Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs

A Guide for Assistants in Schools and Pre-schools

Marian Halliwell

• Publisher: David Fulton Publishers
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135398521
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

First Published in 2004. Written in the context of recent legislation concerning disability and special educational needs, this book contains helpful information about a range of special educational needs and provides clear guidance to help assistants give support in schools and pre-school settings. The advice promotes the inclusion of all pupils and suggests ways to raise the achievement of every individual. The following areas are covered: definitions of SEN and the principles of inclusion; the Code of Practice; the Disability Discrimination Act and the implications for schools; target setting and IEPs; the role of the assistant in giving support; working with other professionals and a glossary of terms. Written for teachers and teaching assistants.

1	What are special educational needs?

Teaching assistants (TAs) play an increasingly important role in all of our schools. In particular, assistants play an essential role in supporting and raising the achievement of pupils with special educational needs. It is estimated that up to 20 per cent of all children will have special educational needs requiring additional support during their school career. Schools are becoming increasingly skilled at identifying pupils who may have special educational needs and through the use of a range of approaches are able to meet their needs and to ensure that pupils with special educational needs make progress.

A child has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty which may be the result of a physical or sensory disability, an emotional or behavioural problem, or developmental delay.

(Education Act 1981)

The term special educational needs, or more usually the abbreviation SEN, is used to refer to children who find learning more difficult than the majority of children of the same age.

The children referred to as having special educational needs are very diverse. Most children develop and make good progress to reach their potential within their local mainstream schools. Many pupils need some extra help in school with subjects or activities they find difficult. Some children need some additional support and help to reach their potential. This extra support can be provided for them in a number of different ways within their mainstream schools. It may be that a pupil needs a little extra help to practise an activity or extra teaching in order to understand a new concept. For most children occasional extra help is all that is needed. Other children need more regular additional support to help them learn and make progress. Some children require additional help from SEN services or from a range of agencies that are outside the school. There are a very few children (less than 2 per cent) with SEN that are so severe or complex that the Local Education Authority (LEA) is required to assess the individual child’s special educational needs and to arrange for appropriate special educational provision for that child.

In 2001 the Department for Education and Skills published a revised version of the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (DfES 2001a). This document gives advice to LEAs, maintained schools and early education settings about carrying out their statutory duties. These duties include identifying, assessing and making provision for children’s special educational needs.

Definition of special educational needs

Children have special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for them.

What is a learning difficulty?

Children have a learning difficulty if they

(a) have significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age; or

(b) have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in schools within the area of the local education authority; or

(c) are under compulsory school age and fall within the definition at (a) or (b) above or would so do if special educational provision was not made for them.

(DfES 2001a)

The definition of special educational needs in the SEN Code of Practice also specifically states that ‘Children must not be regarded as having a learning difficulty solely because the language or form of language of their home is different from the language in which they will be taught.’ Therefore children for whom English is an additional language must not be regarded as having special educational needs even though they may need support to help them to learn. This also means that schools and pre-school education providers need to make sure that they identify children for whom English is an additional language but who also have special educational needs.

What is special educational provision?

According to the SEN Code of Practice, special educational provision means

(a) for children of two or over, educational provision which is additional to, or otherwise different from, the educational provision made generally for children of their age in schools maintained by the LEA, other than special schools, in the area.

(b) for children under two, educational provision of any kind.

Special educational provision can be made in many ways, involving a range of different agencies from health, education or social services, and the provision usually involves a number of different professionals from a school’s own staff.

All Government-funded pre-school settings must follow the SEN Code of Practice and have a written SEN policy.

The Government’s Early Learning Goals (QCA 2000) set out what most children will achieve between the ages of three and five years. By the end of the Foundation Stage (the end of school Reception Year), children will have had opportunities to develop their learning in six main areas:

• personal, social and emotional development

• communication, language and literacy

• mathematical development

• knowledge and understanding of the world

• physical development

• creative development.

We know that young children in the Foundation Stage are likely to progress at different rates and some will have exceeded the Early Learning Goals. Some will have achieved the goals in some areas of learning but not in others. Some of the children making slower progress may also be learning English as an additional language. This may slow their progress in some areas but not all areas of learning and some of these children may have learning difficulties. The progress of individual children needs to be carefully monitored by schools and pre-schools so that learning opportunities can be adapted to support their learning as effectively as possible. These principles apply not only to children in the Foundation Stage (ages 3–5 years) but to all children of statutory school age (5–16 years).

The Government has also given specific guidance to schools on the teaching objectives for all pupils in Key Stages 1 and 2 in literacy and mathematics. This guidance is in the National Literacy Strategy framework (DfEE 1998a) and the National Numeracy Strategy framework (DfEE 1999b).

The trigger for special educational provision is when the rate of a child’s progress in one or more areas of learning indicates that he/she may need a higher level of help than is normally provided for pupils of the same age. Schools and pre-schools should make a graduated response to the identified needs of an individual child. This means that when children have greater needs they get more support.

The SEN Code of Practice stresses that early years education settings and schools should adopt a graduated response to provide specific help to meet the child’s needs through what is called Early Years Action or School Action. Early Years or School Action provides individually planned teaching and/or support which is different from or additional to what is provided for other children in the class but which enables the child to learn more effectively and to make adequate progress. Early Years or School Action may take a wide range of forms, such as giving more opportunities for a child to practise or learn skills or activities to help develop essential literacy skills. It may be in the form of additional adult supervision during activities in which the child has particular difficulty. It could be through the provision of specialist or individual equipment or resources which enable a pupil to participate in an activity more easily or successfully. Support for children with SEN is always the additional part – it is not instead of what is normally provided for all pupils.

What is the SEN Code of Practice?

The SEN Code of Practice came into effect from 1 January 2002. All LEAs, schools, early years education settings and the departments of health and social services must have regard to the Code of Practice.

The Fundamental Principles of the Code include:

• a child with special educational needs should have their needs met

• the special educational needs of children will normally be met in mainstream schools or settings

• the views of the child should be sought and taken into account

• parents have a vital role to play in supporting their child’s education

• children with special educational needs should be offered full access to a broad, balanced and relevant education, including an appropriate curriculum for the Foundation Stage and the National Curriculum.

The Code of Practice gives practical guidance to LEAs, schools and the governing bodies of maintained schools in carrying out their statutory duties under the 1996 Education Act. The Code aims to ensure that

• children with SEN are identified as early as possible

• the admission of children with SEN to maintained schools in their area is monitored

• there are clear procedures for the assessment of children’s SEN and for the issuing of statements

• schools are provided with support with regard to making provision for children with SEN

• provision for children with SEN is planned, audited, monitored and reviewed

• pupils with SEN are supported through School Action and School Action Plus

• training, advice and support are available for staff working with pupils with SEN

• policy and development plans are reviewed and updated regularly.

It also describes the provision for children with SEN (but not with statements) which the LEA expects to be met from maintained schools’ budgets and which types of provision will be funded by the LEA.

Increasingly local education authorities have been delegating the funding for special educational needs directly to schools. This enables schools to provide flexibly for the needs of their pupils. Local education authorities are, in the main, retaining less money centrally and in most cases this is to provide support for pupils with the most severe and complex needs.

How does the SEN Code of Practice work in schools?

All pre-schools and schools must have an SEN policy. All schools and preschool settings will have a Special Educational Needs Coordinator, usually known as the SENCO. This is a teacher or member of staff with special responsibility for ensuring the school SEN policy is put into practice. The SENCO will make sure all pupils with SEN have their needs identified and that the planning for their teaching takes account of any special educational needs pupils might have. The role of the SENCO has been changing in recent years from being the provider of direct support to a child to being a coordinator and facilitator within a school. The SENCO gathers relevant information and advice on individual pupils, advises colleagues on how to support pupils with a wide range of needs and supports and monitors the progress of these pupils. With the increasing number of teaching assistants in schools, management of TAs has become a major role for many SENCOs.

There is now an emphasis on the early identification of special educational needs. All early years education providers must appoint a SENCO and make efforts to identify any child who may have special educational needs as early as possible. The assessment of a child’s needs is a continuous and ongoing process, not a single event.

How do you identify a child with special educational needs?

As an assistant you will be working regularly with small groups of children or individual children and you may have more opportunities than the class teacher to observe a child; for example, how s/he attempts activities, plays with other children, responds to instructions. You will also be well placed to notice when a child is having a particular difficulty or does not seem to be learning or progressing in the same way as the other children in a group. Often the identification of a child’s special educational needs is the culmination of observations in school or pre-school, parental concern and lack of response to the usual strategies and interventions used in the school or pre-school. It is therefore very important that assistant share and discuss any concerns about a pupil that may lead to additional support through Early Years or School Action.

The indications of a child having SEN can include:

• the child has persistent emotional or behavioural problems that do not respond to the normal strategies and management techniques used in the school or pre-school setting

• the child makes little progress in spite of additional support

• the child appears to have a problem with vision or hearing that has not responded to the wearing of glasses or hearing aids

• the child has continued difficulties in communicating and/or interacting with others despite support and encouragement

• the child is working significantly below the levels expected for children of a similar age.

What is School Action?

When a child is identified as having special educational needs in a school or early years setting, the school should develop a plan to provide additional support or teaching that is different from the normal differentiated teaching that is provided for the rest of the class. This individual plan is known as an Individual Education Plan (IEP). The IEP will specify three o...