can encourage a ‘within child’ approach (as will be explored in Chapter 3) instead of recognising the influence of the school environment and societal expectations. Teachers need also to consider whether they reinforce ‘otherness’ through lower expectations or by in-class groupings, and how and by whom children are taught, as well as in the language used to describe needs. (This theme continues in Chapter 11.)

Early history

The first hundred years of compulsory schooling began in 1870 with the Elementary Education Act 1870. In the following decades, pressure grew from school boards and voluntary groups to provide a separate system for educating pupils with disabilities. Children with disabilities were seen as unfit for the large classes of 50 or more, taught by teachers with no specialist training. The usual solution was to segregate these children into special schools. Funds to run these often came from charities. By 1918 some school boards in metropolitan areas were educating the ‘unfit’ in special classes within normal schools. Others with disabilities were provided for by a mixture of institutions or by home visiting. The voluntary charitable societies developed a professional expertise in offering vocational training, as well as care for particular groups, such as the blind and the deaf.

Special education had higher costs, so only some school boards offered provision in classes or special schools. Rural communities often kept disabled pupils within their normal schools or gave them no schooling at all. Universal access to education for all children with disabilities was not to come until 1970. This segregation and isolation often meant that children with disabilities were denied access to the normal activities and opportunities of the local school and community. Sometimes, where disabled children did attend mainstream schools, their needs were not understood, and they often suffered ridicule.

The 1944 Education Act

Towards the end of the Second World War, the 1944 Act was passed. Its policy was to provide statutory education at primary and secondary stages to all children, including those with disabilities. It stated:

Local Educational Authorities (LEAs) should secure that provision is made for pupils who suffer from any disability of mind or body, by providing either in special schools or otherwise, special educational treatment, that is to say education by special methods for persons suffering from that disability.

(1944 Education Act, paragraph 34, section 1)

(See Appendix 1a – Categories from 1959)

The only exceptions were those who had a severe mental handicap, for whom it took another 26 years and further legislation to give Education Authorities the responsibility for their education.

The LEA was to ascertain which children needed special treatment and then decide on placement according to category. The advice used to make this decision came largely from medical officers. Later, psychologists were employed to test this group of children and to assist the medical officers in their decision-making. Tomlinson (1982) remarked that the history of special education must be viewed in terms of the benefits it brought for a developing industrial society and the normal mass education system, as well as the benefits that medical, psychological and educational personnel derived from encouraging new areas of professional expertise.

Towards the end of the period 1944–1978 much had changed. A complex special education system of schools, classes and services had been built up. Teacher training in SEN specialisms had developed. Children with severe learning difficulties were at last given the right to education through the Education (Handicapped Children) Act 1970. Parents had begun, through voluntary groups, to exert pressure for change. Influences from abroad (the USA in particular) were affecting the thinking of such groups. The Warnock Committee, set up in 1974, produced a report in 1978. From this grew significant legislation for special education – the 1981 Act.

The 1981 Education Act

The 1981 Act redefined the population of pupils with disabilities as those with ‘special educational needs’. This Act gave clear guidelines about assessment procedures and the issuing of a Statement of special educational needs, a legal document that summarised a pupil’s learning difficulties and listed suitable provision. Building on the recommendations of the Warnock report, much was said in the 1981 Act about involving parents in decision-making in relation to assessment. Schools were also given responsibilities to identify the full range of those with SEN, using the five-stage assessment procedure suggested in the Warnock report.

The term ‘special educational needs’ depends on the concept of relativity of need. This is the most fundamental dilemma of special educational needs, because although the term includes children with disabilities, it also includes those whose educational progress in learning is significantly slower than that of their peer group, for whatever cause. To identify which individuals have such needs, and so require something extra or something different from what is normally provided, requires a decision-making process. Provision was made across what Fish (1989) called ‘dimensions of need’, all of which lie on a continuum. Decision-making becomes complex when the providers of various resources have different priorities. Education, for example, may specify that health authorities should provide therapies for children with SEN, but health authorities may not see this as a priority area for their resources. This dilemma arises within cross-professional provision and must be resolved on a regional or national level: recent SEN legislation challenges and clarifies this.

The 1981 Act embodied much of what had been developing over time, and could be perceived as building on ‘best practice’, so influenced attitudes of teachers in mainstream schools. Some began to recognise that pupils with SEN were their responsibility. Integration policies were adopted by many schools and LEAs. Training for Special Educational Needs in Ordinary Schools (SENIOS) was funded through training grants from 1983 onwards. Those responsible for special needs provision in schools were not, at this time, called special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCos). The responsibility was often taken by either a member of the senior management team or was in the hands of the ‘remedial’ teacher or team.

The 1981 Act also attached great value to multi-disciplinary assessment, now often called ‘integrated working’ or ‘multi-agency working’. The power of the medical profession and its model of deficit within the child, to be remedied, was reduced. The focus was on educational needs, to be described in educational terms and met by educational provision. Treatment was not a word used in describing this provision. The 1981 Act required joint decision-making between health, education and social services. Parents began to have some say in their child’s assessment and voluntary organisations began to lobby on behalf of different groups of children. This shared responsibility between parents and professionals has led in recent years towards what has been termed ‘co-production’ (see Chapter 7).

The Education Reform Act 1988

The Education Reform Act 1988 (ERA) contributed to a new perspective on pupils with learning difficulties, a perspective that has radically developed since, based upon raised expectations of the learning capabilities and potential attainment of children and young people with special educational needs. The ERA (1988) stated that all children have a right to a ‘broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated curriculum’ and specified what should be taught. On the positive side, this meant that all pupils now had an ‘entitlement curriculum’, although the subject syllabi were not specifically designed to include a range of learners with special educational needs. On the negative side, teachers were overloaded by the requirement to teach the number of subjects specified and to test and assess pupils’ progress in all of these subjects. Schools’ overall performance began to be judged by pupils’ attainment in end of Key Stage tests, so pupils with special educational needs were not always seen as an asset. The ERA also introduced Local Management of Schools (LMS): since then schools, led by boards of governance, have had responsibility for most aspects of funding, including provision for children with SEN.

The 1993 Act and Code of Practice (1994): the 1996 Act

The Education Act 1993 (Part 3) replaced much of the 1981 legislation, without significant changes. New elements were the setting up of SEN tribunals and the publishing of the first Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of special educational needs. This document had a status between a regulation, which is mandatory, and a circular, which is advisory. Schools and LEAs were, and still are, required ‘to use their best endeavours’ to ‘have regard to’ the requirements of the Code of Practice to make provision for pupils with SEN. Then, as now, certain parts were also mandatory.

The Act (1993) and Code of Practice (1994) pushed the decision-making that surrounded statements of SEN and provision further towards schools and parents, but final decisions were still made by the LEAs, who took advice from various professionals through the multi-disciplinary assessment. Parents could initiate requests for assessment and had an increasing amount of power, when exercised through the SEN tribunal.

The 1996 Act replaced that of 1993, consolidating various pieces of legislation, but not making major changes in relation to SEN. It stated that schools must identify, assess and make provision for pupils with SEN and that LEAs must provide maintained schools with auxiliary aids, such as laptop computers or braillers, and also transport, where needed.

Second SEN Code of Practice (2001a)

The second Code of Practice (2001) built on experience and practice and was more accessible to readers. New chapters emphasised further the importance of working in partnership with parents and listening to pupils’ views. This was partially due to the Children Act 1989 that, although not focused on education, had been influential in changing viewpoints about children’s rights and parental responsibilities. The Code of Practice (2001) stated very clearly that all children and young people have rights, including to be consulted, to have their views heard and to be involved in making decisions and exercising choices.

Broad categories of need were reintroduced (see Appendix 1b). The sections on Identification and Assessment were presented for three phases: early education settings, primary and secondary phases. The staged assessment procedure was simplified and revised into a graduated response: the school-based stages were called School Action (SA) and School Action Plus (SA+). Interventions were to be recorded on Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for pupils at these stages and for those with statements of SEN. Lastly, the Code of Practice (2001) described the working partnership between agencies.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 (SENDA)

In 2001, the Act known as SENDA amended Part 4 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and introduced the obligation upon schools to publish an Accessibility Plan. This showed how access to the curriculum, the environment and to information would be improved for pupils with learning difficulties and disabilities, over renewable three-year periods. The requirement to have an Accessibility Plan remains statutory (now under the Equality Act 2010) and means that school planning and policies must address these areas (see Chapter 2).

Schools are also expected to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to their provision so as to provide increased access to aspects of learning for pupils with SEND. This duty is proactive: schools may no longer wait for pupils with disabilities and learning difficulties to enrol but must plan ahead, in the expectation that such children will be part of their regular inclusive intake. Schools must not discriminate, nor give less favourable treatment to pupils with disabilities and learning difficulties on the grounds of their disability. Guidance on the duties of schools, including on what is a reasonable adjustment, has been clarified by practice, SEND tribunals and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) (2014). SENDA was later subsumed into the Equality Act.

Equality Act 2010

It is perhaps the definition of disability, introduced in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and reinforced in the Equality Act 2010, that has had especially far-reaching and inclusive effects (see Appendix 1c). It means that all people (children and adults) with learning difficulties are protected by law from discrimination and also all those with disabilities and sensory impairments, mental health problems or diagnosed with long-term illnesses such as cancer, even if these do not impair their learning or work.

The Equality Act 2010 replaced all existing equality legislation, consolidating it into a single simplified source of discrimination law. It places obligations on schools in relation to children and adults: to eliminate discrimination, to improve equality of opportuni...