SPOTLIGHT ON SEND
Remember, remember…
In her regular column for Education Today this month, independent Specialist Teacher and Assessor JOANNE GLADDERS looks at the notion of working memory, and examines how best to get young learners to use their working memory skills and how to develop strategies to support them.
As this new term progresses and we acclimatize to our new way of working we must remember to take care of ourselves and to find time for our own nurture and growth. It is also important to cascade this message to our learners and help them to continue to focus on moving their learning forward. As a Dyslexia Specialist I
enjoy piecing together a young person’s strengths and areas of difficulty to determine if they have a specific learning difficulty. The aspect of this I enjoy the most is the discussions that take place, encouraging the young person to unpick their own strategies and consider how will they overcome their barriers to learning. I believe that this is something that we can all do within our learning environments. Key to learning is the ability to utilise our working memory. The
current SASC guidance defines ‘working memory’ as: The term ‘working memory’ refers to ‘the ability to maintain and
manipulate information in active attention’ (SASC 2019:9) Working Memory is fundamental to all our learning. Many of our
young people have difficulties retaining the information they need to work with. In addition, processing difficulties can also impact upon their ability to work with the information they are given. Processing Speed is the ‘ability to perform relatively simple
repetitive cognitive tasks, quickly, accurately and fluently.’ (SASC 2019: 9) Take time to observe how your young people attempt tasks;
question them about how they attempted to solve a problem, encourage them to explain what strategies they used. Do they visualise the problem in their head? Break it into manageable chunks visually. Do they count the number of steps on their fingers? Whisper the information under their breath so that they can aurally hear the information? Do they benefit from a ‘scribble pad’ where they can make notes to help them retain the information? Do they recall the last piece of information they are given but forget the first piece of information? Does additional information get slotted in accidentally as they get confused with the task in hand? Does a task planner for specific operations aid the retention of the steps? There are so many elements to consider and for many of us this
comes naturally but for others, it doesn’t. How do we address this issue? In addition to modelling different
strategies we can help our young people to determine what works for them. This will equip them with the tools that they can then apply to all aspects of the curriculum. I challenge you this month to consider how some of your learners
utilise their working memory skills and to look for ways to develop strategies to support them.
October 2020
The effective and appropriate use of SEND assessment
In her regular column for Education Today this month, KATE SARGINSON, Deputy Headteacher and SENCO, looks at the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the children and the need for effective and appropriate assessment of special educational needs.
It is now clear that the coronavirus pandemic has had a wide ranging impact on millions of children, the extent of which we may never fully grasp. The possible long term effects of the lockdown need to be considered and responded to, and one area that may need specific focus is on the identification of children with special educational needs. Making the decision to consider whether a pupil has SEND is part of a recognised process in the Code of Practice to ‘Assess, plan, do, review’, and teachers may find that more children require ‘additional and/or different’ provision following the return to schools after the closures. The long term impact of lockdown could manifest in an increasing number of children being classed as having special educational needs, who otherwise would not have. SENCOs may find the need for short term support and intervention to swiftly address educational difficulties for an increasing number of children. They may also need to respond to changing SEND as Covid exacerbates existing, or creates new, learning, social, communicative and mental health difficulties. The appropriate use of assessment will be required in order to get a
benchmark of children’s needs on return to school. It is important to recognise that the lockdown may have impacted on both confidence and skills, and therefore ongoing monitoring will be vital. Progress needs to be considered comparatively to peers and the individual – many will just need time to regain their self-esteem as learners and reacquaint themselves with the pace and demands of the classroom. Educational charity NASEN has produced a tracker to provide a structure for monitoring that can be used as a whole school measure of how well children are responding to being back in the classroom. It has been designed to help ensure that teachers don’t miss any emerging needs, and action is taken quickly to address. It is envisaged that the majority of children will recover educationally
from the lockdown, and will readjust to the structure and routine of school life. Children previously on the SEND register may be similar, with their needs remaining unchanged and requiring the same support. Other children may fall into a new category, where previously no SEND was apparent, and now is. The gaps may not be reducing, and in fact, may actually be increasing. For those already known in schools as having SEND, underlying needs may become more pronounced due to lost learning, while new difficulties such as social and emotional and mental health (SEMH) may arise due to anxiety about Covid and the many changes children have to cope with. New priorities may need to be set to reflect the broadening of needs, and that which is most urgent. Individual targets on support plans are likely to need rewriting and reviewing more frequently to track progress and the impact of the support, and interventions put into place in response to the initial baseline findings. The actions schools take need to be appropriate and timely; more
children than ever may need help and support and we may see the number of children categorised as having SEND rise.
NASEN tracker:
https://nasen.org.uk/resource/the-identification-of- sen-post-lockdown-tracker.html
www.education-today.co.uk 19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
