Provision Mapping and the SEND Code of Practice

Making it work in primary, secondary and special schools

Anne Massey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138907072
• eBook ISBN: 9781317442189
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In the busy world that schools inhabit, this book provides clear guidance on how to implement a simple and user-friendly system that will ensure all pupil progress is forensically examined and any inadequacies swiftly addressed. Provision Mapping and the SEND Code of Practice describes a tried and tested system that helps schools to successfully identify, implement and track provision for all pupils, irrespective of whether they have a special educational need or not.

This new edition:

• demonstrates how schools can implement the requirements of the new SEND Code of Practice
• provides achievable solutions to the problems that schools face in trying to evidence the impact of the additional support they provide
• provides photocopiable templates of tables that can be used to track progress of all pupils
• contains easy to use tools that will allow a school to clearly evidence that additional funding is used efficiently.

This second edition has been fully updated to reflect the recent changes to SEN legislation, the new SEND Code of Practice (2015), the new National Curriculum and new assessment requirements and the new Common Inspection Framework. Additional material has been added to provide a resource for secondary and special schools. Headteachers, senior managers, leadership teams, SENCOs and other educational professionals will find the guidance and support provided by this book invaluable.

Chapter 1

Provision Mapping and the SEND Code of Practice

The principles that I outlined in my previous book have been echoed in the aims of the new SEND Code of Practice: involvement of pupils and their parents, an emphasis on teacher responsibility for the progress of all pupils wherever and however they are taught, and greater aspiration for all. I was delighted that the government endorsed Provision Mapping as a way to achieve this in its revised SEND Code of Practice:

Provision maps are an efficient way of showing all the provision that the school makes which is additional to and different from that which is offered through the school’s curriculum. The use of provision maps can help SENCOs to maintain an overview of the programmes and interventions used with different groups of pupils and provide a basis for monitoring the levels of intervention.

(SEND, Jan. 2015, para. 6.76)

Although, from September 2014, the government abolished the use of National Curriculum Levels, it retained league tables using end of key stage statutory assessment data. The pressure of external assessment remains but the onus is now on schools to find ways to demonstrate the in-key stage progress made by all pupils, and the impact of the provision they make on all pupils in ways that are easily understood by all stakeholders, including Ofsted. For this schools require an analysis tool that is simple and user-friendly and will enable it to provide relevant and accurate information swiftly. The Provision Mapping systems described in this book will help schools evidence the impact of their provision for the most vulnerable pupils. In addition the evaluative aspect of Provision Mapping will support schools when Ofsted inspects them.

The SEND Code of Practice that contains the guidance for implementation of the Children and Families Act 2014 was published in August 2014 and has already been updated twice since then. The Act introduced some fundamental changes to the way that SEN provision is made; how SEN is categorised, how assessments are carried out, how services should work together for the benefit of the child and how pupils and their parents should be better involved in planning and monitoring SEN provision and its funding. Because of these significant changes, schools have had to make adjustments to practice. There is a far greater emphasis on the responsibility of teachers for all of the provision a school makes for vulnerable pupils; they must ensure they can meet the needs of these pupils as well as evidence that they have done so, and to what effect. I believe that Provision Mapping can support them in all of this. Much has been written already on the changes to the SEND Code of Practice – in particular in the excellent nasen publication, Everybody Included: The SEND Code of Practice Explained, which sets out the changes and how they impact on children, their families and schools. I will not cover all of those changes in this book, but will describe how Provision Mapping can support schools adapt to those changes and ensure that the needs of pupils and their families are met.

Categorisation of SEN

In the consultation paper of 2011 that led to many of the changes in the new Code of Practice, the coalition government recognised that the SEN label lowers aspiration both for children and young people.

Previous measures of school performance created perverse incentives to over- identify children as having SEN. There is compelling evidence that these labels of SEN have perpetuated a culture of low expectations and have not led to the right support being put in place.

(DfE 2011b, para. 22)

If schools routinely make provision for any child who requires it, we would meet the needs of all SEN pupils by default and without having to label them such. In her book Beating Bureaucracy in Special Educational Needs (2008), Jean Gross cited an example of how a secondary school had removed Statements yet retained and even enhanced the provision made for its most vulnerable pupils. In its SEN review, Ofsted stressed that the effect of SEN labelling is often to lower aspiration both by and for the pupil and stated that the inconsistency in the identification of SEN does not matter if ‘the total package of services and support is appropriately customised to each pupil’s individual needs’ (Ofsted 2010). Despite this acknowledgement the government did not (in my view) go far enough towards removing the SEN label when it made the changes it did in its new Code of Practice.

The removal of the categories of School Action and School Action Plus, and introduction of the single category SEN Support would appear to indicate that the government was trying to move away from the SEN label, but all that seems to have happened is that the number recorded as SEN has reduced. All schools have had to adjust to the new categorisation and have reviewed their SEN registers. It is my understanding that the result has often been a significant reduction in the percentage of pupils on the SEN register – just as the government intended there would be. The new category of SEN Support implies that the focus should be on support. Although the Code is not specific about what that support should be or should look like, most schools have interpreted it to mean support that is significant and substantial. This has led to schools removing those pupils from their SEN register who receive occasional, catch-up support and those who have medical diagnoses of conditions such as ADHD but receive no direct provision in school. Although the government intended to act to improve parental confidence, the change to categorisation has actually meant that many parents (who feel they have struggled long and hard to get their child’s needs recognised) are now anxious that they will be overlooked once more. Schools need to find ways to reassure parents that they make the provision a child requires available, as and when they require it, irrespective of whether they have a special educational need or not.

One way that some schools have acted to ensure that parental confidence remains high is to create another register – a register for vulnerable pupils that would include all those whom staff need to be made aware of, for a range of reasons, and could include those pupils who have recently been removed from the SEN register. I think that such a register has a very important role to play in ensuring that staff awareness is raised, and may reassure some parents, but I fear that it could become just another labelling exercise. The key to maintaining parental confidence is not to label their children, but to make sure that they have confidence that the school will make available any provision that is required in a timely and effective way. Provision Maps, anonymised or personalised, and shared with parents, can provide the solution.

Despite the fact that it firmly endorses Provision Mapping, the Code of Practice seems to indicate a return to personalised plans, and although it doesn’t mention them by name, it would appear that we could be heading back into the dark days of Individual Education Plans (IEPs). I think that SENCOs up and down the country had hoped that multiple IEPs, languishing in filing cabinets in SENCO offices, not used by teachers and not understood by parents, had long gone. In the new Code schools are required to agree, discuss and review Outcomes with the parents of pupils with SEN Support. It instructs schools to review these Outcomes and the provision at least three times per year. I think the principle behind such guidance is correct but fear that the interpretation of this guidance could lead schools to creating an IEP type document for every child on the SEN Register. I believe that would create a U-turn back to what we have travelled so far from in schools – the setting and reviewing of targets in a way that is dissociated from the classroom provision for the pupil. I remain of the opinion that for the majority of pupils identified as SEN Support, an anonymised class Provision Map (primary) or a personalised Provision Map (secondary) will be sufficient to identify the provision they are accessing and to be the best tool possible to demonstrate to parents that their needs are being met appropriately. In many ways this practice will normalise SEN provision for those parents – the Provision Map will contain all the intervention offered: e.g. for gifted and talented as well as SEN. If schools adopt this model they will be able to discuss Outcomes with parents in the way that the government wants, but I believe the discussion will make better sense to parents if linked to the targets for the interventions listed on the Provision Map.

Despite this, I do believe that for some SEN pupils in mainstream schools, those who have more complex needs and whom the school is funding in excess of the £6000 threshold, a more personalised plan will be required.

National funding reforms

The way that Special Educational Needs is funded in mainstream schools has changed so that it is now consistent across the country. All schools receive core funding for all pupils. In addition to this funding, all schools receive a notional SEN budget, the amount of which is determined predominantly by two factors – the level of deprivation of pupils within the school (the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index, IDACI) and the prior attainment in English and maths of pupils on entry (for pupils currently in the school that is below 78 points for entry to Year 1 and below Level 4 for entry to Year 7). The school should use this notional SEN budget to make the provision it needs to for all its SEN pupils. The government has recognised that this budget will not be sufficient to meet the needs of pupils with more severe and complex needs in mainstream schools and so has capped the school contribution from this budget to £6000 per pupil, per year. Many pupils with SEN will cost the school far less than £6000 and their needs should be able to be met from the SEN notional budget. In schools where the notional SEN budget is insufficient to meet the demands of the SEN resourcing, the local authority (LA) will provide additional financial support.

Schools will be required to provide evidence of any spending that exceeds £6000 to the funding local authority so that it can be recompensed from the top-up funding budget the LA must make available. This will also be the pot of money from which any personal budget would be made available. Schools will therefore need to be accountable for spending and its impact if they are going to be able to access High Needs funding. Each LA will have devised its own unique mechanism for schools to claim the funding, but Provision Mapping can support a school to calculate staff cost and demonstrate impact as it will show the time a pupil spends in intervention, as well as the group size and level of qualification of the member of staff delivering the intervention.

It could be said that the introduction of this financial threshold has, in effect, re-established a category of SEN with two tiers – SEN Support costing less than £6000 and SEN Support costing more. I believe that for any pupil who is costing the school more than the nationally prescribed threshold, there should be an individual plan or Provision Plan (see Chapter 3) which details their, no doubt, multiple and varying intervention. Such a plan would go a step further than a Provision Map. It would be linked to Outcomes for the child and would provide the school with very detailed and personalised information about the interventions and their impact. Thus schools could create a clear distinction between this pupil and one whose support is far less intensive, costs the school significantly less than the nationally prescribed threshold and who could have their needs met through Provision Mapping.

There is, of course, another tier, those pupils for whom SEN Support is not sufficient and who need an Education, Health and Care Plan.

Education, Health and Care assessment

One of the principles of the new Code of Practice is that parents should tell their story as few times as possible. This was brought home to me when I heard a parent estimate that she had repeated the story of her child’s SEN to different people approximately 95 times over the time her son was in education. The aim of coordinating services to jointly assess and plan to meet the needs of children and young people with SEN is commonly upheld but not always easy to achieve. Although involvement of Health and Social Care is critical to this new process, it is Education that will be the main driver of any assessment. Collaboration will ensure that information is shared widely and will hopefully reduce the number of meetings that parents have to attend, but I believe that most local authorities and the NHS will have a long way to go before shared practice is firmly embedded.

Timescales and the design and content of the documentation associated with statutory assessment have all changed, but the practice of assessment still requires schools to evidence what they have done to meet the needs of the pupil from their resources and what impact that has had. In compiling this evidence I know that schools who use Provision Mapping have found that including copies of anonymised or personalised Provision Maps or Provision Plans covering an appropriate length of time has enabled them to demonstrate action and impact without much need for additional work.

Provision and review in schools

There are numerous commercially available schemes that provide a Provision Mapping service to schools. Although I previously steered schools away from such resources, I have seen so much improvement in these over the past few years that I now believe they can provide a suitable alternative for many schools. The best of the commercial schemes provide a comprehensive Provision Mapping facility that is automatically linked to the school’s database, easily accessed by staff and can usually be configured to allow direct parental access. Such schemes have a cost which some small primary and special schools may find prohibitive. I think that many secondary schools and large primary schools could benefit from such systems (as long as the system satisfies the criteria I set out in Chapters 6, 7 and 8) and many have already purchased and are using them. However, the principles and features of Provision Mapping I describe throughout this book should be common to any system whether it is a commercial web-based system or a more simple school-based system.

Provision Mapping should support schools to make links between a number of processes, to collate information, reduce paperwork and ensure that interventions are focused and effective. Although the enticement of reduced bureaucracy or the ability to evidence spending may be what prompts many schools to implement this system, I have found that its greatest value is its ability to stimulate and bring about change. It is my experience that most schools have at least one teacher who struggles to understand the needs of pupils with SEN and/or those who are underachieving in their class, and does not differentiate appropriately or make adequate provision for them. Historically, many teachers have been happy to abdicate responsibility for such pupils to the SENCO or to learning support staff and perversely, in schools where the SENCO is particularly strong, this has tended to happen even more frequently. While good leaders will be able to motivate and inspire the majority of their staff, these ‘hard to shift’ teachers are often the most difficult to engage in any dialogue of self-improvement and remain entrenched in a pattern of teaching that does not meet the needs of all pupils. This system has been proven to create the right conditions for such change and brings a structure and timetable that, if adhered to, ensures that change will take place.

Evaluated Provision Maps will enable SENCOs to identify where there is greatest need and prioritise deployment of staff. The SENCO will also be able to use the evaluation to identify where there may be staff training needs. A full analysis of the evaluation of all interventions should provide governors with information that will help them to understand the impact of the school’s action better and on which they can challenge the school.

Through Provision Mapping the school can focus on the needs of all pupils, making no distinction between SEN and non-SEN other than to ensure that the statutory duties are complied with for all pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan. This is therefore a system for all – not just SEN – that should address problems early and as they arise and not once they are well entrenched. It should put SEN firmly back into the classroom. It will mean that all teachers will feel more in control of what happens to pupils in their class – the pupils shouldn’t disappear out to interventions that the teacher has no part in planning or evaluating. The school will be able to construct pertinent and relevant performance management targets for both teachers and support staff. Parents will better understand the support the school is providing for their child and how they can help at home. School leaders and governors will be better able to both understand and challenge the impact of the additional provision the school makes available and the school should be better placed to evidence the impact of any additional funding such as SEN top-up and Pupil Premium.

If this system is fully adopted it will lead to:

• improved class teaching and more effective intervention;

• teachers being responsible for the outcomes of all pupils in their class – not passing responsibility for SEN to anyone else;

• identification of gaps in expertise within the school and improved understanding of train...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Provision Mapping and the SEND Code of Practice
• Endorsement Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Provision Mapping and the SEND Code of Practice
• 2 Assess
• 3 Plan
• 4 Do
• 5 Review
• 6 What should Provision Mapping Look Like in Primary Schools?
• 7 What should Provision Mapping Look Like in Secondary Schools?
• 8 What should Provision Mapping in Look Like in Special Schools?
• 9 Lastly. . .
• Bibliography
• Index